Periodic Review 18 v Corporate Memory 0

This from Gilbert Ratchett...

Now that the Office of Rail Regulation has published the Initiation Notice for Periodic Review 2018, the phoney war of consultation documents is over and the Government has to say what it wants (the High Level Output Specification) and how much money it can scrape together to pay for what it wants (the Statement of Funds Available).

And there is now a firm deadline for delivery of these documents - better known as the HLOS and SoFA . And that date is 20 July.

Which, from past experience of Periodic Reviews, is when the infighting between the railway industry and its political and regulatory overlords gets serious. And talking of experience, Eye can't help but notice that not one member of the Network Rail Executive Board which over-saw the 2013 Periodic Review remains in post.

As the Periodic Review is all about Network Rail's funding, this total loss of corporate memory in five years means raw recruits are being thrown into the battle that will determine the railways' future.

Year Zero and trebles all round!

ORR fires starting gun on PR18

The ORR has issued a review initiation notice beginning the statutory process for the periodic review.

In a note sent yesterday to interested parties the ORR stated:

As part of PR18, we have today issued a formal notice confirming our intention to carry out a periodic review (known in law as an ‘access charges review’) of all track and station access agreements relating to Network Rail’s network. PR18 will determine what Network Rail Infrastructure Limited is expected to deliver and the funding that it is given in control period 6 (CP6), which we expect to run from 2019 to 2024. 

The notice also requires that the Secretary of State and the Scottish Ministers each provide to us certain information by 20 July 2017. We expect this information will take the form of a high-level output statement (HLOS – setting out what should be achieved by railway activities in CP6) and a statements of funds available (SoFA – setting out the public financial resources that are expected to be made available to support the HLOS).

Our original timetable for PR18 envisaged that the HLOSs and SoFAs would be provided in May/June 2017. The date in our notice does not prevent the governments providing this information in line with this timescale, but provides additional time up to the UK Parliamentary recess, should this be required. This is consistent with the deadline given by us in previous periodic reviews.

Summer recess is expected to be on the 20 July 2017.

A generous right-time measurement from ORR.