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The procurement process completed by the Department for Transport which led to the selection of Siemens rather than Bombardier as the preferred bidder for new Thameslink rolling stock should be independently reviewed by the National Audit Office. The Transport Committee could not evaluate whether the decision to choose Siemens was arrived at correctly because all of the bids were and remain confidential. It is believed that it is in the public interest to have an independent review to evaluate whether this massive contract was awarded correctly on the basis of the criteria in the original invitation to tender. The Transport Committee has therefore written to the Comptroller and Auditor General to request he undertake this work and report to Parliament before summer 2012. There is now widespread agreement that the criteria used in the procurement were too narrowly drawn in excluding socio-economic factors
The dramatic results of the 2014 European Parliament elections have highlighted the European Union’s urgent need for a review of the scope and purpose of its social objectives and for a reordering of European priorities. This book advocates a radical and original alternative to the current philosophy that determines the set of rules for the awarding of EU public procurement contracts. It calls for a reordering of the EU’s economic and social priorities. In doing so, it advocates for a social dimension to be placed at the core of public procurement, which could elicit a social model of integration in the EU in which the European citizen is the key actor. This is achieved through an analytical approach as well as concise and contextualised explanations relating to free trade theories, poverty and public interest theories. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of the European Union, political theory, and EU law.
Crime on Britain's railways decreased year-on-year over the past decade. That trend shows the effectiveness of the specialist rail policing provided by the British Transport Police (BTP). The Committee were impressed by the BTP's commitment to tackling crime while minimising delays for the travelling public. Despite the welcome decline in overall crime, we identified areas where the BTP could improve its performance. The British Transport Police Authority (BTPA) is the body with responsibility for setting the BTP challenging but achievable targets to tackle crime on the railway. The BTPA must fulfil its remit and avoid any perception that it is too close to the people whom it should be holding to account. The Committee concluded that the BTP model of developing specialist policing skills and securing funding from transport providers might usefully be applied to other transport modes, such as aviation. Such an approach could minimise delays, maximise security and reduce the cost of policing to taxpayers. In the course of the inquiry, the Committee heard that vulnerable children and young people are often found in and around railway stations and were surprised to learn that the BTP currently has no targets in relation to child protection. The Department for Transport, the BTPA, the BTP and the charity sector should work together to tackle this emerging issue by examining the available data and reviewing current practice.
There has been little analysis of the constitutional framework for management of the UK economy, either in constitutional law or regulatory studies. This is in contrast to many other countries where the concept of an 'economic constitution' is well established, as it is in the law of the European Union. Given the extensive role of the state in attempting to resolve recent financial crises in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, it is particularly important to develop such an analysis. This book sets out different meanings of an economic constitution, and applies them to key areas of economic management, including taxation and public borrowing, the management of public spending, (including the Spending Review), monetary policy, financial services regulation, industrial policy (including state shareholdings) and government contracting. It analyses the key institutions involved such as the Treasury and the Bank of England, also including a number of less well-known bodies such as the Office for Budget Responsibility. There is also coverage of the international context in which these institutions operate especially the European Union and the World Trade Organisation. It thus provides an account of the public law applying to economic management in the UK. This book also adopts a critical approach, assessing the degree to which there is coherence in the arrangements for economic management, the degree to which economic policy-making is constrained by constitutional norms, and the degree to which economic management is subject to deliberation and accountability through Parliament, the courts and other institutions.
Successive UK governments have pursued ambitious programmes of private sector competition in public services that they promise will deliver cheaper, higher quality services, but not at the expense of public sector workers. The public procurement rules (most significantly Directive 2004/18/EC) often provide the legal framework within which the Government must deliver on its promises. This book goes behind the operation of these rules and explores their interaction with the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE); regulations that were intended to offer workers protection when their employer is restructuring his business. The practical effectiveness of both sources of regulation is critiqued from a social protection perspective by reference to empirical findings from a case study of the competitive tendering exercise for management of HMP Birmingham that was held by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) between 2009 and 2011. Overall, the book challenges the Government's portrayal of competition policies as self-evident sources of improvement for public services. It highlights the damage that can be caused by competitive processes to social capital and the organisational, cultural and employment strengths of public services. Its main conclusions are that prison privatisation processes are driven by procedure rather than aims and outcomes and that the complexity of the public procurement rules, coupled with inadequate commissioning expertise and organisational planning, can result in the production of contracts that lack aspiration and are insufficiently focused upon improvement or social sustainability. In sum, the book casts doubt upon the desirability and suitability of using competition as a policy mechanism to improve public services.
The Government's motoring agencies are undergoing reorganisation and are introducing digital services; both changes have potential to bring welcome improvements. The Government has a mixed approach to organisational change in the agencies with different emphasis on efficiency savings, restructuring, and private sector involvement across the agencies. It needs to do more to explain the future direction for all the motoring agencies and how it will create a more unified service. The agencies could do more to recognise and respond to the needs of business users. There are a number of specific areas that require action by the Government and its motoring agencies: the driver Certificate of Professional Competence may not be delivering all the benefits expected of it and the Government should negotiate changes at a European level; the agencies need to have effective assisted digital strategies in place to help those who cannot or are unwilling to use the internet to access services; the agencies need to work with the Government Digital Service and others to address the problem of misleading copycat websites; the DVLA needs to do more to explain how it is required to share personal data with private parking companies and the safeguards that are in place to protect such data; the DVLA needs to adjust it's fees to ensure costs are covered and do more to explain it's calculations; and data sharing needs to be effective, if revenue collection, action on safety and work by enforcement agencies are to be effective, and new services need to be planned with data sharing in mind
The European railway sector has undergone profound and predominantly institutional changes over the past 20 years, due to the initiatives of the European Commission. This book constitutes a first systematic assessment and account of the recent transformations of the industry along a series of critical yet contentious issues such as competition, unbundling, regulation, access charging, standards and interoperability, and public–private partnerships. It also covers the main railways sectors including passenger transport, high speed and freight.
The Transport Committee welcomes record investment committed to the 'classic' rail network but calls for greater regional balance in spending. Network Rail must also regain the confidence of passengers following recent disruption. The Committee calls for the Government to take responsibility for rolling stock, to address general shortages and ensure there will be sufficient trains to run on newly-electrified lines. The Committee also concluded: (i) Record levels of funding show a welcome commitment to ’classic' rail but this should be set in a longer-term strategic plan for the rail network, which ties into a wider transport strategy; (ii) The overrunning Christmas engineering works were unacceptable; (iii) Network Rail must have adequate contingency plans. They must also work with Passenger Focus and train operating companies to improve communication with passengers when engineering works fail; (iv) In the light of the change of status of Network Rail the ORR must reconsider whether fining a public sector body remains an effective means for the regulator to exert control; (v) Greater transparency is essential around rail spending. Criteria used to allocate spending should be published.
Last year over 35,000 journeys were delayed or cancelled due cable theft which also cost Network Rail more than £16m. Cable theft from the rail network is part of an increase in metal theft across the country made easy by the way in which stolen metal can be sold to scrap metal dealers. We need urgent reform to improve the audit trail generated by the scrap metal industry so that criminals selling stolen metal into the trade can be identified much more easily. The Committee calls for additional powers for the police to help them in their efforts to combat metal theft. The Government should introduce a new offence of aggravated trespass on the railway to help deter cable thieves. The British Transport Police should be given new powers so that officers can enter both registered and unregistered scrap metal sites along with additional resources to carry out their enforcement work". The Committee also recommends: i) The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 should be reformed so that individuals selling metal have to provide proof of their identity before a transaction can take place; ii) the Government should test the use of cashless trading in the scrap metal industry; iii) there should be greater clarity around compensation arrangements so that train operators cannot profit from disruption caused by cable theft; iv) Network Rail should develop a costed programme of measures to make cable more difficult to steal and v) the Department for Transport should update the Committee on work being undertaken to help passengers stranded on trains near stations to complete their journey
The Transport Committee broadly welcomes the European Commission's 4th Railway Package but believes it focuses too much on liberalising the railway in domestic markets at the expense of important measures to improve cross-border freight and passenger services. The Committee recommends the UK Government should actively negotiate to ensure: joint working between Network Rail and train operators is not prohibited or unduly restricted; metro and light rail systems are not affected by the proposals to separate infrastructure and service operators; the UK's arrangements for letting train franchises are not challenged. In addition, MPs are concerned about: governance arrangements for Eurotunnel; the maximum annual threshold proposed for rail franchises, which could prevent UK companies bidding for work in other EU countries; and the possibility that the EU may become responsible for specifying the content of public transport plans: these should remain the responsibility of national or local governments.