Dame Deirdre Hutton, Mike Brown MVO, Anne Heal and Michael Beswick have been appointed as the expert panel of advisers for the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) Inquiry into the widespread disruption suffered on the railway after the introduction of the May 2018 timetable
Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling announced the Inquiry, led by ORR Chair Professor Stephen Glaister, on 4 June and the Terms of Reference were published on 13 June.
The expert panel will advise the Inquiry as it collects evidence from a range of organisations, including passenger representatives such as Transport Focus. The panel is also one of the means which will ensure that the ORR’s own role, as regulator of Network Rail and of the train operating companies, is properly assessed by the Inquiry.
Professor Glaister said:
“I am pleased that four people possessing such a wide range of experience and expertise have agreed to join the Panel supporting this important Inquiry.
“The Inquiry itself will proceed quickly, but also thoroughly and impartially, to determine exactly what happened in relation to the May 2018 issues and will develop a set of recommendations to avoid a repetition of such disruption.”
The Inquiry will focus on what took place when the timetable was introduced, compared with what should have happened and will concentrate on where there were differences, and the underlying causes. It will examine the disruption experienced by passengers, especially on lines served by Northern and Govia Thameslink Railway.
Initial findings will be published in September, with a final report by the end of the year. Both reports, together with their evidence bases, will be published on ORR’s website.
Notes to editors
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- The Office of Rail and Road is the UK’s rail regulator and strategic roads monitor for England. Follow us @railandroad.
- The Secretary of State for Transport announced on 4 June 2018 work to set up an inquiry by the independent Office of Rail and Road, chaired by Stephen Glaister, into the May timetable implementation. The Inquiry is being held under Section 51 of the Railways Act 2005.
- The Inquiry will invite contributions from a wide range of industry bodies and others responsible for operation of the railway and those representing the interests of passengers including Transport Focus and other rail users. Contributions are welcome to the Inquiry email address: timetable.inquiry@orr.gov.uk.
- The Inquiry is being conducted in addition to, and alongside, ORR’s existing monitoring and investigation activity that began in January 2018 looking into the compliance of Network Rail and the train operating companies with the terms of their licences and industry compliance with consumer law.
- Dame Deirdre Hutton, DBE, became Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority on 1 August 2009 having previously been Chair of the Food Standards Agency until July 2009. She has served on a number of public bodies and has considerable experience of corporate governance, risk-based regulation and consumer policy. She sits as a Non-Executive on the board of Thames Water Utilities Ltd, is Pro-Chancellor of Cranfield University and is Honorary Vice President of the Trading Standards Institute.
- Mike Brown, MVO, was appointed Commissioner of Transport for London in September 2015. He joined London Underground in 1989 and worked in various operational manager roles before becoming the company's Chief Operating Officer in 2003. In 2008, he left to head up Heathrow, then the world's busiest international airport. He rejoined London Underground in 2010 as Managing Director and took the lead role in the successful delivery of transport for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
- Anne Heal has a particular focus on customer and consumer issues; she is currently a non-executive member of the ORR Board, the Chair of the Thames Water Customer Challenge Group, and a lay member of the General Dental Council. She chairs the charity Volunteering Matters and is a Board member of ELEXON. She is a trustee of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and BalletBoyz. She was Group Regulatory Affairs Director of BT, and Openreach’s first Managing Director of Strategy.
- Michael Beswick has extensive senior level experience spanning the rail industry and its regulation. After joining British Rail as a graduate trainee he had a range of front-line operational and business management jobs. Working for ORR he had leading roles in the development of regulatory policy and the structure of the industry, infrastructure regulation and relationships with stakeholders. He was an executive member of the ORR Board from 2006 until his retirement in 2013.