Paul Corfield wrote:

On 20 Oct 2006 09:58:37 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

On 20 Oct 2006 05:42:13 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

For all the ignorant souls such as I can you say when the Statement of
Funds Available is normally, er, stated?

It is a new requirement that flows from the legislative disaster area
that the government has foisted on itself via the latest Railways Act.

The govt have to provide the HLOS and the SOFA and then ORR have to
decide if SOFA can deliver the HLOS and if not decide that either a
smaller HLOS is needed or a bigger SOFA!

HLOS - high level output statement (for the rail network). What govt
wants to "buy".
SOFA - statement of funds available. how much is in the piggy bank that
Uncle Gordon has given the baby Alexander.
ORR - Office of Rail Regulation. The new fall guys for railway cuts -
lovingly placed in the firing line by the civil servant loonies at DfT
Rail.


Thanks Paul.

Presumably the SOFA the government is willing to provide will never be
big enough to accomodate the HLOS - but I guess by the contorted logic
that's at work here it that disconnect becomes the fault of an
independent body which is expected to deliver the undeliverable, and
will get lambasted when they continue to insist 2+2=4. Hmm, great.

We shall see. I suspect the ORR is being lined as the fall guy in this
process. However ORR aren't daft and I would expect to see some deft
political manoeuvring by all the parties as they make their respective
cases.

My long standing concern - especially when Darling was Transport
Secretary - was that cuts are definitely planned for the rail network
and the HLOS / SOFA balancing act was the way they would be imposed.
Don't forget that the line closure process and "tests" have been
substantially changed to make it easy to shut lines.

However I do wonder if Douglas Alexander is a different character with
someone of an agenda to make a positive mark. The difference between
Scottish and English rail investment is starting to become more obvious
and if there is tangilble political "upside" in Scotland as new lines
come into service then political imperatives might drive a change in
English policy. I'm also utterly bemused at Tony Blair saying we have
10 years to save the world from environmental disaster when his
government haven't got a transport policy anyway and even if they did
have one it wouldn't have any environmentally related policies in it!
Joined up policy - hah!

It's a real shame transport policy does not feature higher up the agenda
of the majority of voters.


A very good point about the astuteness of the ORR - after all, they did
their own thing rather than the DfT's bidding when it came to the whole
Grand Central/ECML/GNER/open access shenanigans (whether it's a good
idea to have the network open to competition in this respect is another
question, one that I'm in two minds about, but the ORR were at least
enforcing the rules as they are at present).

The notion of the HELA/SOFA balancing act as a method of determining
where the inevitable cuts would come is also an interesting one, as is
the idea that the actions and subsequent results of the devolved
government in Scotland when it comes to transport may yet give the rest
of us hope.

I find it very sad to hear of the problems oop North, say in Leeds
where the trains are packed as the economy expands yet the government
doesn't really seem to have any plan whatsoever (apart from pricing
people off the railways). In my mind it's a shame that the whole
movement towards regional government ground to a halt after the
unsuccessful North East vote - I don't for a minute place all the glory
of London's transport system at Ken's feet, but he is committed to the
system, demands quality and results from those involved and shows
leadership - and seemingly the government sees that TfL can deliver and
thus hands over the cash so it can continue doing so (helped of course
by the fact that London is where a lot of money and influence is). Of
course we've the great advantage that the Tories never quite got round
to deregulating and ruining the bus service in London.

Transport policy is in a mess. I wonder whether Mr Cameron's new bluey
greenness might get Mr Brown into gear on the environment and transport
- but that said, the Chancellor seems to have been the one who for the
past nine years has been insisting Prudence hit the brakes when any
radical transport changes came into view, so perhaps there's little
hope. For all the talk of the prudent long-term view, when it comes to
the upcoming environmental disaster the government's view appears very
short sighted indeed.