Regulator acts to require Railtrack to establish reliable register of asset condition

18 April 2001
ORR/13/01

The Rail Regulator, Tom Winsor, today changed Railtrack's licence to run the national network with a new obligation requiring the company to establish and maintain a comprehensive register of its assets, their condition, capacity and capability. This licence change has been widely supported by the rail industry since the Regulator proposed it in September 2000. The inclusion of this condition in Railtrack's network licence from today follows a statutory 28-day consultation period.

Commenting on the new obligation, Tom Winsor said:

"For too long, Railtrack has lacked crucial information about its own network and, after two aborted attempts at establishing an asset register, it has failed to remedy this deficiency. Given those failures and the critical importance of reliable information about the network, the establishment of an asset register can no longer be left to the company. The public interest requires regulatory supervision of this essential work, and this licence change which I have put in place will achieve that.

"This change is a crucial step in my programme of increasing the accountability of Railtrack to its customers and the public interest, making its licence fit for purpose."

Railtrack now has 60 days to set out in detail the current state of its asset knowledge and its plans to remedy any deficiencies in its knowledge of service-critical and safety-critical assets.

Notes for editors:

1. The Regulator's original proposals for a licence modification requiring Railtrack to establish and maintain an asset register were set out in Consultation on proposed modifications to Railtrack's network licence: Asset register and dependent persons -  (Footnotes), Office of the Rail Regulator, London, September 2000.
2. The Notice of proposed modifications to Railtrack's network licence: Asset register, was published on 20 March 2001. The statutory consultation period ended on 17 April 2001.
3. The Regulator's programme of reform of the accountability of Railtrack includes:
4. 1. reform of the financial framework in which Railtrack operates, through the periodic review of access charges (final conclusions announced 23 October 2000);
   2. reform of the company's licence to operate the national network, with eight new conditions, including the asset register announced today;
   3. reform of the contracts between Railtrack and the train operators, so as to strengthen, streamline and simplify them, with better specification of what Railtrack has to deliver in terms of network capacity and capability and more effective remedies if it fails to do so.
5. Copies of these documents are available from the ORR Librarian, Sue MacSwan, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138-142 Holborn, London EC1N 2TQ, Tel: 020 7282 2001, Fax: 020 7282 2045, e-mail: rail.library@orr.gsi.gov.uk. These documents, and Railtrack's modified network licence, are also available on the ORR website.

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