ORR starts to trim Network Rail expenditure

摘要

ORR's first step in closing the gap between the government funding available and Network Rail's income requirement as set out in its Strategic Business Plan will be to remove expenditure not required to deliver HLOS. ORR insiders emphasise that they are not saying that such schemes would not be useful, 'but the railways have to work to the government's requirements'. Examples of expenditure being challenged are shown in red in the table (right). For example, the move to a 'seven-day railway is not an HLOS requirement. Nor is ORR convinced that the two tranches of expenditure on performance improvement, totalling ￡768m, can be justified in full.