The strange and worrying silence of Paul Maynard

Apologies for my absence for the past week or so. This was partly because I've been away, but it was partly also because I've become so frustrated at the level of public debate about my chosen subject (the collapse of Southern Railways) - of which more in a moment.  I find it staggering, even under the new government, how close the embrace has to be between government and operator if the market is dominated by semi-monopolies.

That is the only explanation I can think of why the new rail minister remains silent, why the Transport Secretary blames GTR's failure to run its franchise to any kind of acceptable level on the unions - when their disruption (a pain in the neck too) is a drop in the ocean in comparison.

In comparison to what? Well, it is worth exercising the reasons why the trains in the south east are so disrupted (and you can find out more in my book Cancelled! for just £1.99 for the ebook!). Here they are:

(1) Serious and unaddressed staff shortages - they are about a quarter down in some depots just on the drivers they need to run their full timetable.

(2) Inflexible new centralised arrangements for overtime which prevent depot managers from negotiating anything less than a full shift. 
(3) New and inexperienced staff at the control centre at Three Bridges.
(4) GTR's failure to engender trust with frontline staff, despite their courageous loyalty during the recent three months of disruption - not helped by this persistent myth that the delays are due to some kind of industrial action. 
(5) A catastrophic collapse in morale among frontline staff and middle managers.

To which you might add that these issues are not being addressed because of the debilitating myth that this is the result of industrial action, the so-called 'sicknote strike'. There is no evidence for this and it is frankly astonishing that Chris Grayling keeps peddling the myth at all.

As I understand it, the sickness levels among frontline staff have now sunk back to pre-dispute levels, yet the disruption continues. They don't actually have the staff they need. Even today, I see that the Gatwick Express has cancelled a fifth of their services.

Even more staggering, the Department of Transport - which originally agreed to a shortened timetable because of the levels of staff sickness - has agreed to extend it for four weeks, even though there is no more sickness than usual.

I also understand - but could do with some confirmation of this if anyone reading this post knows more than I do - that GTR has decided to stop training their new on-board supervisors and have shifted them into a full training to be guards, which at least means they are thinking ahead.

What is being done about all this? Well, thanks to the myth that this is due to industrial action, far too little. And what is being done is all short-term, emergency measures. I gather the new emergency timetable gives GTR the right to increase the number of hours their drivers will work per shift, without consultation.

GTR managers are also being drafted in to drive trains. And as far as I know, they are still processing applications for voluntary redundancy to cut costs.

None of these amounts to a solution. It also threatens to bring the drivers union Aslef into the dispute, which will allow the politicians to create even more of a smokescreen.

In fact, both smack of the sort of desperate short-termism that characterises British governments at their very worst, as has done now for decades - short-termist, unimaginative, cravenly authoritarian.

There is a whiff of the end of privatisation about all this. Not that we can go back to the old central control. It means there are now so few bidders for the franchises, and the relationships are so incestuous, and the control by Whitehall so tightly detailed, that none of the benefits of privatisation are possible - where is the breath of fresh air, the imagination, the customer focus, the investment, the competition?

It is extraordinary that the ministers and the GTR managers are now locked into a mutually destructive relationship that means that they have to continue to remain silent, or to defend the indefensible.

Something has to give. And the silence of the lambs, and Paul Maynard, continues.

See my book Cancelled! on the Southern Railways disaster, now on sale for £1.99 (10p goes to Railway Benefit Fund). One of my correspondents suggests that we all buy the paperback version (£4.75) and leave copies on the trains...

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