Download or read book The Privatisation of British Rail written by Sean McCartney and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The privatisation of the British railway industry was a unique political and economic event. An integrated industry was broken-up into numerous component parts and sold off to private sector interests. The result was a highly fragmented industry that was structurally unsound and operationally dysfunctional. This authoritative volume presents an enlightening portrait of an industry that is less efficient, more costly and still more dependent on state subsidy today than its nationalised predecessor. The nine chapters in this work present a comprehensive and rigorous evaluation of how and why the industry has become so dysfunctional and costly, supported by detailed financial analysis and industry examples. Seven chapters comprise a series of peer-reviewed academic papers by Professor McCartney and Dr Stittle and published in leading international journals over the period 2004–2017 which analyse selected key segments of the privatised industry: where appropriate, updates are provided at the end of these chapters outlining developments since initial publication relevant to the analysis therein. Two chapters are published here for the first time: Chapter 7 reviews the performance of the freight sector, while Chapter 1 ‘bookends’ the volume by providing first, an account of how rail privatisation was conceived and implemented in the 1980s/90s, and then reviews the impact of the pandemic and the proposals of the Williams-Shapps White Paper of 2021 which, if enacted, will effectively end the Major government’s experiment. Going far beyond the usual superficial analysis of the topic, this volume will be of significant interest to researchers and advanced students of accounting, economics, business history, transport studies, as well as industry and specialised business interests in transport and privatisation.
Download or read book Competition Regulation and the Privatisation of British Rail written by John Shaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-14 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title was first published in 2000. This work looks at the privatization of British Rail. It covers the competition for franchises and the regulation of those franchises. The aim of this study was to evaluate the extent to which the promotion of competition was an appropriate policy goal in the privatization of British rail. The book examines the rail system as a whole and looks at the prospects for the future.
Download or read book The Modernisation of the West Coast Main Line written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2006-11-22 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This NAO report examines how effectively the Strategic Rail Authority/Department for Transport and Network Rail turned around the West Coast programme between 2002 and 2006 in terms of delivering outputs and expected outcomes in line with the schedule and targets set by the government and set out in the West Coast Main Line Strategy of June 2003. Three areas were examined in detail: how the Strategic Rail Authority/Department of Transport and Network Rail addressed the weaknesses in programme management before 2002 to achieve delivery to schedule; whether costs have been brought under control; whether the programme is delivering its anticipated benefits. A number of findings and conclusions have been set out, including: that the SRA and Network Rail did turn around the programme through an industry-supported strategy, reducing technology risk through reliance on conventional signalling for most of the upgrade; there were some implementation problems in two areas, axle counters and computer-based interlocking signalling, which resulted in an increase in costs; in general, Network Rail's control of costs has improved, but an analysis of its reported and forecast expenditure shows a final programme spend of £8.6 billion, with an overspend of around £300 million; for renewal work on the west coast route, Network Rail is within its overall funding allowance and on course to achieve 70% of the £940 million cost efficiencies assumed by the rail Regulator; at present the Strategic Rail Authority provides subsidies on an annual basis to Virgin West Coast of £590 million in 2005-06 period, this amount represents a payment needed to maintain train services and is outside the £8.6 billion; the project has delivered journey time improvements, with punctuality and train reliability on the West Coast having improved since 2005; in the 2005-06 period, passenger journeys on Virgin West Coast grew by over 20%, and the remaining work on the programme to 2009 will increase passenger train and freight capacity, but the consensus in the rail industry is that around 2015 to 2020, the line will have insufficient capacity to sustain current levels of growth in passenger and freight traffic; the overall strategy has delivered passenger benefits from a modernised track, but value for money for the programme has not been maximised. The report sets out a number of recommendations, including: that the Department in future should model and appraise costs and benefits for different options for the timing of delivery of the project; that the Department and the Office of Rail Regulation should further develop standard definitions for costs for different stages and elements of transport projects; where projects propose new technology at significant cost, the Department and ORR should ensure that Network Rail draws up a supporting business case, addressing costs, benefits and possible challenges along with a supporting implementation and maintenance strategy; the ORR should ensure Network Rail progresses its plans and adopts best practice strategy, and this approach should include a company-wide strategy that addresses whole life costs in its investment appraisal/project business cases, along with improved recording of maintenance and renewals costs for its equipment.
Download or read book Off the Rails written by Andrew Murray and published by Verso. This book was released on 2002-11-17 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A damning indictment of the chaos on the British railways.
Download or read book On The Wrong Line How Ideology and Incompetence Wrecked Britain 39 s Railways written by Christian Wolmar and published by Kemsing Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2005 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reforming Infrastructure written by Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.
Download or read book Privatization and Regulation of Transport Infrastructure written by Antonio Estache and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1990s saw an increase in the liberalisation of transport policies and a strengthening of the role of private operators and investors in transport infrastructure worldwide. The search for sustained improvement in efficiency is probably secondary to the need to find additional financing, but it is improvement in services that is at the core of the new role of the government in transport. Governments must now become fair economic regulators of many of the privately operated transport services and infrastructures. This book examines the major challenges that governments are likely to face in taking on their new role in transport.
Download or read book The Brown Review of the Rail Franchising Programme written by Richard Brown and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-01-10 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The competition held by the Department for Transport to award a new InterCity West Coast franchise in 2012 was intended to be the first in the most extensive programme of franchising since privatisation. Significant errors were made by the Department during the competition, which not only caused the cancellation of that franchise award at considerable public expense but also called into question the remaining franchising programme. This report is the second of two independent reviews commissioned by the Government, by Richard Brown, the Chairman of Eurostar. It concludes that franchising is a fundamentally sound approach for securing the passenger railway services on which so many people rely. His recommendations include: that the franchising programme should be restarted as soon as possible, but at a pace that both the department and the industry can sustain; that franchise terms should be determined by the circumstances and size of each individual franchise; proposals to strengthen and simplify the bidding and evaluation process for each franchise; proposals for the financial and contractual structure of future franchises, including in relation to risk allocation and capital requirements; and that the government should plan to devolve responsibility for further English franchises to the relevant authorities. Mr Brown also makes recommendations on how to strengthen the department's capability to manage the future franchising programme, echoing the findings of Sam Laidlaw's independent inquiry into the lessons to be learnt from the InterCity West Coast competition. The review also recommends that the Government should determine, by February, plans for the three franchise competitions which were put on hold
Download or read book Competition Regulation and the Privatisation of British Rail written by John Shaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-24 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title was first published in 2000. This work looks at the privatization of British Rail. It covers the competition for franchises and the regulation of those franchises. The study evaluates the extent to which the promotion of competition was an appropriate policy goal in the privatization of British rail. The book examines the rail system as a whole and looks at the prospects for the future.
Download or read book The Official History of Privatisation Vol II written by David Parker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-19 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is Volume II of Professor Parker's authoritative Official History of Privatisation, covering the period from the re-election of Margaret Thatcher in 1987 to the election of Tony Blair in 1997. Volume II considers in detail several of the major privatisations, including those of airports, steel, water, electricity, coal and the railways, as well as a number of smaller ones. Each privatisation involved major challenges in terms of industrial restructuring, organising successful sales and, in a number of cases, establishing effective regulatory regimes. The policy evolved and new methods of selling and regulating were put in place that enabled further disposals to occur. Monolithic nationalised industries with their emphasis on the benefits of economies of scale, vertical integration and rationalisation, were replaced by industrial structures rooted in the importance of commercial management, risk taking and competition. In government departments and parts of the National Health Service, direct employees were replaced by private contractors, and private investment became a characteristic of public infrastructure in the form of PFI/PPP schemes. This study draws heavily on the official records of the British government, to which the author was given full access and on interviews with the leading figures involved in each of the privatisations, including ex-ministers, civil servants, business and City figures, as well as academics that have studied the subject. This book will of great interest to students of privatisation, British political history and of business and economics in general.
Download or read book Public Sector Reform written by Jan-Erik Lane and published by SAGE. This book was released on 1997-12-12 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deregulation, privatization and marketization have become the bywords for the reforms and debates surrounding the public sector. This major book is unique in its comparative analysis of the reform experience in Western and Eastern Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Leading experts identify a number of key factors to systematically explain the similarities and differences, map common problems and together reflect on the future shape of the public sector, exploring significant themes in a lively and accessible way.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Transport Economics written by Jonathan Cowie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 655 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Transport Economics offers the first state of the art overview of the discipline of transport economics as it stands today, reflective of key research and policy. Transport is an important area of study and one which is problem rich, stimulating a great deal of debate in areas which impact on everyday lives. Much of this focuses on the practicalities of the modern-day phenomenon of mass movement and all of the issues which surround it. The discipline of economics is central to this debate, and consequently the study and application of transport economics has a chief role to play in seeking to address subjects relating to major transport issues. It can be argued that at the very heart of any transport issue or problem lies the underlying economics of the situation – understand that and you alleviate the problem. Featuring contributions from world-leading scholars and practitioners from across the globe, all of the chapters within this book are written from a practical perspective; theory is applied and developed using real-world examples. The book examines concepts, issues, ideas and practicalities of transport provision in five key topic areas: public transport public transport reform economic development and transport modelling transport and the environment freight transport. A real strength of the book is in linking theory to practice, and hence the ‘economics’ that are examined in this text are not the economics of the abstract, but rather the economics of everyday living. Practical and insightful, this volume is an essential reference for any student or researcher working in all areas of transport provision, ranging from planning, appraisal, regulation and freight; and for all practitioners looking to develop their professional knowledge and who are seeking professional accreditation.
Download or read book Privatization of Public Services written by Christoph Hermann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public services throughout Europe have undergone dramatic restructuring processes in recent years in connection with liberalization and privatization. While evaluations of the successes of public services have focused on prices and efficiency, much less attention has been paid to the impacts of liberalization and privatization on employment, labor relations, and working conditions. This book addresses this gap by illustrating the ways in which liberalization has contributed to increasing private and foreign ownership of public services, the decentralization of labor relations has amplified pressure on wages, and decreasing employment numbers and increasing workloads have improved productivity partly at the cost of service quality. Examining diverse public-service sectors including network industries, public transportation, and hospitals, and using international case studies, Privatization of Public Services covers a wide range of aspects of service provision, with particular emphasis on companies and workers. The result is a unique picture of the changes created by the liberalization processes in Europe.
Download or read book 2002 Year Book Australia written by and published by Aust. Bureau of Statistics. This book was released on with total page 907 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Privatisation of Immigration Control through Carrier Sanctions written by Sophie Scholten and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central theoretical question of The Privatisation of Immigration Control through Carrier Sanctions concerns the social working of legal rules. Sophie Scholten examines how states, private companies (carriers) and people (passengers) have become interconnected through carrier sanctions legislation. Scholten describes the legal framework in the Netherlands and the UK and international and European legislative rules developed on the subject. The author ties in with debates on privatisation of control in general and of immigration control in particular. As such the author provides a much needed new look at a field which as not attracted detailed academic attention. Scholten opens up fascinating questions about the relationship of the public and private sectors in the complex and politically sensitive area of immigration.
Download or read book Limits to Privatization written by Marianne Beishem and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2012-04-27 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Limits to Privatization is the first thorough audit of privatizations from around the world. It outlines the historical emergence of globalization and liberalization, and from analyses of over 50 case studies of best- and worst-case experiences of privatization, it provides guidance for policy and action that will restore and maintain the right balance between the powers and responsibilities of the state, the private sector and the increasingly important role of civil society. The result is a book of major importance that challenges one of the orthodoxies of our day and provides a benchmark for future debate.
Download or read book Privatization and Market Development written by Graeme A. Hodge and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A useful volume for those interested in the development of privatization around the world. J. Prager, Choice This accessible book aims to inform readers interested in assessing privatization and market development concepts on a global scale, and outlines a range of thinking on how these policy ideas have moved around the globe. Bringing together an international team of contributors, the book traces how privatization concepts have grown in application, and how they have spread to become a central policy idea for governments. And whilst interest in the initial policy of selling-off state owned enterprises has peaked, the contracting and partnership modes of privatization have risen to global prominence. This book also reflects on the importance of the privatization family of ideas on both developed and developing countries. Privatization and Market Development will be of great interest to those involved in public administration and public policy making from a global perspective.
