Chris Bolt steps down on 4 July after five years as chairman

Chris Bolt

Friday 3 July 2009

Chris became ORR's chairman when it was first established in July 2004.

An economist by training, Chris worked in a number of government departments including HM Treasury, the Home Office, Department of the Environment and Ofwat. He also worked in the then Office of the Rail Regulator and was himself Rail Regulator from 1998-99. From there he moved to the private sector working in senior roles at Transco plc.

Chris’s time as chairman of ORR has seen major changes within the organisation. The new Board structure was introduced in 2004 and the Railways Act 2005 reinforced and extended the role of ORR by transferring to it responsibility for safety regulation. ORR successfully engaged with both the Health and Safety Executive and the industry to ensure a seamless transfer of safety regulation responsibilities.

ORR looked at the framework of industry incentives and industry processes to ensure that they were better focused on delivering continuing improvements in performance. To demonstrate better the impact on rail users, ORR introduced new publications such as the Network Rail Monitor and the National Rail Review, as well as developing National Rail Trends, to report on what was being achieved in terms of both regulatory targets and customer expectations. ORR took action to secure improvements, for instance in timetabling and and the planning of engineering work.

The last three years have been dominated by the periodic review of the mainline railway and in particular of Network Rail’s outputs and funding. Network Rail now has firm funding and regulatory targets for the next five years.

On almost all measures it has been a successful five years for the industry.

The merger of economic and safety regulation has brought a better focus to both and this is reflected in ORR’s strategy for the next five years, published in December 2008, which summarises its role as ‘promoting safety and value in Britain’s railways’.

Anna WalkerORR's new chair is Anna Walker. She was previously chief executive of the Healthcare Commission and a member of the National Consumer Council. Prior to this Anna held a number of senior civil service positions at Defra, the DTI and Oftel. She has also worked at the British Council and the CBI.

Chris will continue in his post as Arbiter for the London Underground Public Private Partnership.