Network Rail has a defined process to manage risks arising from deferred renewals and reports quarterly on its renewal deliverability in each financial year. It is important that Network Rail justifies its decisions on deferrals and assesses associated impact on performance outputs such as safety & performance, cost, volumes, efficiency and asset sustainability as part of a change control process.
We undertook this Target Assurance Review to seek assurance on how each region manages risks arising from deferred renewals in the Operational Property asset portfolio, and to gain detailed information about regional processes used to manage workbank changes and impacts to performance outputs. This understanding being considered beneficial to inform our review of regions' annual performance and to prepare for the 2023 periodic review (PR23).