History of ORR

The Railways Act 1993 received Royal Assent on 5 November 1993. The Act created two new statutory officers - the Rail Regulator and the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising. These officers appointed staff and their organisations were called the Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) and the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF). OPRAF's functions and duties were subsumed by the former Strategic Rail Authority now subsumed into the Department for Transport.

The first few months of ORR's existence were ones of profound change as the restructuring of the nationalised railway industry commenced. On 1 April 1994, British Rail, hitherto responsible for all aspects of Great Britain's railways, was split into two distinct parts:

• Railtrack PLC, which owned the rail network infrastructure (track, signalling, bridges, tunnels, stations and depots); and
• The service providers, which comprised:
  
  • 25 train operators;
  • domestic and international freight businesses; and
  • a track renewal and maintenance division.

After that initial split, between 1994 and 1997 the service providers were turned into separate legal entities and transferred, either by franchising or trade sale, to the private sector. Railtrack was floated on the stock exchange in June 1996 and remained a listed company until it was placed in railway administration on 7 October 2001. Railtrack's functions are now carried out by Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, whose parent company is limited by guarantee.

ORR's principal responsibility is the regulation of the monopoly and dominant elements of the railways with particular focus on the rail network infrastructure operator, now Network Rail. Initially, we had responsibility for a range of consumer benefit functions, including some aspects of fares, quality of passenger services, complaints handling and passenger complaint statistics, facilities for the disabled and the National Rail Enquiry Service.

We were also responsible for the sponsorship of the Central Rail Users Consultative Committee and the regional Rail Users Consultative Committees, which came into existence on 1 April 1994. In June 2000, these organisations were renamed the Rail Passengers Council and Rail Passengers Committees.

The Regulator's role was modified on 1 February 2001 by the Transport Act 2000, which also formally established the SRA. This Act transferred consumer benefit functions and the sponsorship of the Rail Passengers Council and Committees from ORR to the SRA, as part of the Government's policy of making the SRA the one-stop-shop for all customer-facing functions. The Regulator also gained new powers under this Act enabling him to direct enhancement of a network facility or to expand an operator's existing access rights. At the same time, an amendment to the Competition Act 1998 common to all the utility regulators, conferred upon the Rail Regulator the powers of the Office of Fair Trading in relation to competition matters in the railway industry.

The Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 brought the railways into line with other regulated industries by replacing the individual regulator with a regulatory board, with effect from 5 July 2004. The Office of Rail Regulation then consisted of a board of six (it is now of course 11) members, headed by a chairman and chief executive. The chairman and Board members are appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport.