 Welcome everyone to the second meeting in 2017 of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. Everyone present is please reminded to switch off their mobile phones. Apologies have been received from Richard Lyle and John Finney and I welcome Christine Graham to the meeting as a substitute committee member for Richard Lyle. I also say at the outset that Hamzy Yousef, the Minister of Transport for Highlands and Islands, is unfortunately unwell today and will not be attending the committee meeting to answer the questions that we had planned. It is proposed to reschedule a meeting with him at the earliest possible opportunity, so we continue to scrutinise the announcements and what is going on within Network Rail. Gendam item 1 is the rail services in Scotland, ScotRail Alliance. Today, the committee will take evidence on rail services in Scotland. I would at this stage just prompt members if there is anyone that wants to declare any interest before we go any further. As is stated on my register of interests, I am the vice-president of the Far North line, so I have so many others. I am a co-confiner of the cross-party group on rail. I am honoree, honoree, vice-president of the Friends of the North Island line. I am one of 50 honoree vice-presidents of rail future UK and I am the honoree vice-president of the Scottish Association for Public Transport. Neither of those roles carry any executive responsibilities. I apparently have some interest to declare that I was unaware of, except that perhaps I am an honorary member of campaign for border rail and the railway runs through my entire constituency, so it will be no surprise to Mr Verso. I will be asking him about. Are there any other declarations of interest? The committee had agreed that it would be very helpful to receive regular updates from the ScotRail Alliance. I would like to welcome again Phil Verso, the managing director, David Dixon, infrastructure director and Angus Tom, the engineering director for ScotRail Alliance. I would like to invite Mr Verso to make an opening statement. Thank you very much, convener and committee, for the opportunity to address you again today and to answer your questions. It's much appreciated. David and Angus, as directors in the ScotRail Alliance, will support me in covering some of the questions around performance. Just as a few introductory concepts, just three or four ideas. First of all, ScotRail Alliance has been set up and is focused on delivering customer satisfaction. One of our biggest drives on customer satisfaction is to deliver a punctual railway service as one of the key drivers that drive customers appreciation of what the railway delivers for them. When we cover the performance improvement plan today and the punctuality improvements that we've delivered, you'll see that that's a central part of what we deliver. A second part of customer satisfaction, which is a key driver, especially at this time in Scotland, is the provision of capacity. Railway is extremely busy currently and we have, in a record time, delivered the Class 385 preparedness and fleet readiness for introduction late on this year around September. That additional capacity will make a massive change to our service that we deliver and will add, for example, on Edinburgh to Glasgow line, nearly 50% more capacity. That would contribute to customer satisfaction in a very significant way. Thirdly, the driver of customer satisfaction is just what we do day to day. It's what we do with stations and we have significant innovation schemes and improvement schemes, stations such as Perth, Stirling, Aberdeen, Inverness, Motherwell and the like. What we do with ticket vending machines, new gate lines, new CIS, new CCTV, introduction of smart ticketing, there's a huge number of things that we are delivering on a continuous basis, all aimed at improving our railway. Just as an observation, I think the debate sometimes gets focused in one area, which is punctuality and we will want to address that today very significantly, but it's often perhaps not focused on to see how much else we are delivering to improve Scotland's railway in a very significant way. And some of the things we're doing with new timetables that get implemented now in the next couple of months and into 2018 is going to be absolutely gigantic in terms of the impact it's going to have. Aberdeen to Inverness capacity will increase by about 75% on those services. Some of the services are now like in the Ruri to Aberdeen, which is one train per hour, would go to two trains per hour and four trains per hour in the peak. It's just significant and that's a very exciting place to be. And just then focus on the issue of punctuality. Today we'll share with you why the 0.5% improvement over the last three months in our annual measure of performance is such a significant improvement and where we are going with this programme into the future is really positive. We have achieved the 90% punctuality measure, 90% psychologically an important point to achieve and we'll continue to drive that in the right direction. And on our performance improvement plan, we've completed around 733 milestone actions out of 1266 actions. We've now got 273 action plans instead of the 249 we had originally because it's a live plan that grows. This is an exciting time for us. A last thought, our people in our business is really important and our people are really engaged. And we hope that with feedback such as what we give this committee today, we'll continue to create positive momentum behind what we do in ScotRail, which is confirmation to our people that we're doing the right thing and going in the right direction. Thank you very much Mr Convina. Thank you very much. Stuart, I think you've got the first question. Thank you very much. I want to pick up the challenge of the public performance measure, which you've just been referring to. Perhaps before doing so, it's worth saying that the travelling public will recognise the infrastructure upgrades that are being made very quickly. They get used to them and don't notice they've been done. Whereas the day-to-day performance of the actual train that people get on is probably the most important thing when it doesn't meet the required standard for anybody. That's on the front of my mind when I'm asking my questions on public performance measures. It's worth saying that when I looked at today's measure at 8.50 this morning, it was helpful for your purposes sitting at 91 per cent with the national figure sitting 3 per centage points lower at 88 per cent. I think the issue perhaps is that I heard you say that an improvement in the rolling, I think it was the rolling average, the MMA figure that you were talking about, had gone up by 0.5 and how significant that was. I'd like you to perhaps develop and explain why that's significant, because 0.5 per cent of a rise doesn't sound particularly impressive, particularly in the context of you still being not yet achieving the 91 per cent, which is the contractual target that you're obligated to meet. Thank you very much for that question. So, what do you think of the moving annual average figure? That is an annual figure. So that measures an average of performance over a whole 12 months or 13 periods of four weeks each. So, where we have made a 0.5 per cent improvement in three months to move from 89.5 to 90 per cent, if you extrapolate half a per cent over three months to that over a year over which the MMA is measured, then that becomes two percentage points that you move from the position you're at. So, again, in terms of context, if you go three months ago, the difference between Scotland's performance and England and Wales's performance, which is all the other train operators in the United Kingdom, the gap between us was 1.8 per cent. Scotland was performing 1.8 per cent better than England and Wales. In the last three months, we have moved by half a per cent upwards and England and Wales have moved by 0.3 per cent downwards. So the gap today in our performance relative to England and Wales, which still is referred to there, is now 2.6 per cent on a moving annual average. So, we've picked up on the fact that we're 3 per cent different today. Over a period of a year, that gap is significant. It's 2.6 per cent. And just to give context again, the whole of the United Kingdom Railway, as long as I've been in it, which is about five, six years, and for longer, have aimed to get this MMA figure in the United Kingdom to 92 or 92.5 per cent. And this is for around the last eight years or so, and have not achieved it. So when we move from 89.5 to 90 per cent with a trajectory that is that positive, then if you think of nine months to go in terms of the year from when we started our performance improvement programme, and you think that the headroom that we're aiming at is between 90 and 92 per cent, this is the last returns to scale that we are focusing on. And that's reflected in our improvement plans. Our improvement plans, when you think of performance improvement plans across the network, across railways, they can either be aimed at fixing hosts of very clear problems or let's call it silver bullets that you need to fix in order to just fix big problems you've got. When you look at our performance improvement plan, it is at a stage beyond that. We are replacing, for example, and David will give examples of that. We are replacing 19 core cables and power cables, preactively. I wonder if I might intervene because I suspect colleagues will probably want to explore some of the detailed infrastructure changes that are being made. Just a wee technical point, when you say UK, you mean GB because you're not including Irish figures, I am correct. Yes, now, Irish figures are not included. It's England and Wales. Yes, so it's GB, not UK, just to be clear about it. And while it's a matter of some modest pride that we're substantially ahead of what the rest of this island is doing, the end of the day of the measure of this committee, I think ought to be interested in, is how you're doing on the trajectory, your word, to the 91 per cent. Now, you've said you're on the trajectory. We've seen a half per cent rise in a short space of time on the MMA figure. Are you going to reach the 91 per cent? When are you going to reach that 91 per cent? Because you use the word trajectory, which suggests in your mind that you see that curve continuing to meet the target. When are we going to get that? So I expect us, by March, to have cleared the 90.3 per cent point at least. The point that was the original trigger level of the performance improvement plan. To be clear, that's the MME. MME level, yes. So by March I expect us to have cleared that and to continue to improve from where we are. When you look at our performance improvement plan, and we'll discuss that in detail with examples as we get through the year in today, how we improve depends very much on what type of faults we avoid on the network, what type of incidents we can avoid through the actions we are taking. And it's not always an exact science. It is a good improvement plan. It has delivered for us over the last three months and we will continue to deliver that and renew the plan and continue to get momentum behind an improvement of that MMA trajectory. I can't tell you exactly. We'll be at 91 or 91.3 or 91.7. But what I can tell you is we'll continue to put that plans together that will be live and throughout the next year continue to improve our MME. Are there any perceived obstacles to meeting that other than weather? No. No, there aren't. But when you look at the MMA trajectory, in the period May, June, July, August of last year, when we had the Queen Street blockade and the industrial action, there was a very clear impact on our performance. And so when we go into that period where those months had difficult performance levels around 91 and 90%, this year, those are the months when we will catch up with our MMA performance quite significantly. So the months between now and March last year were good months. So when we go into those this year, we need to be better than last years in order to lift the MMA. And so the next three months are high performance months. But the MME would probably move to a limited extent. But we expect the second half of the year, when we get into summer and before summer, there are huge opportunities to continue to improve the MME. Let me just be clear, perhaps as a final point. You've said that the next three months, that's January, February, March, are challenging because you will find it difficult to beat the good performance there was 12 months ago. Correct. So as they drop out and were replaced by this year's. Yes. But you've also said that you expect within that period the trend upwards to continue. If the months that are dropping out of the rolling average are similar to the ones that you're bringing in, how arithmetically can it be the case that the average rises? That's right. You're right. So that's why we are set to focus on improving on last year's numbers that are dropping out. Okay. That's right. Thank you. The next question is from Gail. Good morning. I would like to also concentrate on just a following up from Stuart Stevenson's questions. When we look at the delays on the routes during both the last four week period and the year to 10 December 2016, we can conclude that Network Rail was responsible for half of all ScotRail's delayed minutes. Given that Network Rail is an arms length body and ultimately responsible to the UK Government, could you comment on those figures and secondly, if you see any action that could be taken to reduce the delays that are caused by Network Rail? So Network Rail is a full partner of our ScotRail Alliance, as is Abellio ScotRail. And we don't make that distinction between the two businesses when we look at running the railway. In the end, very similar to what a previous speaker said, the performance on the railway, this is all about what customers experience and how customers see. Customers don't really care which part of the railway is doing what and it's accountable for what. They just want to travel from point A to point B as best they can, as best we can move them. So all of our plans are integrated plans, covers all of Network Rail's activity on infrastructure, covers all of Abellio ScotRail's activity on operations and fleet, and front end of the business as and on stations. Our plans are so integrated that you can't really pinpoint to any part of the business and say, well this is yours or this is not yours. We have a very clear joint approach to deliver for our customers. And so when you think of what we do in the performance improvement plan, it is really not about a division between two parts of the industry. That's what we've set the ScotRail Alliance to overcome so that there's not finger pointing between the businesses but more momentum to deliver what's right for customers as a whole. And in terms of examples, when we can get to that we'll give examples of how those two teams work together. Okay, thank you for that. I appreciate that customers all they want is for their trains to be on time and for their rail fares to be fair. But as a committee it's up to us to hold you to account and I think that it is up to us to say who is responsible for which part. And given that the transport minister unfortunately can't be here today but just this morning made a statement about further devolution of Network Rail possibly bringing savings of £100 million every year and given that Network Rail are part of the ScotRail Alliance, what benefits do you think that that would bring? So can I just come in here in the sense that I think that's a very important question which it would have been great if he'd been here to be able to answer it. So can I ask you to look at that purely from your point of view and not comment on anything he's said because there is some confusion. I mean I looked at all the press releases this morning and virtually every press release it's based on a comment he's made so I'd welcome your thoughts on that if I may. Very good. So if I take anyone in Scotland today that are working either on our infrastructure projects or in the front line in the middle of the snow up in Stirling this week working on a set of points or anyone on a station, everyone in Scotland works for Scotland's railway. So I don't sense on the ground where our people are making decisions every day that there's any deviation in their focus based on which company reports into where. There is a universal focus on what's good for Scotland's railway and that's a bit I can comment on. Governments need to decide on where the evolution, the lives of the evolution is drawn but for us customers are all focused on continuously. John, do you want to? Yes, I think one or two of us actually, I think Christine Grahame is looking like she's interested. This topic is quite interesting because we're being given a figure that 53 per cent of the reasons for delays is network rails and then you're telling us. I mean I do very much welcome the fact that it is integrated, I think that's tremendous that it's integrated but I'm struggling a wee bit to understand I mean there's two legal entities here I think although you're in charge of them both. So there clearly are distinctions between the two and I'm delighted that the attitude of everybody is to get the railways running. I mean what difference would it make if you were in control of everything in network rail in Scotland, wouldn't it not really make much difference at all? As the managing director of the ScotRail Alliance, with an employee, a director that works for Network Rail and a director that works for Abellio ScotRail, we are in charge of everything. So we are in charge of everything in Scotland's railway and to be honest in Scotland we are just miles ahead of collaborative working in comparison to the rest of England and Wales. So do you never come up against an issue where the network rail has a kind of GB policy that they do things in a certain way and you might like to change that but you're unable to change it because it's a GB policy? We come across problems like that all of the time when you work with two companies that are two different legal entities. So we expect to encounter those but then we find ways to work around those. This is what we are doing, this is what the ScotRail Alliance is all about, is about finding a way of delivering for customers between two parts of the industry that have legally been separated in 1995 into a train operating company and infrastructure management company. And so it is challenging what we do because at times there are conflicts between how two different parts of the industry want to work and I think that's public knowledge and we share that publicly as well. This is not as I put it and as my team look at it. This is not about looking about what divides us or separates us. This is about looking for things that join us together to get a better result for the customer out there. And this is why I think what we're doing in Scotland is so superbly important for the whole of the United Kingdom because you have seen lately in England and Wales that Westminster have been starting to talk about the same direction of travel of integrating the infrastructure manager closer and more intimately with a train operating role. This is the right trend and we are right in the front of that movement. John, this is obviously getting everyone's interest. I see there's people queuing up all over to come in and say, Christine, if you could come in and can I just say there are several people after. I mean I very much welcome the alliance but everybody blames ScotRail for delays. Everybody blames ScotRail ability and if I were in your position with your other hat, chief executive of ScotRail, I'd be hopping mad that Network Rail were never having the finger pointed at them. You see what concerns me is and I do welcome the way you're going is there is a distinct legal difference between you. For example, in terms of liability and compensation for a failure on the network, who pays that? So very clearly, in order to make sure that we are adhering to all of the principles about how the franchise was led, how government funds a network rail appropriately and to make sure that all of the mechanisms is adhered to, there is nothing that has changed between Network Rail and Abellio ScotRail in terms of the terms of dealing with what's called Schedule 8 payments, which is payments during disruption either company to one another or Schedule 4, which is about more access and giving access to the infrastructure manager to get work done on the network. So all of those mechanisms that are proven in the industry are still at year 2. The two businesses have voluntarily put each other right next to each other, all of the mechanisms still work, put a single umbrella management team on and said, guys, work together and find ways to deliver better for customers. That's exactly what we're doing. I think that you saw it coming away there. Just simply, how can I express this? How hands on? How are you sharing this alliance now? How much can you direct Network Rail and ensure, without offending Network Rail people, that the efficiency which impacts on your business, which is what the passenger cares about, is the train arriving in time and being at the station and so on? Are you in a position of really being able to change that, or are you simply sharing it? Absolutely, absolutely, we affect that. I think I gave this committee a heads up at the last session as well. When you look at what we deliver in Network Rail Scotland in terms of, for example, the renewals programmes, which is track renewals, signalling renewals, bridges, a huge £340 million investment in the network, investment every year in infrastructure, as a business, we are driving, me and my team, with David leading on that, are driving the efficiencies at which we deliver that at. We are on programme with our renewals. We are one of the routes that are doing the parts of the United Kingdom that's doing the best in terms of achieving our volumes of renewals, and we are proud of that. If I go one step further to infrastructure projects, our electrification projects, even though some of them are at cost challenges, but our unit rate for delivering electrification projects is the lowest in the United Kingdom compared to other parts of the United Kingdom. We have direct control over that. Now, it may be that parts of Network Rail do not report directly into us, but as I think I said to this committee before, what we have done very practically in Scotland is we have said, put our arms around all of the railway in Scotland and say, don't really matter who you report into, in Scotland you are delivering for Scotland's customers, and that is what your focus should be, and we are achieving that. I think that you want to come in on that. Can I ask some questions about the latest figures for period 10, which show an improvement in Network Rail's cost delays? The train operator cost to self-delays has increased by 5 per cent. Is there a specific reason for that happening between period 9 and period 10? One of the biggest contributors that we have had has been train-related failures, and I would like to ask Angus. Angus and his team has done a huge amount of work to address that, and in the last periods that performance has improved. Look at the fleet for the last four periods. That is technical failures with our trains. It is actually on target and where we expect it to be. Part of the reason for that is some of the performance improvement plan actions that we have been carrying out in place. I will give you one example. The Class D34 fleet operates Helensbury Airdrie into Waverley and other routes in Scotland, but the main route for them. Between the months of November and December, we renewed 80 couplers across the fleet. For what that is, when two trains join together, we have a three-car and a three-car, and they join together to use these couplers to make the six-car. One of the things that affects customers the most is when they get a short-form service. The train that they expect to come to station has only three cars that are expecting six. Obviously, it is more cramped, there is less room, and more people are standing. We have an ambitious programme to change these couplers out over these two months. We achieved that on budget and to plan. What we have seen now is a clear performance benefit and customer benefit on the routes that the D34 operates. The coupler that we fitted is the same type of coupler that is now going to be fitted to the brand new trains, the 385s. That is the most modern coupler that we have. That is depth showing that the fleet, which was last four weeks, had the most reliable fleet performance period on record for that class. The work that we are doing is delivering performance improvements and definite benefits for the customer. I am trying to drive at how delays were increased by the train operator. Are you saying that you were taking trains off routes that caused increased delays to have this work done? I am happy that that work has been done because one of my questions was about overcrowding, but how has that impacted on your figures to show an increase of 5 per cent of delays caused by the operator? When one works with these percentages about how delays are split between the two companies, the percentage is often affected by what happens on the other part of the business as well. Even if the delay minute stays exactly the same for the Bellio Scotrall side of the business, but it gets less on the network rail side of the business because there is a better period on infrastructure, that percentage ratio of the total on the train operating side will increase. It is percentages and it is sometimes an awkward thing when you try to compare. On the infrastructure side over the last two periods we have had a distinct improvement in performance relative to earlier periods. We can take that question away and come back with a more detailed explanation of what the movements are. I do not have the 38 per cent or the 54 per cent numbers exactly in front of me, but if that meets your requirements we will take that away and come back to you. That would be really helpful and also just on the issue of overcrowding, I think we are promised figures on overcrowding last year and if work is being undertaken it would be quite good to see what those figures were and how they are improving going forward. We will publish the most overcrowded trains, the data on the 10 most overcrowded trains and what plans we have in place to address that within the next two weeks. I am sorry just on that. When there are specific events taking place that is a big issue for overcrowding trains that may normally be quiet, say a big football game rugby match or whatever, it would be interesting to hear at the same time what steps you are taking to put on extra services to deal with that. We have a team that looks at events throughout the year and that is all they do. They do nothing else but look at events. When we have events on, whether it is rugby at Murray Field or appearances of bands at the Hydro or events at the SECC, we take our rolling stock on those events and we lay on alternative services. Special and extra services. We work very closely with events companies. We work intimately with them to understand what are the loadings that are expected from us by train or by rail, what will be the travel requirements. We have our own history of our people travel and we use all of that to size the stock that we provide. Similarly for things like the Edinburgh festivals as well, during that period of the year we adjust our programs and where rolling stock run in order to accommodate those loadings. I appreciate that and that is a fairly full answer. It would be very helpful for the committee to get some figures on how you are achieving and some comment on how you are achieving those targets and the information, so we would welcome a written submission once you have those details to hand. We will do that. That would be extremely helpful. You are right on that. We are also going to provide us with a breakdown of the figures showing the increase of delays. The proportional movement will do that. Stuart Watt wants to come in and then John. It is just a wee quickie for Angus Tom on couplers. I understand from a signaler and from a conductor that the Princess Street blockade was essentially an electrical coupling problem. It was not on a 334, I understand. It was on a 156. Is there a generic problem across the fleet with couplers? Some of the supplementary information that I have been given informally suggests that there has been a history of coupler failures on exiting the Haymarket yard, for example, which fortunately has not been affecting network operations but shows that there is potentially a systemic problem. I heard you say, Mr Tom, that you were replacing couplers. Is this going to be really across the whole fleet in the light of that particular failure and my unconfirmed statement, which I have got from a third party about there being a systemic problem? If we tackle the Wavelay incident, which was an unfortunate incident and caused significant delay and upset our customers, the root cause of that was damage to one of the coupler boxes. It has been treated as a one-off, so it is unlikely to happen again, and the rest of the fleet has been checked to ensure that there is no damage to the rest of the 156 fleet. Visually, the damage that you could not see by the eye was something that would have to require special gauging equipment to understand the failure mechanism. What happened was that failure was on the train and when it went over the tight bend at Wavelay, the electrical connections braked and the train came to a stand, which is designed to do in such an event. That is what you are talking about from Haymarket. Unfortunately, I have been in ScotRail now for almost 12 years and I remember those incidents. They are historic. They will not be happening again. The trains are modified to ensure that that type of incident could not happen. I am conscious that we are working through a list of questions and we are not very far through them and time is marching on. I would like to move on, if I may, and Ray does have a question on performance levels. If I could ask, you have been very good in giving us very full answers. The tighter you can keep the answers, the more we would appreciate. You spoke about the performance level and where you thought it would be. Obviously, the target is 91 per cent, but the ORR has said that that is challenging, depending on winter conditions. Do you think that the winter conditions to date have been helpful? I know that you have already said that that level is challenging, but what kind of winter conditions would I suppose stop you achieving that, or do you believe that it is not so much winter conditions as it is challenging in itself? Good morning. In terms of winter, winter so far has been fairly typical. I think that everyone would recognise that. It does bring individual challenges. While in the central belt last week we did not see too much by way of snow, if you went out into other parts of the network undoubtedly you saw quite extensive snowfall that affected particularly the roads and less so the railway, thankfully. However, it would need to be fairly extreme. It would need to be as extreme as it was four or five years ago to start to take effect on the railway. Snow is always a difficult thing to deal with. Although we have our points heated, etc., they are more designed for frost-type scenarios, so sometimes you get into very manual response to how you deal with heavy snowfall. However, we have a fleet that deals with the more extreme conditions. We actually have some unique plant up here. In fact, the minister was out visiting recently our winter development train, which is unique to Scotland, which literally clears junctions of snow and ice, which no other part of the UK actually has. To date, we have seen probably a fairly typical winter. The things that really tend to damage us though are extreme wind. That is the events that have really had great effect on us in the past. If you look back to last year and the storms, it was these big storm events with objects coming down in line. We obviously have to put in all sorts of safety limits because we don't want train striking objects. That's the last thing we want. Those tend to be the really big things that we ultimately have to put on some sort of safety constraint in terms of either speed restrictions or closing lines. They are the really extreme things that tend to stop us. The cold nights, the typical kind of just drink wet is just what we deal with in winter. Yes, it can affect our equipment, but it's the much more extreme end, the kind of storm type scenarios that hit us more. We've certainly become much better at dealing with water and you see a lot less flooding closing the railway than typically we saw in the past, which is good. We've had a lot of focus groups looking at problem areas and addressing them and improving our drainage. We've done a lot of that, but it is still these big storm events. High winds, particularly typically, are the ones that really do tend to hit us badly. If there are fewer storms this winter, it could help you to achieve that 91 per cent. Can I just ask on the heated points? Is that universal? No, about 80 per cent of our points are heated. We kind of know where others are and we can treat them. If they are necessary, we can treat them. A lot of the points are on sidings and things like that as well that aren't heated, so we don't need to worry too much about them. We have plans to deal with both the heated and the unheated. We can identify remotely that they're working correctly. It's probably the right balance in terms of how we deal with keeping our points clear of frost. Thank you, David. No excuses for the winter. I think that Christine now has a question on the border's railway. Yes, three parts, if that's all right, convener. First of all, I commend ScotRail and Network Rail for the delivery and the way the line has operated. It's been superb and it's been very successful, but perhaps because it was people that campaigned for this, there are very high expectations and high tests. I want to pick up on three things on the performance of the railway to date. One was on skip stops, which was causing a lot of concern. I understand that on peak you were stopping doing that so that people were getting off where they wanted. I want to know how that's been held 100 per cent. What about off-peak? It took me two hours to go backwards and forwards to pick up my car at a station that you'd skipped. I know that you didn't do it to me deliberately, but it's not a good experience. The second thing is ticket checking and selling of tickets on the train. I have been in several trains and many have complained to me that nobody is collecting or allowing tickets to be purchased. In many stations, there isn't on one side of the line when there's twin tracks an ability to purchase tickets, so you're losing revenue. As I understand it, there is a second person on the train. Why is that not happening? Thirdly, I noted when you were talking about events. Do you have spare carriages? Does ScotRail really have spare carriages when there are pressures throughout Scotland for additional carriages, such as Hogman-E, common ridings or things like that? We just have to pinch them from somebody else to deliver elsewhere. That's my question. That was a short question. Perhaps you'd like to go through those three points. Very quickly. If there are some of the facts and figures that you don't have, again, we'd welcome those to be set down in writing to us. If you could answer it as detailedly as you can. On running trains express or skipping stations, we have implemented a very clear policy that for trains travelling into big city centres and conurbations, at particular times within the peak, we will not skip stop. As well as trains travelling out from big city centres in the evening, at particular times within the peak, we will not skip stop either. Just to confirm one thing, the reason why at times we will skip stop in the off peak is not because we want the train that is running to get to the end destination in time, that's not the reason. The moment we skip stop a train past a station, that train is counted as having failed its punctuality. The reason why we skip stop some stations is the network is interconnected and a train that's running late over year can hold up 10, 12, 17, 20 other trains. So very often people don't understand that. So the practice of skip stopping is practice throughout all railways in the world. It's just when we do it to have the minimum customer impact. And we're sticking to that and any change to that must be signed off by myself or the ops director. On the second question, we always have a second person on the train. I'm not sure about the issues about where tickets aren't being sold or that experience and I'll gladly take that up after the meeting and follow up on that. And in terms of extra carriages, we have recently squeezed a further class 158 out of Angus' maintenance allowance to put one extra two car on the border service. And we've been running that since December, which provides more capacity on borders. And that's a massive benefit for the border railway. Your question about what we do when there are big contingencies or big events on other parts of the network is a really valid question. And in those cases where we need extra rolling stock, we do make decisions in terms of what services we can run on other parts of the network and we do then have to make compromises in terms of providing an increased level of capacity. I don't know, I'm a visitor, so I think I've asked to see you, but I'll write about others. Stuart, you've got some questions on performance, I think. Yes, I suspect this would be for Mr Dixon. Basically, I just want to probe a little bit about the commercial assurance review and rail major projects, which has been a subject of some discussion and debate. Whether projects are being managed the way that they need to be. In particular, there's a potential increase in the cost of major Scottish rail projects of £379 million. I just wonder whether that's the right figure for one thing. Secondly, what actions we're taking to give greater predictability of costs, but also to keep the costs to the practical levels that are required in the light of money that's available. Capital projects are delivered by our IP business. Carl Butch, who joined me last time, is accountable for that and accountable to me for that. I'll respond to that question. The number of £379 million that was used in the Ernest and Young report is not accurate. We don't recognise it and things have moved on. We agree on a trilateral basis with the ORR and TS exactly what cost movements on the AFCs for projects are. The correct number is a movement of £293 million, which is still a lot of money. It's still a £300 million movement. Network Rail has very clearly admitted that the process for CP5 to price projects and estimate projects can be improved and has to be improved. That's an improvement that's not only a network rail side improvement, but totally industry. From the client side, meaning whether it's DFT or TS as well, is to have a process where programs are more mature in their development and can be priced better. Last time I gave examples on Aberdeen to Inverness where there was a four kilometre track renewal in Visage because of the desktop exercise it indicated that, but when you get into the detail of the design, there's 15 kilometres of track renewal required and all of a sudden the costs are in a different place. There are three observations that are really important for this committee to just consider with regard to the cost of capital projects. The first one is that because of the estimation quirks inaccuracies, the £300 million movement is not a movement as slippage. What we are delivering in Scotland is worth more than what the original estimate was because the estimates were incomplete. Still getting the right quality product and that is important. So that will be a first observation. A second observation is that part of that £300 million was slippage. If you look at the Edinburgh to Glasgow electrification project, when I got to Scotland a year and a half ago, we saw stuff. We saw problems which came out of the woodwork after six months in terms of difficulties to deliver within bad weather periods and stuff like that. And that the programme had not delivered on time and that there were things that can be done better. So acknowledge that. Then there's a third driver of the cost, a special electrification project. The standards to which electrification is being delivered have been changed. While the initial response to adopt the new standards was delayed because there was a time of exchange with the ORR on what's the appropriate adoption of standards and the cost impacts of that, except that delay came in. But the standards have changed and we are now delivering electrification standards that are of a significantly higher standard than what we had originally. There are examples like parapet heights are now 1.8 metres instead of 1.5 metres so it's safer for pedestrians. Clearances at stations are higher for the live conductor relative to where passengers are. It's a different standard and I think we've discussed that before. It's an international standard. It's a TSI for Europe. So just in terms of understanding that movement of £293 million, it is a different product that we are delivering and it's a modern product for Scotland. I'll just ask one more point. I know my colleague Mike Rumbles wants to talk about in Vanessa Aberdeen specifically so I won't go there. Basically you were anchoring a significant part of the issue on inadequate estimating at the outset. Why was that inadequate? Was it because there was inadequate contingency as a factor to cover those matters which could not be known at the point that you do the initial estimate? Or was it that the models are inactive? What basically underlayed that inability to do that first estimate to something that was a better approximation at the final outcome and what steps have you taken to make it better in the future? I think the biggest driver was the fact that there was a process approach to getting the budgets defined and getting the budgets clarified before the control period starts. So part of that process approach meant that what we have is Grip 4, which is basically the detailed design phase, would follow during a control period. Before the control period starts, clients meaning DFT or TS were quite rightly saying, please tell me what will it cost to do that project over there. But with the Grip 4 stage not completed yet, the design was not in place. Sorry, let me intervene. I understand all that. I used to lecture in project management, so I understand perfectly. But is it not the case that with experience you ought to be able to predict what unknowns will become known during the Grip 4 process and what relation they will have to the estimates when you are not in possession of the knowledge of what will emerge at Grip 4 and thus put in place the appropriate contingency? To cover the currently unknown but later will be known activities. Is it not proper that you take that historic view on previous projects and factor it into the way you do it now? I am not buying the excuse that because you have not done Grip 4 yet, you cannot know what it is because you will never know until you finish the project if you carry that argument to its full extent. Absolutely, Mr Stevenson, you are absolutely right. It is about using previous knowledge and understanding of what typical costs are. Pick an example though, because examples help. If the example is brief, we have made an assumption on where the twin tracking will be that we could fit it within the existing boundaries of our property. When you look now at how to get the twin tracking in, we have to have either land take or more expensive earthwork. That was not envisaged at the stage of the desktop exercise, even though the desktop exercise goes to a certain extent into the depth of the design where all of the points that Mr Stevenson identified is considered. But when you get to the detailed design, that is when the real facts come at you and you understand what you can implement. I understand that point. I am not going to invite further comment, but I just made the comment. That is merely confirming to me that you are not making adequate cover for things that you cannot know at an earlier stage in the Grip process that will emerge later. I invite you to further consider that. I am going to leave it there, but I am just going to ask one question myself, if I may, on the review of major rail projects, the executive summary recommendations. This was the one published on the 26th. There are various people tasked to complete various things and timescales given. A straight answer, if I may, yes or no will do. Are we within the timescales that are laid out within the report to achieve all the things that are laid out within the executive summary? John Swinney has a question on electrification, I believe. You have mentioned the Edinburgh Glasgow improvement project, so it was to ask you for an update on that, because previously you gave us a number of dates like rolling stock starting to arrive in September, testing in December and so on. So there will be the two aspects, the actual rolling stock, is it coming along on time and the electrification of the track, is that coming along on time? It is. So Class 385s, we've delivered the first unit, is now running on the Gwick line in test. Very excited about that. We are in a record time from finalisation of design to train on track. Brought Class 385 into Scotland. Testing, I reviewed it yesterday with Hitachi, is going superbly well and we will be delivering the first Class 385s onto the network in September. In terms of completing electrification of Edinburgh to Glasgow, that's on track as well. I can't say to this committee that we are trying to pull it forward from the July date and we are working really hard to get to the stage where we can, let's put it this way, benefit our customers significantly by introducing electric rolling stock on Edinburgh to Glasgow from the May timetable change. So we're working really hard to get electrification completed early and if we can implement it early we'll be running electrified trains earlier. Thank you, that sounds positive. The other point would be Glasgow Queen Street redevelopment, can you give us any update on how that's progressing on track as well? So for the Queen Street redevelopment there's a significant risk which we have not been able to size currently and which will be resolved in the next couple of months. That risk is associated with the transport and works Scotland order that we've submitted for the development. We expected the TORS unit to report back to the minister in July of last year and the revised date for the report back is in January of this year or February. The reason why that's an undefined exposure is we're not sure exactly what the TORS unit is going to advise and what needs to be done to address what the TORS unit advise. Now we've got initial questions back and we're busy working through a response to that and obviously this is an important stage for us because it can affect the sequencing of works. We have had to delay the start of works. We're doing some of the preliminary works as we can but the main program for Queen Street is not yet kicked off to the extent that we wanted to kick it off by the back end of last year. And that will have consequences for our delivery of key outputs 3 and key outputs 4 on Egypt but we can't size those impacts yet and we're working very closely with TS. This is clearly a risk that sits outside of Network Rail's ability control or ambit of control to manage. So when do you think maybe three months from now you'll have a clearer picture? I think three months from now we will definitely have a better picture. We've already proposed on a previous occasion, we've already proposed to Transport Scotland three scenarios of if the TORS unit responds by this date, this is the potential impact I'll have on programme. If by that date that will be the impact on programme and we're already now in that zone where the impact on programme is definite. We just don't know what it is but three months from now we should be able to give you an assessment. I think the committee would find sight of those dates very useful so that we could see them. I don't know whether that breaches any confidentiality but the more information you could give us at an earlier stage allows us to assess it. We'll do so, convener. Mike, you want to go on to the Aberdeen to Inverness journey time and I would ask you to keep it short which we know the journey time isn't. I mean I've just got two questions. Firstly, in your last appearance on the 21st of September and your answer to my question, if I can quote your answer you said, with the Aberdeen to Inverness programme we will deliver a 75% increase in the seat capacity on weekdays, you just said that again. But then you went on to say, you said that a service every quarter of an hour would be attractive but you will get a service every half hour which is fantastic for that part of our network. We're very excited about that. And then when I asked when will this be delivered and you said December 2019, that was between Inverness and Aberdeen. And you mentioned Inverourie. Other people have raised this with me that they think that you might have been referring to Inverourie to Aberdeen rather than Inverness. Which is it? Our plan has always been to have, if you look at the full service Aberdeen to Inverness is two hourly and then when you look at the Inverourie into Aberdeen section becomes half hourly and quarter of an hour in the peak. That's a capacity that we've always published, that's what we've always said. But what you actually said to me was when we were specifically talking about the Inverness Aberdeen that's why I said that's remarkable and you said that was fantastic. But it's not a half hour service. It's not going to be a half hour service. Not across the full stretch. It's just to Inverourie. Inverourie is the two trains per hour. Some people are very excited about what you said to us last time so they'll be a bit disappointed now. I think our plans are so well published on what we are doing, so well consulted as well. That if there was a misunderstanding, I apologise but the plans have been consulted clearly. My second part of the question is, if all work is being done on the Aberdeen to Inverness line, a number of people, particularly disabled people have said to me they cannot understand. I'll give you just one example, inch railway station between Huntley and Inverourie. Is there no disabled access going in there as far as we're being told? Could you confirm whether that's true or not? And if it's not, if there's not disabled access to the railway stations in the 21st century, should they not be? I can't agree with you more. When you look at access for all, which is the vehicle through which access for all and access for people with reduced mobility is achieved, access for all is a programme that Transport Scotland and the DFT very clearly manage and set priorities in terms of what stations get access for all infrastructure. As you can imagine, lifts and the like are sort of quite expensive and the programme to roll that out is set by Transport Scotland and the DFT. Clearly, everywhere where we can, part of our design principles for every station is to get step free access when we work through how the station is used and how the station is located. Step free access can be achieved very often, perhaps, with a bridge that exists close to a station that allows people to get access from the public section. I don't want to stop you in full flow. I think you are explaining very reasonably what you try and achieve. I think this was a particular question on inch station. I just ask you to focus purely on inch station. Is it going to have disabled access or is it not? I can't respond on that on the detail of that. I can take that away and come back to you and tell you what the conditions are. Could you write to me because in station there is a flat area of access and I cannot understand and my constituents can't understand why this is not being planned for. I don't want to take away from you and Phil, if I could ask you to write to the committee with your answer, we will of course make sure that Mike gets it. There are two follow-up questions on this particular line. Rhoda First and then Murray. You talked about groundworks costing a delay in the improvement. Can I ask if there is any other reason for that delay? Talking about the level of service in Verrury given the Dahl Cross station coming online to Inverness Airport, will there be an improvement in service between Inverness and Dahl Cross when that happens to allow passengers back and forth? So when we think of Inverness to Elgin, we are moving there from currently the two trains per hour to one train per hour. So the service would one train every two hours to one train per hour. That's my line. Apologies. So the service improvement there is a doubling of the service. The context of the example on earthworks was not to attribute delays to the programme just to that one example. The programme for Aberdeen to Inverness is a capacity programme, not a journey time improvement programme. That capacity programme will be delivered by December 2019. So the date will move for completion from April 2019 to December 2019. We've taken the whole project, which is now a massive project in terms of all of the detailed work that has been done. It has impacted therefore on delivery, but we are letting the first contracts for the design phase on signalling on the western side of the programme imminently in February. And by May we'll be letting the design or the group four stage of both track and signalling for the east side to another contractor as well. So the programme is moving forward, the work at Forrest and Elgin are happening and preliminary work is happening. So it's all systems go with that programme. Yes, it was more a question really about capacity on the east coast and about the Usun connection in particular. Where there's single track there and I know there's been some talk about possibly double tracking that. And it was just really to get your views on whether on the bottleneck there is that a big restriction on the capacity that you have at the moment. And would that ease a lot of the issues for you if that was to be double tracked? You're referring to Portobello junction. I know this is a Usun junction, it's in Montrose. Oh, yes. No, look, if you consider our whole plan, our study of the route, Scotland route study, that Scotland route study that plans in advance what capacity we have in what locations and what physical capacity we need, be it two tracking or be it different signalling or the like. Already considers what our timetable requirements are for the future, how many people we have to move and how many trains we have to run. So where we have constraints, they will be identified as we go through the different control periods and that's not an immediate constraint at this stage. Okay, thank you. I'm going to move on to the Highland line and hopefully there's going to be no mix-up of figures and cuts here, Gail's got a question for you on that. Thank you, convener. Yes, Highland mainline, Network Rail monitor considers the Highland mainline journey time improvements project. I just wondered if you could give us an update on the delivery of that particularly expected timescale for delivery cost and expected benefits to passengers and freight customers please. So on the Highland mainline, we are currently still forecasting a completion cost of £65 million, which is less than the control period value of £117 million. And we expect some of the benefits from the revised solution that we've put forward, which is a combination of both infrastructure as part of the solution as well as using the HSTs as a part of the solution to be around 13 minutes in journey time currently, which exceeds the original target that was set at 10 minutes, but that is to be confirmed so we're still looking at the timetable. With the £65 million, there could be plans to include more bridge work or station bridges, even access for all schemes, but that's being finalised as we speak. That programme is still on track to complete by April 2019. No, that's fine, thanks. Okay, thank you. I just asked a question on the North Highland line, which I would have asked the minister had he been here. You'll be aware of the review group that's been set up that Fergus Ewing announced. What's your understanding of that and what will that bring to the table that you wouldn't be bringing? I mean, we all know that it's in dire need of improvement. What can they bring that you wouldn't have been planning to bring? So, we have a, in our performance improvement plan, we already have quite a lot of actions that would cover the far North line as well as the Kyle line in terms of improvements. But what we'll get from that review group is a single forum where we can involve communities in the decision making of the improvements we're delivering. Get better communication back to the communities, better involvement of the communities, and even though we have with our leaders up in Venice that are running the railway up in Venice, although we already have good interaction with communities, the formalised structure that Mr Ewing has proposed provides a really good basis from which we will share with communities exactly what we plan to do and also listen to communities in terms of what's important to them. So, it's a communication project as opposed to proposing... Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Okay, I think we're going to move on now to a question from John. Yeah, well back to electrification. I mean, the Office of Road and Rail Regulation has raised questions, I think, about the budget for the electrification of the Shorts line and the Stirlingdon, Blane and Alloa lines. Can you give us any kind of update on these projects? So the Shorts line electrification is progressing well. We clearly have very serious and very important interactions with communities along that line because electrification projects by their nature when you start to lift bridges affects communities significantly. And that's just sort of the type of thing we manage and must manage on an ongoing basis. At West Calder, for example, we're replacing a line and closing the A71 for 16 weeks. Stuff like that have a big impact on communities. We're very sensitive to that and we communicate very widely on instances like that. So the Shorts programme is progressing really well. On Stirlingdon, Blane and Alloa, I referred you to an earlier comment and also a comment I made in the previous appearance here about adopting for electrification a different set of standards, which are the European TSIs, which requires us to have different levels of clearances. So we've reviewed the initial work that had been done on structures on Stirlingdon, Blane and Alloa, and there are three structures which we will have to adjust in order to comply with the standards. Two of them, two of those are bridge structures which we can see solutions for. The one that's really challenging is the footbridge at Stirling station. That's a protected... Not the new footbridge, surely. No, not the new footbridge, the old one. It's a protected structure and in order to get the right clearances under that protected structure, we will have to come up with an innovative solution and there's a challenge for us. Because if we can't fix that within the right time, that can have an impact on the completion of the Stirlingdon, Blane and Alloa project. So Stirlingdon, Blane and Alloa is really important for us because after we've completed Edinburgh to Glasgow, Stirlingdon, Blane and Alloa is necessary as the next project to allow for the introduction of our new fleets. And so we have allowed extended rules of the route access on Edinburgh to Glasgow to be able to start Stirlingdon, Blane and Alloa earlier. The structures and clearing the issue at Stirling station itself will be a really important part of finding... And is that having an impact on cost and budget or is it just purely a technical question and timing? It has a potential risk to impact on cost. Just for other people, you said protected structure, I'm assuming that you mean it's listed. Yes, listed structure. And so you're in discussion with Historic Scotland on that. Absolutely. And the issue therefore is that you can't make the track any lower. That's right. You have to work out a way of lifting the whole structure up. That's correct because in terms of trying to create that two problems with... To a certain extent you can lower the track but there are two challenges with that. The one challenge is you can only lower the track up to a point where you then get people egressing from a train seeing a platform that's not at the right alignment. So that's a limit of what you can do. But the real problem we have under the Stirling footbridge is the physical clearance from someone standing on the platform to the overhead line, the live overhead conductor. And so lowering track doesn't do anything for you in that regard. And therefore it is really important for us to find a way to lift it. And yes, we're dealing with... So it sounds like a pragmatic solution is required. Exactly right. I see Sturtz wanting to come in probably to offer that. Well, it sort of was. I was just wondering if you were looking at the Paisley canal solution which solved that problem with a bridge by putting a dead section in. Now I can understand in the area where trains are actually going to be stopping. But I can give you my own back of the envelope thoughts on that if you really wish. That is one of the options by the way. Yeah, okay. Thank you, sorry. We digressed a bit and John had a further part of the question to us. My next one was about the ORR again, raising questions about the procurement strategy for electrification, the rolling programme. Can you just give us an assurance that we are getting best value for money through your procurement programme? Yeah, that's a really good question. It's a question that for large part of last year was a key part of our strategic overview of electrification projects in Scotland. As you'll recall, when we started to find the problems on the ENG programme and as we fixed them, one of the challenges that I add to our teams were to what extent is the creation of an infrastructure delivery alliance group. Therefore, where the contractors to our network rail business was in an alliance with our network rail business to deliver something, or should it be an arms length contract which is a more conventional way of contracting. Which one of those were going to deliver the right value, the right programme delivery and the right cost for us? So it's a big part of our focus last year and we did go to the market to test the market on whether arms length delivery would be cheaper and more cost effective than the alliance that we had set up with companies such as Costain and Morgan Cyndall who's in our current alliance to deliver ENG electrification. And we did conclude after that exercise that the best value was through an alliance and that the best programme delivery was through an alliance. And that is why we have continued that delivery on SDA. And I think the sense check for us on this is if you make a comparison of the unit rates of electrification projects in network rail, then Scotland's electrification projects have the lowest unit rate in network rail. And that is an important benchmark of whether we're delivering value for money. The next question, there's a lot of people queuing up to ask the question. So I'm going to let Peter start it off because I know you've got an interest as have many others. So I'm going to let Peter start it off, bring you in afterwards if I may. Peter. Thank you, convener. We all know that the minister, who's at UCF, announced in December that the monthly and annual season ticket holders were going to get a free week of travel and ScotRail services at some point during the coming year. And I just wonder what involvement the ScotRail Alliance had in the development of these proposals and for the free week of travel that was announced by Mr UCF. So we are developing the methodology to achieve that. And sort of the detail of how we're going to actually offer it and what shape it's going to get offered and how it gets implemented. So the offer the minister made is clearly an initiative that the Scottish Government has decided they want to implement. And we are now looking at how to go work with existing systems to actually make this practicable and to implement it in a way which is acceptable to the Scottish Government. And so we're developing options, we've submitted those options for TS and there's a process of discussion to see how we achieve that. I can drill this down a wee bit before bringing John in on it. The question I believe you were asked by Peter is what was your involvement in the development of these proposals. What you're telling us is your involvement in the development post the proposals are announced. What Peter I think is and the committee would like to know is before the announcement what was your or ScotRail's involvement in the announcement. Did you know it was coming? Yes. And you'd worked out a way of delivering it before it was announced. In terms of working out how it's to be delivered is something that needed more time than the period we had to decide how to physically implement it. So how long was that period that you were given to decide that it was a good idea? The period of conversation was two to three weeks. Two to three weeks before it was going to be announced. We were asked to consider how something like that could be implemented. I think we need to choose our words very carefully here. You were aware or you were included in the discussions on whether it was a good idea and we're thinking about how you could implement it two to three weeks before the minister announced it to the Parliament. It's not for us to decide whether it's a good idea or not. It's a policy decision by the Scottish Government. I understand that. I'll rephrase that. So two to three weeks before the minister made the announcement in the Parliament, you were included in the discussions on this and how you were going to develop the delivery of it. That's correct. John, do you want to push a bit more on that? I'm interested in the actual funding of it. What we've been told is that it's costing £3 million and all I've had so far was a written response from the Government which said, if I quote, that the first £1.8 million of the funding is to be provided by ScotRail from funds it already holds. I'm very unclear what that means. Is that just a general fund that you've got? If we spend £1.8 million on this, it means there'll be £1.8 million less for barriers or something else. Can you explain what that £1.8 million is? Yes, so the request that the Scottish Government has made to us as a Bellio ScotRail is to use money from what's called the Squire Fund. Squire is a service quality regime, a very good service quality regime that is implemented only in Scotland and not anywhere else in England and Wales. It has a very high rate of performance that we need to achieve. When we don't, then we pay values of money into the Squire Fund. We declare that every quarter and that fund becomes a fund which we jointly decide where it's best to invest in. The contractual position is really that the decision sits with a Bellio ScotRail where to invest it and we are currently working with the Scottish Government to understand how to fund the £3 million that they've identified. We've not finalised those conversations yet but those conversations are happening between us and Transport Scotland. Could you tell us what the balance in the Squire Fund is at the moment? I think that it's just under a million. I'm not sure. That fund is going to be used for improvements of some kind. That's correct. We're not getting new money here, we're just allocating some of that fund to the £1.8 million for the fair reduction. That is the proposal of Transport Scotland. Clearly we have plans to have used those funds on other initiatives such as more gate lines in particular locations and the like. That fund wouldn't go far to provide infrastructure such as access for all, but yes, other locations. Before I move to Mike, I'm just trying to analyse the point that you made earlier. You've now had the announcement and you've been working on the delivery of it. Have you come up with proposals on how you're going to fulfil the Minister's promise? Yes, we've come up with initial suggestions. It's all in the detail. I'll give you a practical example. People buy annual season tickets throughout the year. How and when do you give them that week free? Do you make the week free that they pay for a week less when they buy the ticket? Or do you give them when you buy your season ticket you have a week longer? It's a detail like that that must be married up to what the industry systems can manage. Does the system that manage the issuing of tickets accommodate that type of solution? We are in that phase of thinking through the practicalities of delivering this. There will be a lot of people that won't be able to come up with the cost of a season ticket and have to buy their tickets on a regular basis rather than on an annual basis. How does that work? Are they ignored? I'm just asking about, we're saying that you're limiting it purely to season ticket holders. It's limited to annual season ticket holders and monthly season ticket holders. That's the policy of the Scottish Government and we are looking at how to implement that. Mike was next and then I've got people queuing up all over the place. I'm just going to say to the committee because the minister is unable to be here. I'm not limiting it because this is a significantly important thing. I'm confused. As an MSP when the minister made this announcement, I assumed that this was a Scottish Government initiative and it would be Scottish Government money, tax payers money, part of the Government's money, that we would be paying for this. You have just said to us now that the decision about paying this money rests with you, Abelio Scotrail. When the questions were asked what engagement did you have with this, this initiative hasn't come from you. I want to make it clear so that there's no misunderstanding here. This is not your decision. It is not your initiative. This is an initiative from the Scottish Government, but it's not new money that the Scottish Government is using. It's money that you were going to invest in the railways. Is that correct? Yes, Mr Rumbles, that's correct. The square fund is very well defined within our contract and it's very clear that we invest the square fund in the railway in initiatives that benefit customers. It's your fund. The decision rests with you is what you said. Yes, we consult clearly with Transport Scotland in terms of anything we do on the network. If a proposal is made to us to consider alternative ways to implement funds from the square fund, we consider that. If there are further, there shouldn't be too much of a debate around this in the sense that what we want to do here is we want to deliver something for customers. That's good for customers. That is exactly my point, that you have designed this fund to deliver for the better service for our customers and your decision and that's what you were aiming to do with this money. Along comes the Government Minister and says to you, I have a bright idea, I want to give a weeks free travel to people and ask you to implement it. This is how I understand what's going on here and I don't personally, my view is that I think this is completely inappropriate because it's surely, it is your decision how you think this money should be spent and not the Government's decision surely. Is that not undue influence? My, sorry, I think we've got to be careful in the sense that it is a question that we should be putting to the Minister and pushing the Minister on. I do, convener. Mae, I just say, that's a very appropriate point to put to the Minister but I want to hear from the other side of this coin. Well, I think what we need to hear is where the money's coming from which we've heard and what it would have been used for if it wasn't being used for this scheme that the Minister has suggested. So, and if there's something you want to delve on that or add to that, feel that I'm very happy to do it. If I could just add something to it. I can see where Mr Rommels is taking the question and I definitely think there's a question that I would probably not be able to answer fully but I think this is simpler than what people may think it is. We have a very constructive relationship with Transport Scotland and with the Scottish Government, a very open relationship. Now while we may set priorities of what we think would be best for the customers, if Transport Scotland engages with us and makes alternative suggestions, of course we consider that and I don't think there's anything inappropriate about that. I think what is important is only one thing and that is customers in the end and so we'll do whatever is necessary to deliver what's best for the customer. If there are bigger questions that you'd like to answer in terms of whether it's new money or old money, I can't answer that. I've only got one supplementary to that if I may. The point that you have just made, this is really important, you said that you want to do the best for the customer and that you have this fund to do just that. Before the minister suggested that you use this money in this way, you had never thought, am I correct, that you had never thought about giving free travel for a period of time to your ticket holders. That's correct. Thank you. I think that's right. That's quite extraordinary because I was going to say that this is policy made on the back of a fag packet but I don't think that it's even reached that stage of development. We were told that the figure was 1.8 million that ScotRail would be contributing to this scheme. You said that the square fund holds less or around a million. Where's the other 0.8 million or so, the other million possibly coming from? The square fund has a certain value to date but it can be anticipated that over the next couple of months and over the next six months or a year that further, that this fund would grow. So you don't expect this policy to come into fruition for six months to a year which would mean the square fund would be up to 1.8? I think the policy and the solution can be implemented. The cost for that doesn't hit all at once so it can be implemented and funded over a period of time. So it's on the never never as well? I wouldn't agree with that. I wouldn't agree with that. I think it's perfectly feasible to implement a solution and to have different types of solutions of how to fund it and as I've indicated before we are in the process of discussing this in detail with Transport Scotland and it'll come, it'll be resolved in the next couple of weeks. Jamie, I think you want to ask a question? On this? On this specific thing. I don't want to leave this room feeling more confused than when I walked into it but I feel like I am at the moment. So if the estimated cost of the three week travel is around 3 million and the suggestion is that 1.8 of that is from funds that you hold or may hold in the future and presumably the Scottish Government and we can ask the minister in due course will fulfil the rest of the cost of that. Do you have the ability to say to the transport minister no, that 1.8 million should have and would be best used for other things that we had a earmarked for and again you can't see whether it's a good or bad idea because it's a policy announcement made by the Government but surely you are in control of those funds. What would you say to the minister? The decision on where we spend the square funds is for us to decide upon as Abellio ScotRail and that decision is executed by us in consultation with Transport Scotland. So if there are schemes that we would want to do differently that discussion will be had by Transport Scotland with Transport Scotland. There is no confusion here. This is standard contract management principle so we will manage the contract, consult, work with a client and work out what's the best to deliver. So you can't say to the minister if you want to make a policy announcement that costs 3 million then it's up to you to pay for it because we've ring-fenced that money for other things. If we feel that that is the right approach to follow that's an approach that we can follow. Understood, thank you. Do you think that's the right approach to follow? I mean you say the decision. Is square by the way an acronym for something or is it just called the square fund? Square fund, now it's a service quality regime so square fits into that so it's an acronym. So there's one million or so in it that may go up impossibly and you can if you like because you're a commercial company say to the minister you're not having it. You said that, are you going to do that? Are you going to do that? I prefer not to commit to something now because we thought if I can just say where we are. We are busy discussing this with Transport Scotland and I prefer not to commit to a position yet. Right, so the scheme might not go ahead because you've not decided yes we're going to do this. I can't vouch for where the scheme goes ahead or not. There we are. I can just comment on whether we're going to do this. I can't vouch for where the scheme goes ahead or not. There we are. I can just comment on whether we will make that decision and when we will make that decision in the next couple of weeks in terms of how we will deploy the square fund. If the scheme is dependent on a contribution from the square fund it is open to ScotRail Abelio to refuse to release that money and the scheme will have to proceed on the basis of funding coming from elsewhere. Is that correct? I don't foresee that really. No, but is that correct? I don't foresee that. No, I didn't ask you if you first saw it. I asked you if it was correct that the fund if you're not giving the funding presumably the funding has to come from elsewhere. Is that correct? Yes, but it's not my funding. It's not for me to decide where it comes from. No, but so who decides about the square fund transfers? The square fund we decide upon but the funding for this initiative is not. I understand that but there's a contribution from the square fund. There's a possible contribution from the square fund. You've said it's up to ScotRail Abelio whether or not that contribution is put forward. You've not agreed yet to do it so if you do not agree to do it it therefore should follow logically that that contribution must come from elsewhere. Is that correct? I think that's quite... I mean if it's not going to come from the square fund it's going to have to come from elsewhere. The question is whether it should come from other resources within the railways or whether it should come from the Scottish Government. I haven't. I think realistically, Christy, that's a question that we should ask the minister and I think we should ask him sooner rather than later. I will allow you another quick follow-up. There's a couple of other things that concerns me is that this announcement has been made. You're a person with a seasoned ticket and now it seems the mood music or the smoke blowing up is that delay is happening because this has not been thought through and that delay will be dependent on somehow this money coming together on the square fund. Is that part of the reason why it's taking so long is that the money isn't there anyway? Set last one then is has anybody calculated the cost of administration of this scheme and who would be liable for the cost of the administration? The cost of developing a solution is part of the solution itself. The cost of implementing whatever offer we make to customers is included in the three million. Obviously, we are working hard to keep that cost as low as possible, to come with the solution as quickly as possible and to deliver a workable answer to Transport Scotland for implementation across the network as quickly as possible. The three million includes costs of administration. It does. If I could just close this if I may and move on to the final thing. I think there are various questions here, some serious questions which the committee feels I believe from our conversations here that we need to address specifically to the minister including how the policy was formulated, where the funds are coming from, who will suffer as a result of the funds being taken from things such as the square fund. I think these are all relevant questions for the committee. I would reiterate that it is a sadness that the minister is unwell and unable to come to the committee so we will need to schedule that meeting as soon as possible after this so we can get the answers because I think this is a very, very important subject. There are two final questions, one from Stuart and then one from Jamie. If I could ask you both to be as brief as possible, I'd be very grateful. I'll give you the question and then I'll need to explain why I'm asking it. The question is, are you satisfied with the national rail conditions of travel as a means of communicating to customers what they may or may not use their tickets for? The reason I ask that question is very specific but will be more general in other circumstances. If one has a ticket and wishes to break one's journey spend some time in an intermediate place for some hours and resume one's journey it's very difficult to work out if the ticket you're holding does that. Let me be specific. In the back of the debate it says issued according to national rail conditions of carriage so far so good. You look at national rail conditions of carriage they simply say most tickets allow you to break your journey when a break of journey is allowed. They don't explain anything about that. Then you consider what ScotRail's own website says can I make a break in my journey? It's one of the questions one can ask. It simply says whether or not you are permitted to break your journey depends on ticket type. It also makes the suggestion that when you book your ticket you can find out where the conditions are. I'm unable to establish how that can be done and I've spent some time on it. It's as well informed as they should be and is there not a real danger given the difficulties in pinning down sometimes fine detail that people are overpaying for tickets. I will just qualify all this by saying IATA in the aviation industry have 7,000 plus conditions so the railway is doing a bit better than that I suspect but perhaps not good enough. A brief answer to a complicated question with lots of supplementaries and detail that would be very appreciated. If you approach any of our ticket officers I am always amazed at how superbly supportive our employees are how knowledgeable they are on our different ticket types and how keen they are to support travellers in their decisions. Our ticket office staff will respond to a question what is the lowest cost ticket from point A to point B for me and will help customers to actually buy the lowest cost ticket which is what customer service is about. So you're right. Just to go on the conditions of travel is about loads of rules and loads of specifics and details we can either customers can either talk to our booking office staff directly or talk to our helpline and we will endeavour to get people the information they need. I'll just say I hate the phone and my local ticket office is part-time and I'll leave it at that. Jamie I'll keep it brief. I just elevated you there. I'd also like to thank Mr Versa for his extended appearance here today taking the place in some cases of the minister but very selfish question unfortunately January's been a difficult month for people in my region in the west with three separate lines experiencing rail replacement bus those three dreaded words that no one wants to hear in January. Can I just ask for a quick update on where you're at with those closures the Gwyrwch Wiens Bay obviously the airline and also the address online as well because it has also a knock on effect on people going to and from Arran and that extended bus travel is a problem there so maybe just a brief update on that and some insurances that that will end on the fifth of areas planned and a second point very briefly on a number of complaints I've had from people on toilets which are out of order both on trains and at stations and it's really important to mention that because I've had representation from for example Crohn's and Colitis and IBS, IBD networks who say that this is a real problem for commuters and one that people who suffer from conditions do face as well as normal commuters as well so it's really important to mention on those briefly, thank you. If I start with a letter in order to achieve our introduction of the new fleets we had to take four class 380s the modern electrified Siemens train off the Inverclyde services in order to do driver training this is unfortunately just the harsh realities of introducing a new fleet and in order to achieve this rapid programme of introduction we have quite a lot of diesel train drivers on the central belt that will now have to become familiar with electric trains and so that is why we had to replace those 380s with class 314s and yes we appreciate that this is a different product it's a product we've got unfortunately it's the product we can use it's not really possible to go and find another new train available standing doing nothing somewhere else in the United Kingdom or anywhere else that we can run on our railway at the times and programmes that we are implementing stuff so it was always intended that we would have this shift in rolling stock during during the period of training and it will take some time before we return class 380s to that part of the network but the class 314s we hand back in December 18 so that is a product which we have bought as part of the franchise and that we had inherited and that we will replace and that is because it is in the long run not the product that we would want on our railway anymore and so the introduction programme is really critical and we focus all of our attention to get the new fleets in as quickly as possible in terms of the network itself as you are aware that we are running some of our test trains on the guruk service but that none of the lines in the west are closed and unavailable for service so we will at times at Drossan for example will be affected by stormy weather and we will have possibility that we can't run electric trains and that would be the type of thing that we deal with on an ongoing basis but we inform customers very clearly when that happens and how it happens so our focus remains to provide the service for all parts of the network that we have committed to and on the issue of the lack of conveniences on trains and at stations the lack of conveniences so my second point was about a lack of operating public toilets both at stations and on trains it's a common problem that we get complaints from constituents and groups so on the class 314s on trains it is our it is our approach to replace those trains with trains that have toilets on them so that's really important in terms of conveniences or toilet facilities at stations throughout the United States and the United Kingdom and many other railways have adopted the practice to provide toilets on trains rather than especially on the longer distance journeys rather than always at stations except at stations which are really big and really big conurbations of where people gather reason for that is very practical and very pragmatic we can't always be controlled and different parts of the network we don't even have man's stations that we can provide that level of control to those facilities so the facilities we can control and assist people with and have a presence at are those that are on trains and that's a standard policy and that's sort of a standard trend throughout the railway industry and we will continue with that I think by what you're saying that the fact that where there are trains without toilets and stations therefore now without toilets the importance of having operable toilets on trains that are functionable and clean is of vital importance and I think that is the point that you've accepted and Jamie's being can I thank you for the rather extended session and I apologise for it because I think there were some very important points raised and before I conclude this part of the meeting I wondered if there was any statement that you would like to make having given evidence to the committee today not really, just to say that for us it's an opportunity to keep on showcasing to this committee what it is we do I really do welcome the scrutiny and the questions to broaden the understanding of the complexities of what we deal with and to be honest at times it will be great to have more support and vocal support from people like this committee about what it is we do and with the positive spirit in which we continue to do that and deliver for our customers in Scotland because you are opinion formers and it's important for us that the opinions there do understand and reflect the fact that we do 100% focus on Scotland's railway I'd like to thank you for attending today we certainly look forward to the updates that you've mentioned that you will write to us about on questions that you didn't answer during the committee stage and we also welcome the chance as you indeed is offered today to have updates from the at times which you consider and we consider important that we're kept informed of ongoing positions I would normally suspend the meeting at this stage but because the minister is unable to attend that does in fact conclude our meeting and I'd like to go into a very brief closed session informal session afterwards with the committee so thank you very much and thank you to your team