Stakeholder survey
ORR has a wide range of stakeholders - rail users, funders of the railway, the railway industry and the general public. We have always seen effective relationships with these stakeholders with a two-way flow of information as an important input to our activities. We proactively seek our stakeholders’ views on what we are doing and consult extensively on key policy initiatives.
In Autumn 2006 we engaged Wardle MClean to help us carry out a survey of our industry stakeholders with a view to giving us an independent assessment of:
- how well stakeholders understand our role in the industry and the scope of our duties and responsibilities;
- the relative importance that our stakeholders place on our activities; and
- whether there is anything that stakeholders would value us doing more, or less, of to the industry’s benefit.
A number of in-depth interviews were carried out with a range of influential figures in the rail industry. The main messages coming from these were requests for us to:
- ensure that we maintain (and are seen to maintain) a strong and effective challenge of all aspects of Network Rail’s performance and efficiency;
- be more visible in the actions we take to help the industry to move forward;
- plan and target our consultations better as part of a more effective dialogue with stakeholders; and
- play a more strategic role in the industry and provide direction where needed.
On 22 January 2007, ORR held an industry workshop at which Wardle MClean presented the results of the stakeholder survey.
ORR’s 2007/08 Business Plan has taken the feedback from the survey into account, as will be reflected through the way we approach our regulatory activities. We will develop a new communications strategy, which will set out how we improve our consultation and dialogue with stakeholders on our policy development.
