 Gareth gael i'r 19rd gynhyrchi gwnaethef yn y gymaint, energi, ac athigorio cyfrafff ac yn yng nghwyl Cymru yn 2023. Yr 1st tyfn o'r agenda eisiau hefyd i hynny yn ymdweud ynGymaith cyfrafff ar hyn? Yr 3r flush i hynny yn cael eu clynwyd gyda'r pethau cyfrafff. Yr 3r flush eisiau cyfrafff o gofio,thoseu fynd i'r cyfrafff a bod yn amddangol yn cyfraffaeth. Ar gyfer tyfn mewn cyfrafff ei ddweud? Mae'r next item of business is an evidence session on Scotland railways. In March last year, the committee held evidence sessions with the rail industry stakeholders and the Scottish Government in advance of ScotRail's transfer into public ownership. We agreed to keep a watching brief on the issue. The purpose of today's session is to take stock of ScotRail's first year in public ownership, considering the issues like industrial relations, fares and usage and the future of the rail industry in Scotland. I'm pleased to welcome on our first panel Mick Hogg, the regional organiser and lead officer of ScotRail Caledonian Sleeper, National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport Workers. Gary Kelly, the organiser for Scotland and Ireland Transport Salaried Staff Association, Kevin Lindsay, the district organiser and the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Farmers and Robert Sampson, the senior stakeholder management for transport focus. Thank you very much for accepting our invitation. We're delighted to have you here, and we've allowed about an hour for this session. We're going to move straight into questions, and the first questions are going to come from the deputy convener Fiona Hyslop. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Can I direct my first question to Robert Sampson from transport focus? Perhaps you could let us know what your passengers have been experiencing over the last year, what they're telling you in terms of the information you have. Your studies identify that value for money is passengers number one priority, but it states that only 65 per cent of ScotRail passengers consider the trip value for money. What's your view on that? How can that be improved? Do you look at any lessons from other rail services elsewhere in the UK and across Europe? There's quite a lot in there, but it's an opening to give you where are we now and what you think can be improved particularly for value for money. Value for money in all of our services is a top driver of passengers satisfaction followed by punctuality and reliability. The first phase that's continuing with ScotRail has been welcomed by passengers. We look forward to the off-peak trial later this year as well to ascertain what value that has for passengers if it grows passenger numbers and ScotRail services. There's been a number of promotions by ScotRail that have been welcomed by passengers. The kid for a quid ticket as well, the off-peak market has grown. It's almost back to pre-Covid levels, which is good. What passengers actually want is an easy-to-understand fare system. Sometimes it's quite complex and navigating through the myriad of ticket offers that are available. Simple, easy to understand and easy to use. There's been a great take-up of mobile apps, et cetera, for passengers using that in travel, but we are also producing a report recently about digital exclusion. It's also worthwhile remembering that market as well. Make it easy to use. Passengers do value a visible staff presence at stations where they can get advice from ticket office staff on the best ticket for their needs. There's a whole myriad, but the complexity of the fare system overall needs to be simplified so that passengers can actually buy the product they want. Any other industry, to a large extent, it's your front door buying a ticket to make it easy and affordable value for money. Link to value for money is the punctuality, reliability. There's millions of fares available, tickets available, so it's actually about simplifying and making it easier to understand for passengers. Any lessons from elsewhere in the UK or across Europe? Fares promotions help, but it's actually all of our work comes down to the simple factor of making it easy to understand and affordable and easy to purchase. It comes back to that across all operators, across Great Britain. It comes back to the easy-to-understand fare system. Have you picked up anything over the last year, particularly since ScotRail came under Scottish Government's direct control? There's been no actual great change in the fare system in the last 12 months, apart from the uptake and the digital provision that has been given on the mobile app. We did campaign for flexible season tickets now that the commuter market has changed and the introduction of flexible season tickets seems to go on well, offering a discount to passengers as well, so it's all about attracting people back to rail and these initiatives seem to have helped in that regard. First of all, can you maybe express what your experience is for your staff and passengers over the past year? Is there anything that you'd like to tell us about what's happened over the past year from your experience? The value for money, first and foremost, and the reliability of the trains is crucial. What we need also is the safe trains. That's very important for not just staff but passengers. What we need is a train system that's free from anti-social behaviour. We need to make sure that the trains use is affordable for the staff. We need to ensure that staff are in natural stations. That's very important. If you look at the most vulnerable people within the society, they are very reluctant to use Scotland's trains if the anti-social behaviour issue is out of control. We need booking offices to remain open. We need stations to be staffed in order to ensure that Scotland's railway is open for all. That's very important as far as the RMT is concerned. We need to ensure that the anti-social behaviour issue gets addressed because in the RMT's view it's getting worse. It's still getting any better. I wanted to ask you about what's happened in the last year. You've obviously set out what you think is needed for the future. Is there anything you want to say before we move on to Gary about what your experience has been in the last year? We've seen an upturn in assaults and anti-social behaviour. Young people are using the trains and the stations as dens in order to continue with the anti-social behaviour. What we need is more actual legislation in order to address the anti-social behaviour, because the British Transport Police are telling us that they don't have the powers. That's not to demonise young people what we need is a robust system. I've seen that for quite a long time and I'm going to say it again. If we can ban those people who are responsible for anti-social behaviour from the football grounds and shopping centres, then why can't we ban them from Scotland's railway? It's just bizarre as far as I'm concerned. None of your staff should have to be subject to anti-social behaviour and we've all got responsibilities to support you in that. Gary, what changes have you seen over the last year? Good, bad and different? Over the last year, it's not unusual that there haven't been any significant changes within ScotRail trains limited. Usually, after the first year, after a two-pay transfer, most employers don't make any significant or substantial changes to the workforce. So, there haven't really been any massive changes in terms of the organisational structures. There have been no restructure. I think there's been a few changes at director level. There are a few changes departments across directorates, but in terms of the organisational structure within ScotRail trains limited, that's more or less the same. I think maybe going back a wee bit further than a year, we launched a vision for Scotland railway in October 2021. One of the reasons why we did that is because there was a reduction in services of around 300 per day, so that's been a significant decrease in passenger services. I think they have slowly been increasing that back up again, but there are essentially less trains available now than there were previously. As Mick has noted, on the ground, there are issues with anti-social behaviour. I think that one of the other things as well is that over the past year there has been an increase in the uncertainty of staff, particularly within the booking offices. There was a report commissioned by Professorine Docherty, which was commissioned by Abelio, and that recommended closing the booking offices. There was a schedule 17 reviewer, which looked at the opening and closing times of the booking offices through the network, and recommended the closure of three stations. We have successfully fought back against that so far, but the issue, as far as we are aware, has not been entirely taken off the table. That creates a great deal of uncertainty in the booking offices through the network. We have pressed both the previous Minister and the current Minister to take those proposals off the table and essentially bin them, but we haven't quite received comfort and assurance that that would happen. Other than that, I think that the major changes in the staff would be the potential impact or knock-on effect of the new structures coming in, above the ScotRail trains, the holding company, etc., the imposition of the public sector pay policy. That does have an impact on staff in terms of how the trade unions negotiate. There are various different things, but as an organisation, ScotRail trains limited hasn't really changed too much. My final question is to Kevin Insie. You might want to reflect on what experiences you have seen as different over the last year in particular. Obviously, the publication of that vision for Scotland's railways has been a very important contribution to the future of what Scotland's railway could be or should be. We don't have time today to go through all that, but you might want to reflect very briefly on where we are just now over the last year, but also what you see happening with the vision for Scotland's railway and any engagement that you've had over the last year on that with the Scottish Government would be helpful. The first thing that I would say has changed is the improvement in industrial relations. Under a bellio, it was in the 1970s when we really conflicted behaviour from the management, in our opinion, and it led to all sorts of disputes. Our own union, we've never been in strike in Scotland since 2002. I can't say that about England and Wales. It doesn't seem a week to go by where we're not in dispute. There's been significant improvements in industrial relations. I just want to go back slightly because you asked Robert about what can we learn from elsewhere. Integrated ticketing, I think, is a must. I get the charm at the Bontmouth Leaf Walk, come up to Edinburgh Waverly, get the train to Glasgow and then go on the underground. I'm dealing with three separate companies. Surely it can't be beyond us as a nation to produce an integrated ticketing. We could use just tap and go, tap and go, buy it online or buy it in a booking office. That, for me, is an easy fix for us. Surprise, surprise, that leads us nicely because that's part of one of the things we put into the vision for Scotland railways. The vision for Scotland railways, we see it as a talking document. We don't think it's a panacea. We've got all the answers. The idea behind it was to start a debate. What sort of railway do we want in Scotland? Do we want a cheap railway with hardly any trains or do we want a railway which is there for the people? A railway has to be accessible, affordable, reliable and safe. At this moment in time, we're not quite hitting the targets on all of that. My big bugbearer at the railways is now. We run high-speed trains, the old intercity 125s. Glasgow is introducing a low-emissions zone from 1 June. We're going to have 18 trains a day with heavy-polluting trains coming into Glasgow Queen Street. They're going to be more polluting than any 1995 bus, lorry or car. We're running the trains in, so there has to be a joined-up policy in what we're talking about when it comes to green policies. I could go on genuinely for hours when it comes to the vision for Scotland railways, whether it's developing apprenticeships, whether it's bringing in more reliable trains. I think I always go on about the ticketing. The ticketing is probably the key part of it. I'm delighted that the Scottish Government listened to us when we campaigned hard to scrapping peak fares. I've always saw that as a tax on workers and I've never understood why there was peak fares there. Peak fares was always used to reduce people going on trains in the mornings. Surely now we want people on trains to come back into our city centres and towns so that they can start spending money in our towns and cities and then it grows our economy. Kevin, just on ticketing, we are going to come to that subject later. It's obviously passionate for you so you'll get a chance to come in on that later. I'm happy we move on. Perfect, thank you very much. The next question is from Jackie Dunbar. My question is for Robert. Transport focus is arguing for a creation of a ScotRail challenge group. I realise that there is a ScotRail stakeholder panel in place just now. Can you explain what the difference is between the two and what you would like out of a challenge group? Just now ScotRail has a stakeholder panel. It's basically an advisory panel that gets an agenda from ScotRail, comments on the plans etc. What we see in other monopolies and other industries is a more challenge panel, a more user channels panel that looks at the actual business plans, can actually put challenge to the management. We feel that this would be a step forward now that ScotRail is in public ownership, that the passenger groups and other groups could have more of an insight and more of a challenge. It means that the sense of direction of ScotRail as a business is channeled towards what the passengers and potential passengers actually want going forward. Other industries such as utilities etc. have had challenge panels that seem to be a success. The good business engagement and all our insight will reflect getting the consumer voice embedded into the process. At the start of this new journey with ScotRail, it would be an opportunity to get the consumer voice embedded in the decision making processes. You can have better consultation regarding timetables over the fair structures, over the direction of the business. We think that a better voice for consumers is important at this time in Scotland. You think that it would be heard more rather than... Yes, it would be heard more rather than be an advisory voice more embedded in the... Not to actually make the decision but to make sure that before the final decisions are actually made that the consumer voice has not only been heard but been listened to and were appropriately active upon to get a better service for customers. I have another question but do you want me to take it later on? I think that it logically fits in. We will go to Monica with her question now. I will refer to my register of interests on the voluntary side as I am a member of the RMT parliamentary group. I am also a member of Unite, the union, which I will mention because a vision for Scotland always has been mentioned. Unite is one of the co-authors. I might have a question on that. I wanted to start off by asking our panel today and good morning to you all. Whether you have a view on how the new institutional arrangements for the provision of ScotRail services are working and to ask are the roles and lines of communication between Scottish ministers, Transport Scotland, Scottish rail holdings and ScotRail trains sufficiently clear and well understood to ensure that the focus remains on current and future service delivery. If they are not, how could things be improved? I might just start with Mick and come along the table. I am certainly not clear on the set-up for Monica. It is quite confusing. ScotRail rail holdings, Transport Scotland, ScotRail rail board and the Transport Secretary. It is really confusing for all the unions to follow what is to be put in place as far as ScotRail rail is concerned. We are very keen to have a good, positive work in the relationship with all the party. However, if I am brutally honest to Monica, it is quite hard to actually follow. How do you think that that could be improved then? We are also keen to see if there are lessons that could be learned for other organisations that might want to follow this model. How could that be simplified and improved? Less bureaucracy, if I am honest. We should focus on Scotland's railways. We should focus on spending our energy and time on running Scotland's railways. As Kevin said earlier, industrial relations were an issue previously. We have now got rid of the bullies and we have good work in the relationship with the chief executive. We have another senior rate manager within the Scotland railways. Another good example is the pay side. For the majority of the unions, we are on a good track as far as the pay side is concerned. If you compare that from last year in the debacle, we actually had to go through way last year. We are on a better foot in this time round. I will explain the best that I can. You have ScotRail trains limited, then you have the Scottish Rail Holdings Company, which is the parent company. You also have a Transport Scotland sponsor who reports in as far as I understand to the strategic rail board, which is part of Transport Scotland. You also have the minister. That is about four or maybe five layers going up and down and maybe across. In addition to that, you also have the ScotRail Network Rail Alliance Board, which sits somewhere in that, at which level I am not particularly sure. My understanding that the roles and responsibilities are not entirely clear. I think that there is some information out there, which is the ScotRail trains are supposed to lead on the strategic direction of the business in line with the Scottish Government objectives. The Holdings Company has to oversee that. The sponsor in Transport Scotland via the strategic rail board is there to make sure that the sponsors act inappropriately and the minister reports into that. If it sounds overly complicated, it is probably because it is. There are quite a few cogs there. I do not believe that they are working quite harmoniously at the moment because of the lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities. It is a year to take some time to bed in. I would point out that that structure is not too distant from what it had under a belly on first. You would have had the subsidiary, the parent company, reported into a company in Holland and you would have had the Scottish Government involvement. Those layers are probably somewhat broadly reflective of what has gone previously. I do not think that they have always been in public hands in Scotland for 20, 30 years. It is a new methodology, a new system that we are working on. I will give a wee bit of time to bed in, but it seems overly complicated to me. Are the roles and responsibilities clear to the people involved in it and are there too many cogs in the machine? I do not know as the right time to judge it. Gary, I think that it is a very interesting point that you have made there. I would be interested to hear how Kevin and Robert fought on it. I struggled over the weekend to try to understand who reported to who on which level. I still was not any clearer having spent three days at it. I am supposed to be in the know in this Parliament about what is going on, but it was opaque and confusing to me. Thank you for trying to explain it. I am not sure that I am any clearer, but it is not a criticism of you. It is a criticism of the system. I do not think that I am going to make it any clearer for you, because you have a Cabinet Secretary at the top. You then have a Transport Minister, you then have Transport Scotland, then you have SRH. That bit is all quite clear, but the whole point of setting up SRH was to be arms length. I am just not convinced that the Minister of Transport Scotland or the Cabinet Secretary... To be fair, the Cabinet Secretary is definitely armed length. Once he is lang to do it, he always doesn't want to touch it. I think that the Transport Minister is still finding his brief, so we will see. I have dealt with 14 different Transport Ministers from three different political parties since the conception or the reopening, depending on your argument of this building on the Scottish Parliament. I have dealt with them all and they all have their own ways of dealing with stuff. I look forward to working with Kevin Stewart to see how he works it. If we then take the SRH's board, the SRH's board has went through several changes already. We have seen the chief executive resign or pushed because he has political interference or not political interference. I think that needs clarity. We have then also got underneath the SRH, we have got ScotRail's board, but now we have also got a new board coming in as well for the Caledonian sleeper. We have then got a side board, ScotRail Alliance, with the managing director of Scotland's railways, Alex Hines, and Alex will come and tell you today what his role is. He very kindly sent me a diagram to explain where he sat within Scotland's railways. And convener, I agree with you, I am still no clearer on what the role of the managing director of Scotland's railways is because we have got a chief operating officer for ScotRail railways. We have got a chief officer, a managing director for the Caledonian sleeper. We have got a chief executive and a chair of SRH. There seems to be an awful lot of people, I nearly said their noses in the trough, but that would be kindly a bit unfair. An awful lot of people getting paid six-figure salaries for being in senior positions, some for two days a week, some for one day a week, some for three days a week. I think there needs to be clarity, I think there has to be. I think if we are going to be true what we want, the government sets policy, SRH gets on with it and the ScotRail board should get on with it. I really do not see why the Caledonian sleeper is an add-on. It should be put back into ScotRail. Again, there is a saving doing that, instantly we are doing that. I think, Gary is right, early days is confusion, but we can streamline this a lot more. I think you have all done really well at talking us through that. I suppose just very briefly Kevin will be moved to Robert. If it is overly complex at the moment and it could be streamlined to get more clarity, what could also be done to improve lines of accountability in terms of where responsibility lies and are things transparent enough? I am keen to hear what it looks like from a public perspective. Transparency is a huge issue. The minutes get published from various boards on that, but things can be heavily redacted, so there are issues around transparency. We need to set out what we want from the railways, and that will be in political parties manifestos. Whatever party wins, that becomes the policy. The ministers in the cabinet should set that up and give the deal what it is that you have to deliver to SRH. Let them get on with it. I appreciate sometimes that ministers or MSPs will raise issues around their constituencies or issues in that. Again, that is acceptable, but the professionals in the railway are the railway people. If you are employing people on six-figure salaries, you have to let them do the job. I would suggest that we have a board that gets on with the job. ScotRail reports in Caledonian Sleeper. We will report in initially, but I hope that we move ScotRail's railways back into one company, because there is no need for two separate boards and two separate companies. We are delighted that the Scottish Government has taken or made steps to bring the railway back into public ownership, but a bellio still runs the payroll for ScotRail. We still pay private operating companies for the rolling stock. The sleepers are even more complicated because the only things that have been nationalised are the train managers, the sleeper hosts and the name. Everything else is in private hands, so we need to look at all of these functions and how much does that cost the nurses' taxpayers? What do we really want to do about that? Again, I go off in a direction, because they are all interconnected, but we need an overall strategy, and it has to be very clear what we are looking at. I will not repeat what has been said, but it is a complicated structure. We have good working relationships with all the bodies, I would like to think. We have also sat down with passengers and various focus groups, not just on rail and bus, because there are various things in the bus about franchising, partnerships, public, private. We go through the structure of the rail industry, the bus industry, and about halfway through the passengers just shake their heads and go, whatever the structure is as a consumer, so that it is easy to use and punctual and reliable. A good thing about the recently published high-level output specification by the Scottish Ministers in Transport Scotland is that we hope that it has some improvement. Network rails to establish and operate with ScotRail trains limited a joint Scotland-based timetable on team to deliver all activity in the Scottish rail network. We hope that that has a more joined-off approach, because at the end of the day, as with passengers, it is by the ticket for a timetable that is deliverable in its punctual and reliable, so hopefully that will ensure. Also, on the high-level output specification, going back to outputs, there are targets in there that both ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper have to make on passenger satisfaction. We are content to certainly agree regardless of the structure that there will be better timetable delivery, hopefully it is on paper, we will see the product, but there are actually targets to be made on delivering levels of passenger satisfaction and delivering punctuality, 92.5 per cent as well, which will be an improvement on today. We are looking at those outputs, and that is what passengers will be focused on, rather than the structures as the outputs as a consumer. Thank you. Back to you. Thanks very much, Monica. Thank you for your valiant efforts in explaining all of that. Mark, I think the next question is yours. The oppression that I am getting this morning is that industrial relations have improved a bit over the last year, as you were saying, Mick. You got rid of the bullies, I think you said. Has it made a difference having a union representative on Scottish rail holdings? Yes. We, as the four railway unions, agreed collectively that we would support Ross Foy from the STEC, and Ross does a job for the four rail unions. I think that it is right that Ross should be there. There is an issue in relation to the Caledonian sleeper from 25 June, should Ross represent Scotland and the sleeper, or should there be a separate union representative on the Scottish rail holdings representing the sleeper, because there are two different organisations. As Kevin rightly says, there should be one. One of the organisations, as far as Scotland's railway is concerned, industrial relations have dramatically improved, of which we welcome good industrial relations. You have good industrial relations, then there is no way to dispute. Cars on the table, R&T, I have never ever hesitated from issuing the ballot papers if there is an issue that we feel strongly about. We will continue to issue the ballot papers if we feel strongly about anyone that is actually facing a disciplinary if we feel that it is a miscarriage of justice, and we need to take action in order to defend our member or the membership, but certainly industrial relations are good in something that we welcome. Gary, Kevin, does that model of union representation work? I would say that industrial relations have improved since they moved into public ownership, but there are still issues. The chief among them is the public sector pay policy issue. That is probably the one thing that has led to more disruption than anything else since they moved into public ownership. I think that Kevin mentioned transparency. I also think that that has improved somewhat, but there are still issues with transparency and openness from ScotRail trains Ltd. Work in progress is not really where I would like to see it, but I have noticed that I am moving in the right direction. Until the issue of public sector pay policies resolved, that potentially has been relatively without massive contention over the past two years. There have been disputes, but if the Government in the day was slightly different and took a different approach to pay, it could for future years create a massive flash point further down the line. It needs to be looked at. We should not be restricted in our collective bargaining. We should be able to negotiate freely and openly with an employer, whether that is ScotRail trains Ltd or anyone else. That has the potential to cause issues in the future. I said earlier about industrial relations. I think that they have improved significantly. I was just nodding and looking when I was saying that. IRs have improved, but ScotRail is on their third HR director since nationalisation. Maybe not having an HR director has helped us in that. I am being a bit flippant. I think that there has got to be some praise given to the ScotRail board. They have taken them in a different direction. They want to engage with us and they have tried to put out the fires before they have started. That has got to be welcome. The public sector pay policy. We said from the outset during all the 2P meetings that if the Scottish Government go down this line and try to implement public sector pay policy on the rail trade unions, you will find yourselves in dispute. I did not need a crystal ball to see that, but we have always been willing to negotiate. We have always been modernised as in Stevenson's rocket. We are always willing to sit down and do deals and move things forward. To then suddenly get told, that is what you are getting. There is no negotiations in it. That cannot work with us. We will not accept it and it will lead to conflict. We do not want to stop trains. We want to run trains. We want to get as many passengers on as possible. I am delighted just now that ScotRail performance is doing great. I am delighted that ScotRail's passenger numbers are over 200,000 a day now in the revenue in ScotRail. I am sure that the chief operating officer and those coming in behind us will explain how high the revenue is just now, but it is running 10%, 12% above targets. That has all got to be welcome, but that is all based on good industrial relations. We need to build on where we are just now, get some of the stuff on board. The key part of all of this is that we can never forget the passengers. The passengers are key to this and we need to get more of them back into the railway. Good IR is key to it. The structure helps it. Having a trade union voice on the board is helpful as well. I think that it is better working relations within ScotRail and the trade union officials has certainly delivered. That is good to hear. We will go to Jackie Dunbar next. Thank you. I was going to address the mix, so I might come back to you. You were speaking about the pay for rail staff, and you said that it will not work if you put the rail staff on to the Scottish Government pay policy. Can you explain why it will not work? Why do you think that the rail staff should have the exemption? I know that you said that it will not work, but can you explain why it will not? I believe in free collective bargaining, so that is the fundamental part of it. If I go to a negotiation, there has to be a negotiation. I have to be able to give and take, and it has to go both ways. There is a zero point to me being in there, and if the offer is not high enough, I can just miss out on negotiations and go straight to industrial action. I also think that we sought advice, and it was Alex Rowley MSP who wrote to the Scottish Parliament's information centre seeking clarity on where ScotRail sat. Spice's advice was in direct contradiction to the advice that we got from the Scottish Government. I have shared it with Kevin Stewart, I have shared it with Jenny Gilruth. I have had two different letters back from Jenny and from Kevin when their version of what took place. It is not very clear what they are saying, other than that we are following Scottish Government policy. What Spice said to us that ScotRail railways holdings sits outside, however, the directors of that business must be aware of the Scottish Government policy on public sector pay, which is different from an instruction you will follow public sector pay. The Scottish Government or the Scottish Government's transport ministers do not accept that. So I think there needs to be some sort of clarity within this building who is right and who is wrong. But what we have had for the last two years is public sector pay being enforced on us, and then secondly we have had negotiations taking place where we have came up with a form that takes us away from public sector pay to then do a deal. Again, if we are sticking to public sector pay that we are doing deals that does not mean that in my opinion the Scottish Government's interpretation of public sector pay does not sit where, as Spice's advice would say fit perfectly, you must take anises off the public sector pay but still negotiate. Sorry, can I just clarify this because I am a little bit confused now of the franchise when it was going to be nationalised. Belio could make decisions on wages providing they were approved by the Scottish Government. They couldn't make a decision without approval from the transport minister because that was part of the agreement. What you're suggesting to me, sorry, just so I understand this, is that now any pay rises have to be approved by the Scottish Government although the decision is made is that what you're saying? Well yes, but you've got to remember it's got to jump through all the hoops. So we meet with SRT who report to SRH, who report to TS who reports to the transport minister who reports to the cab secretary. That's why we ended up in the carry-on we had last year because we were jumping through every one of the hoops to get there. That's how we finally got there last year. This year it's been a lot more smoother. I don't know if SRT have had authority from the various different ones above but we have done a deal this year which is out to referendum of our members but it's above public sector pay. So then that does not tie in to the letter I've received from the Scottish Government saying you will stick to public sector pay. That falls into where I'm saying it falls into the advice that Spice gave us through Alex Rowley. I'm happy to provide the briefing papers that we've got. That goes for the committee to understand it. Sorry Jackie, I jumped in on your question. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth here I'm trying to understand. So you're saying that just now you think you should be exempted because of the confusion and you need more clarity and I'm not saying that if you got more clarity you would automatically go for it I'm not suggesting that but that is one of the main reasons why you don't think it should be part of the same pay policy or am I misinterpreted? I don't believe it should be part of public safe policy because it meant to be ScotRail's and Arms Length Company it's not like the civil servants in the building here which are direct employees of the Scottish Government Scottish Water is already sits outside Caledonia McBrain sits outside so why are ScotRail's railways or ScotRail being brought in? To me it doesn't make sense it should never have been in that direction, they were warned at the start repeatedly warned that this would just end in conflict if you try to impose public sector pay I'm not saying we'll get better deals but I strongly believe in free collective bargaining that's the agreement we signed up with every rail company that's our procedure agreement they sign it, we sign it we don't always have to agree but you've got to set the rules how you play it you can't have somebody who's never signed any agreement saying by the way that's the new rules because it's never going to sit with trade unionists Thank you that really does make more sense to me now Mick, would you like to add anything? Sir Shambles if I'm honest we've never agreed as Kevin rightly says but we've never agreed with the public sector pay policy we certainly feel all the unions feel it's a direct interference in the free collective bargaining and we would obviously want to see the public sector pay policy be removed and allow the unions to bargain freely and as Kevin rightly says Caledonian McBrain the teachers, the firefighters they are not governed by the public sector pay and it's an interesting one in the Caledonian McBrain you know what I say I think last year they got 7.2% there about way beyond the 5% of the public sector pay policy having said that as Kevin rightly says we've actually done a deal this year and it's not just about pay it's about terms and conditions and we've advocated and successfully negotiated a deal for low paid duty workers which is a key policy within my trade union so we've done a deal which is hopefully acceptable to our members it's in the process of going to a referendum by ballot and that ballot result will be known very very shortly but certainly the public sector pay policy is a no go as far as RMT and mother real unions colleagues are concerned Thanks Jackie go to Mark Ruskell Mark Ruskell mentioned the future ticket offices already and the uncertainty there over Government's intention what do you see as the future for ticket offices? Is it about maintaining the existing service forever or is it about introducing change and what would that change look like? Okay so we are opposed to any talk of closing ticket offices I mentioned earlier about the antisocial behaviour issue we certainly believe that the ticket office issue and the antisocial behaviour are inextricably linked because the antisocial behaviour and the assaults on passengers and staff is on the increase and if you take into account the vulnerable people within the society who are very reluctant to use Scotland's railway because the antisocial behaviour issue is out of a control and we've heard on the countless occasions that Scotland's railway is open for all it can't be open for all if the issue of antisocial behaviour is getting the worst and it is getting the worst and I don't want to be the one to turn round and say to the transport et cetera or the chief executive officer of Scotland's trains I told you so that someone's now lost their life as a result of antisocial behaviour I don't want to repeat myself in terms of the legislation the side you know the football grounds and the shopping centres why can't we ban those who are found guilty of assaults and antisocial behaviour within native scotlands Robert, what's the passenger view on ticket offices in the future? Passengers want to have a as I keep repeating invisible staff presence the problem we had 1,500 responses from passengers over the ticket office consultation a lot of people who are not aware about the act of buying a ticket about the suitability of ticket vending machines as well concerning the full range of tickets and the easy to use it was about availability of waiting rooms toilet facilities at stations if there's no staff it was concerns, as Mick has mentioned about antisocial behaviour and the personal security of passengers it was about accessibility for passengers with additional needs a whole range of issues are wrapped up to do with a station but the actual consultation process only looks at the simple act of buying a ticket what the ticket and settlement agreement governs is a regulatory process that governs changes to ticket offices and it only looks at the simple act of buying a ticket retailing but when we go out to as passengers review a whole range of staffing issues at a station from our point of view it would be far better if the regulation actually sifted from ticket office opening hours and moved to station staffing hours that would be better that gives the railways more options to redeploy staff and also gives passengers more protection and enforcement than they have today but the actual process only looks at retailing and isolation so maybe they're just misnamed but passengers' views come back in the whole range of the station issues not just the retailing aspects and the only way we've got to challenge that although we can make recommendations as we have a reference written evidence and non binding recommendations the only way we can change the retailing if they sell 12 tickets or less in an hour they can change the station opening times basically if the whole station aspect is just retailing and we think that's a flaw in the regulatory process but our hands are tied by that Gareth, do you want to answer? Robert, sort of hit on it yes the ticketing system is massively complex and going up to buy a ticket is probably the easiest way to get the cheapest ticket available I don't think you can get it really from TVMs certainly more than the complex tickets we wouldn't be able to get them any cheaper than a ticket office they know the best option for you but it's really crucial to note that booking offices, the people that work there they don't just sell tickets they do a whole range of other activities station maintenance they make sure that the station is clean and tidy gritted they make sure that any defects are reported to provide passenger assist to get people on and off trains some stations do dispatch as well the station staff are called station grades there's a separate grade which is travel shop which is really dedicated to selling tickets and selling tickets alone that's in the more major stations but in the suburban stations largely it's the station grades who do a lot of the work they don't just sit behind the desk and sell tickets it's not just a retail roll the proposal on the table looked at altering closing three booking offices but altering the opening and closing times for the remainder if they don't sell what that would effectively do is to take a booking office that might be open from 7am to 7pm and to shut it for a large proportion of the day and just to keep it staffed at the busiest period that takes bodies out of the railway and for all the reasons that are mixed identified with antisocial behaviour and customer service we don't think it's a good idea you need to have staff at the stations but it is crucial to note that the range of activities which the passengers want to see happen it would be a mistake to effectively take the staff out of those stations and to redeploy them to a barrier and central station or somewhere similar I'm content to move on unless you've got something you want to add to that Kevin What percentage of tickets bought online? How many people actually buy it at the station compared to those people who go on to train line and buy tickets or whatever the way of doing it is Do you know the answer to that? Online is more prevalent now by the digital or mobile technology and the ScotRail consultation Joe McGuire, Alex Hines will probably give you a more definite answer but from 1990s the start of privatisation ticket office sales have fallen year on year from about 40% down to under 20% I'm not disputing the comments that anyone's made about security and looking out of railway stations I'm just interested to know how many people actually buy tickets at the station rather than doing it online and using the technology that we have ScotRail will later be advised not many people actually buy at the actual way as Gary rightly says it's not just about selling tickets there's other productive activities that real staff give Mick, I've very much made that point I understand it's not just about tickets but I was just interested in the proportion of tickets it might be their repurposed rather than necessarily selling tickets if the importance of keeping people there They already do the work outside of just selling tickets so I don't know if they need to be repurposed it's about when they're at the station the proposal was to take them out of the station at certain times if they're not selling tickets they already do the work outside of just sitting in selling tickets I'm going to move on to the next question which comes from Monica Thank you I'm quite concerned listening to colleagues on the panel particularly what Mick has said about not wanting to be in to future ministers told you so that someone has lost their lives in Scotland really was due to antisocial behaviour but I was looking back on a previous session when Jenny Gilruth was here and officials from Government and these issues were raised about the trends that we were seeing the limitations on the British Transport Police and so the particular concerned about the safety of women and girls on trains and at stations so this was supposed to be looked at as part of a national conversation I just want to ask you if you can give an update on that what engagement has happened and earlier on you talked about people not going to use the trains if they believe that antisocial behaviour is out of control is it already out of control Mick? Yes, it's getting worse in my view because we receive as a trade union continuous updates from our members and our representatives in terms of antisocial behaviour and debate assaults there's a lot of talk about what we intend doing to address antisocial behaviour I'm not suggesting and none of the railways are suggesting that we'll ever eradicate antisocial behaviour but antisocial behaviour has become a magnet for those people who use Scotland's railway in order to cause absolute havoc there's not enough British Transport Police I think there's something in the region of 246 56 British Transport Police we're not suggesting that we'll have the resources to be on every train but what we actually need we need more of a visual presence of the British Transport Police on that railway train ScotRail will probably say that we'll have a safe travel team personnel which we do which again we actually welcome because it gives reassurance to the train driver and the train guard when using the Scotland City Railway the issue is getting worse Monica, I've got to say that and what we actually need is we need a joined up approach from all parties all stakeholders in order to address this issue and we need probably a change in the legislation in order to give the police more rate of power because the British Transport Police have told us on countless occasions when it comes to the juveniles they take them back to their rate of parents and within the space of an hour or two hours the same juveniles are back at the train station causing absolute havoc so we need legislation in order to ensure that those responsible are dealt with robustly so there's a Government summit due to happen looking at violence in schools and around and the social behaviour involving young people does the focus need to go beyond schools to look at what's happening in the wider community? Absolutely 100% we need to we need to have a joined up approach my understanding is the approach when it comes to Scotland's schools from a ScotRailway perspective is limited I don't think there's enough engagement with the schools with the communities when it comes to young people within the Scotland and I think there needs to be a better approach when it comes to engaging with the schools and just lastly Monica the national conversation a lot of promises but delivered nothing had missed the national conversation I was hoping you guys might be able to update I know that Jenny Gilruth did quite a lot about the safety of women and girls sport for the public and for staff I don't know if Gary and Kevin can maybe provide any update on that but also wrapped up on that, what is my role like for staff just now? The last time we met with Jenny Gilruth I think she advised that consultation on women's safety had done some work and there was a report which has been published I believe and the national conversation has always been around in the background but we received a letter I believe from Kevin Stewart the new minister which outlined that the national conversation would take place in the summer so we anticipate what we have asked for as trade unions is a copy of the terms of reference for the national conversation I think this encompasses the fair fair review as far as we understand and there will no doubt be a wider public consultation on women's safety I think the piece of work that has already been done was a closed consultation more of a research project but it did consult with various different stakeholders but there has as far as I understand been no wider public consultation on women's safety and I think that the national consultation on women's safety national consultation on fair fairs and the national conversation are all rolled into one and the national conversation is more what sort of way we would like to see running which would encompass issues around booking offices as well that's all scheduled to run in the summer of this year as far as I understand but from a trade union point of view we've asked for more information about the terms of reference specific timelines etc but with the change of minister I think that's sort of held that up that's a really helpful update I'm not sure if we've been told about that it's a committee but that's really helpful Just quickly national conversation Gary's covered on the antisocial behaviour I raised with the British Transport Police and asked the question how many people have been arrested charged or prosecuted for pulling the PASCOM we see that every one of us has used the train you will be fined if you pull the PASCOM PASCOMs are pulled day in, day out across Scotland's railways not one person has ever been charged, prosecuted or fined for doing that British Transport Police have given us an assurance they will now treat that as a crime that they'll have to deal with but the reason why I always raise it is because once that train gets stopped it disrupts every person's journey on that train it then brings the people who have pulled the PASCOM into direct conflict with the driver or the guard who then has to reset it and that then generally leads to issues around them with their vaping feet on the seats, drinking not having a ticket spitting on, assaulting so it's the pulling of the PASCOM the minor issue which is the flare up point for the rest of it and another one that happens regularly nobody's ever been prosecuted for is letting off the fire extinguishers on trains it's happening frequently again disrupts the travel for the majority of people on that train nobody's ever been prosecuted for that my greatest concern though is what if we end up with a fire on a train and then somebody has let off a fire extinguisher and that could lead to deaths again it's a big probability but there's still that probability there I've asked ScotRail for an updated risk assessment on it because it's an on-going issue so it's the low-level anti-social behaviour which is a trigger point for the bigger anti-social behaviour and one other final point I would make is that not every train has two members of staff on it a lot of the trains in the Strafclyde area can have one member of staff ScotRail's agreement with ScotRail Holdings is that they must roster a second person on every train that doesn't guarantee you a second person on every train so the driver cubie at the front not knowing what's going on behind all sorts of issues that affects accessibility for people with disabilities safety for women children and the general public so we've been pushing for a long long time to make it a compulsory that a train can run without two people on it a driver and another member of staff because we want to make the railway as safe as possible safety is absolutely critical so yeah, I'll let Gary back in and I'll have to hand back to Cymru it was just two things so from what I understand there's been around a 20-25% reduction in BTP officers in Scotland since 2014 that has had an impact in terms of anti-social behaviour and also the other thing potentially to look at we've had discussions about ban and orders previously the other thing potentially to look at is something similar to section 156 of the police crime and sentencing bill I believe which looks at assaults on those providing a public service is an aggregating factor in sentencing so that might deter people from assaults on public transport workers or legislation south of the border that's perhaps something that could be looked at here I'm going to wrestle this back to try and let Liam in who's been waiting very patiently so Liam over to you thank you, good morning panel Mick Holgo, come to you first please because the submissions of the RMT highlight the need for considerable investment in rail and demands an increase in that investment and rightly in my view flags the carment tragedy which I'll return to in a second Given Robert Samson's comments earlier about ticket prices do you think Mick Hogg that that investment should come from the Scottish Government now that it owns Scotland's railway and if so from where should it draw that increase in funding I'm not really to say investment comes from because what's came over loud and clear is that Scotland needs a significant investment in Scotland's railway we've actually got a Victorian infrastructure when it comes to Scotland's railway and what we actually need is investment and we actually need more jobs what's been talked to about is less investment when we come out of CP6 and we approach CP7 less investment less jobs and if we're absolutely serious about ensuring that there is not another rail disaster in terms of carment stone haven then we need to learn the lessons because if we don't learn the lessons then there'll be other rail disaster in Scotland and let me finish on this note we have nothing to actually thank the pandemic for but if it wasn't for the pandemic then I'm absolutely convinced there were a lot more than the three people we were losing their rate live because that train in that eventful way today were being jam packed and we ended up with hundreds of people losing their rate lives in better bottom dollar heads a lot of heads were actually rolled as a result I'll stay with you Mick Hoggan I'll stay with the tragedy at Carmont so this was this awful event in 2020 near Stonehaven and just last week it was revealed that only two of the 20 recommended actions have been taken following that tragedy that the Scottish Government owns the railway do you feel that the Scottish Government is sufficiently looking at the new risks from for example the climate emergency that concerns this committee and are its budget decisions appropriate in your view when 18 actions out of the 20 remain untaken? My quick simple way answer is no two recommendations have actually been taken forward out of a total of 20 is an absolute scandal as far as I'm concerned the rail unions and the families who have lost their loved ones will absolutely be appalled in terms of the recommendations that have been addressed so far and it has all the hallmarks all the hallmarks of another potential sadly accident happening again if we actually don't learn the lessons of the actual railway accident we need the action and we need those 20 recommendations to actually be addressed and what we don't need is less investment and less jobs and our maintenance we need more investment and more jobs in order to ensure a safe railway you know and Kevin might be able to touch on this issue in terms of the HSTB trains the HSTB trains the HSTB trains are 50 year old trains and it's an absolute joke an absolute nonsense that we're actually using 50 year old trains and the managing director of the ScotRailway Alliance has quoted on many occasions that the best railway that Scotland's ever had it's the worst railway that Scotland's ever had and what we actually need is more investment and what we don't need is 50 year old trains Kevin Lindsay perhaps you'd like to take that point on the HSTs running up to Aberdeen Can I just go back the RAIB recommendations are 20, the industry is working through them so it's not unusual at this stage a year after it to only have two ticked off so the industry will work through them there's working groups on dealing with them there's national groups and there's also Scottish groups dealing with that so 20, 20 seems terrible but it's not unusual whether that's acceptable is another argument but it's not unusual but I'm sure as an industry which we all participate in we'll get through the recommendations it's whether the Scottish Government will be part of it on the HSTs the HST is 47 year old it's no fit for purpose it's the most polluting train in the UK why it was allowed to come to Scotland is a question I think needs looked at a Bellio won the franchise bid over National Express at the time there was less than one percentage point in awarding the franchise I would like to know why or who within Transport Scotland made that decision because ultimately it was that decision that brought HSTs to Scotland I genuinely believe that the Carman crash and it was a crash and it was caused by failures failures of Network Rail to maintain the infrastructure failure of ScotRail to follow their own policies and I also believe failure of Transport Scotland to protect the people of Scotland by allowing this heritage rolling stock to come to Scotland we've informed ScotRail we've informed various different transport ministers over two year ago that we were going to boycott them from the 12th August this year unless we saw significant improvements in the HSTs at this moment in time we've not received enough information on what improvements are going to be and as such we're looking to boycott these trains come the 12th of August we've got further meetings with the Carman HST steering group which I participate in of course but the likelihood come the 12th of August as they will instruct all our members not to touch these trains based on their crash worthiness the crash worthiness of these trains are from the 1970s they do not meet modern standards they're a fibreglass shell in the front of it with a wooden frame who would build a train miller nowadays you wouldn't do it and who would want to travel at 125mh sitting inside that it's not good enough these trains should never have been in Scotland I'd love to know who made that decision who thought it was going to give us a modern railway sorry Cofino Kevin I see and hear your passion but I have to mix the committee up to make sure they all get their questions I think you've got one more year on time one more question Cofino I'm very grateful for the answer incidentally Robert Samson I'll come to you finally the people of the northeast were promised 200 million to invest in rail in 2016 to shave the intention was to shave 20 minutes off journey times to the central belt which would give better flexibility on the timetables better experience for the staff and better experience for passengers now I believe only about or just over 1% of that has actually been spent and the outcomes of course haven't actually been delivered yet so after one year of Scottish Government ownership which doesn't appear to be impacting on the spending of this 200 million how do you find passengers are feeling about this lack of the 20 minutes being delivered and is it having an impact on the recovery of our railway and do you get any sense that this money will be delivered in the 20 minutes shaved? We haven't any sense of when the money will actually be spent but as a passenger one of the top 10 priorities is for quicker journey times but that's after punctuality, reliability, frequency so those are the main ones for passengers but where you would have the impact of quicker journey time is actually on model shift between Aberdeen and the central belt that would have its greatest impact that is one of the greater drivers for non-users coming on to the rail network existing passengers who use it just now are more interested in how cheap is my ticket is it punctual and reliable is there a good frequency of service I'm able to get a seat on the train those are the main issues after then it comes to quicker journey times but in trying to meet other Government objectives of getting more people on to public transport then yes quicker journey times is definitely a lever that has to be pulled So just to be absolutely clear if that money was spent if the 20 minutes was delivered we could see significant model shift being in the central belt you would see some model shift I haven't got the actual percentages but that is one of the main drivers for non-users changing mode as faster journey times very grateful Mark, you're going to have the shortest question to one person an issue has been raised with me about the illegal migration bill and its effect on transport workers because it appears that it will effectively require transport workers to assist in home office deportations is that an issue that your members have raised with you who's that going to it's one person only because train drivers are in charge so we will just refuse to do it full stop and end of it's nonsense policy and to expect a train driver to go back and then start manhandling a person on a train ridiculous right, thanks so much thank you all for coming in this morning your passion in the subject has been clear to all thank you for the evidence you've given and thank you for also explaining to me the complex structure of how the whole system works I'm briefly going to suspend the meeting to allow a changeover of witnesses welcome back everyone we're now going to hear from a panel of Scottish train operators I'm therefore pleased to welcome Alex Hines the managing director of Scotland's railway David Lowry the chief executive of Scottish rail holdings limited Joanne McGuire the chief operating officer for ScotRail trains limited and Liam Sumter the root director for Network Rail Scotland thank you all for accepting our invitation and before we begin on the questions I believe that Alex Hines wished to make a short opening statement on behalf of the panel and while you're at it Mr Hines could you help me I was confused and muddled about who does what, who reports to who as indeed were the unions in our last panel so perhaps you could take your opening statement briefly to explain that okay of course well good morning and thank you convener and thank you to the committee for giving us the opportunity to set out the work we're doing as Scotland's railway that's ScotRail, Network Rail Scotland and Scottish rail holdings to deliver a safe, reliable and green railway that provides value for passengers and tax payers from the moment the Scottish Government announced that ScotRail would return to public ownership on the 1st of April last year a key priority was on ensuring a smooth transition Scottish rail holdings are arm's length from government and responsible for the oversight, governance and stewardship of ScotRail successfully co-ordinated the transition from private to public ownership with no disruption to passengers or our staff in which we are proud because it didn't happen by accident it took brilliant work across our three organisations as well as with Transport Scotland the Scottish Government our staff, our trade union partners and our suppliers and more to make that happen of course the first year of public ownership wasn't without its challenges of course the industrial action on pay faced initially by ScotRail and then later on resulted in significant disruption for passengers but as we sit here today both disputes are now resolved and ScotRail staff are currently voting on pay deals that have been recommended to them by ASLEF and the RMT the two trade unions which represent the vast majority of our front line teams that's significant progress but we're also making progress in three other key areas passenger numbers are increasing punctuality is improving revenue is growing but we aren't out of the post pandemic woods just yet travel patterns have changed significantly but things are heading in the right direction getting people out of their cars or encouraging more commuter and leisure travel is vital to supporting the Scottish Government's decarbonisation targets increasing revenue and reducing government subsidy public ownership gives us the opportunity to plan for the long term future of the railway rather than the life cycle private franchise the upcoming peak fairs trial is a good example of doing things differently under our new ownership arrangements we're proud of our role in connecting communities growing Scotland's economy and meeting the country's climate change targets which align with wider Scottish Government objectives we believe the first year of public ownership provides us with a strong foundation upon which to build thank you very much thank you were you going to help me and explain what I find difficult to understand in the last session about who does what as we know the rail industry in Britain is more fragmented than most would like so essentially network rail runs the infrastructure here in Scotland ScotRail runs the trains here in Scotland my role is a joint role I oversee both ScotRail and Network Rail in Scotland ScotRail holdings are responsible for the oversight, governance and stewardship of ScotRail so just so I understand the Minister for Transport you report to them not directly I have a dual reporting line one to Network Rail and one to ScotRail so David chairs the ScotRail board which is a job for ScotRail holdings ScotRail holdings is the arms length company Scottish Government established to oversee the newly nationalised ScotRail and from next month oversee the ownership of Caledonian Sleeper as well so your role within that just so I understand that is what so I'm the managing director of ScotRail and I'm the managing director of Network Rail in Scotland because ScotRail and Network Rail have an alliance agreement with each other because we believe that track and train working together delivers better outcomes for passengers and taxpayers and that's one of the many reasons why ScotRail outperforms its peers in terms of efficiency customer satisfaction and reliability because we've found a way of working in our fragmented GB railway system for Scotland so if it's on track you'll go to the minister and if it's on passenger delivery of services to the minister is that right? sorry perhaps I'm being I'm being complicated I'm trying to see what the pyramid is essentially Liam Joe and I run the railway on a day-to-day basis that's our job ScotRail holdings is responsible for the governance and oversight of ScotRail trains and then the key strategic and policy decisions are made by the Scottish Government so who do you report to Alice? I have a dual reporting line one to David as the chair of ScotRail and the other to Andrew Haynes who's the chief executive in Network Rail and that's because we believe that track and train working together delivers better performance okay I'm just trying to understand the reporting the more complicated reporting structures are the more difficult it is I think to see a way through it but if you think it works I was under the impression the unions didn't think it worked or thought it was sufficiently opaque that they found it they tried to explain it but they struggled I think in part I think what our trade union partners commentary on the structure actually relates to the complexity of the rail structure across GB which obviously is nothing to do with us our job is to just do the best job we can for passengers and taxpayers within the existing industry structure right okay ash you're going to head off with the first questions please thank you good morning panel transport focus identifies value for money as passengers number one priority but they found that only 65% of ScotRail passengers considered their trip to be value for money so I'm interested in your views and also what your organisation is able to do either collectively or individually to lower the cost of rail travel in Scotland who would like to attempt to answer that first thank you I'll start and then may bring others in so clearly passengers primarily care about two things one is the price of the ticket and the other is punctuality and we work hard on both at all times the transport focus independent survey also showed that customer satisfaction with ScotRail is one of the highest of operators across Britain but we know we can make it better clearly value for money scores were a little bit lower fares across ScotRail are on average around 20% lower than fares elsewhere in the UK which is good news for passengers and we've actually frozen ScotRail fares since January of last year recognising the crisis which is being faced across the economy and society right now and as I mentioned in my opening statement in October we intend to undertake a trial where we abolish peak fares across the network for a period of six months so improving the service but also improving the value for money for passengers is right at the heart of our strategy for delivering for the people of Scotland OK who else would like to answer I think the balance one of the things that one has to remember is that there's a whole number of things of policy out there that we may touch upon today but policy is a matter of government and one of the aspects of that that's relevant to the question is the balance between fares from fare paying passengers and subsidy from the government for operation so we have to balance those priorities and I think the balance at any particular one time is a matter for government so if a government wanted to spend more subsidy it could reduce fares all VC versa OK, Joanne Thank you We are committed to providing the best service possible to the travelling public in Scotland and in terms of cost efficiency as David said there's a matter for government on policy but for example we review our timetable twice a year and just last year we conducted our largest of our public consultation on our timetable as we re-emerged from the pandemic so that's another example of the ways in which we're committed to providing the best value service for customers and being there when they need us Can you just explain to the committee the link then between timetable and fares Yeah, so in terms of but my answer was specific to the public perception around value for money and we consistently get feedback around where demand sits for our services and how that links to value for money OK, thank you. Liam, do you have anything to add? Sure, so within Network Rail one of our five strategic priorities is to contribute towards a reduction of the net cost of the railway because we recognise that operating maintaining renewing infrastructure is really expensive business and we're developing our strategic business plan for the next five-year period which starts in April of next year and as part of that we're committing to several hundred million pounds worth of efficiencies that will help to drive down the overall net cost of the railway so that we can make sure that there isn't a further burden on the Scottish taxpayer for that OK, thank you. Clearly the pandemic had a quite profound effect on the number of rail passengers who were travelling I guess we're into a phase now where perhaps we're seeing that begin to sort of settle into what maybe we can call a new normal for numbers of rail passengers Do you think that enough has been done to adjust services to meet these new travel patterns and also if you can give the committee an idea of what implications these changes in traveller numbers are having on rail finances, that would be helpful as well Yeah, sure, I'll take this initially so what we've seen since the pandemic is extraordinary changes in the pattern of demand for rail services so as we sit here today our peak business is down by 40% which is absolutely extraordinary but our leisure market has recovered really strongly and is reaching pre-COVID levels so broadly we're taking about 80% of revenue on about 80% of pre-COVID service and we're constantly looking at the service we provide to make sure it's adequate for the way that the market is bouncing back so earlier this month we changed our timetable we added additional services where there was greater demand to operate so for example we now run four trains an hour during the day between Edinburgh and Glasgow on a Saturday and yet we don't one day to Friday something that would have been unthinkable three and a half years ago so whether you're in ScotRail or Network Rail we're having to change our business to accommodate the new patterns of demand we're seeing so for example Saturday is our busiest day on ScotRail now again unthinkable three and a half years ago and between ScotRail and Network Rail one of the things we've started to do is moving engineering work out of Saturdays so we can stay open as far as we can on the railways busiest day in terms of the impact of finances obviously it's not being good at the height of the pandemic our revenue dropped by 92% and for every pound we lost in Fairbox revenue we had topped up through subsidy and clearly the Scottish Government is keen to for us to deliver a great service but also reduce the subsidy requirement now as it happens as we sit here we're very fortunate because actually revenue is coming back quite strongly obviously last year there was quite a bit of industrial action around the network which thankfully we're now clear of here in Scotland and forecast to remain so that's a great environment in which we can market and promote the product get people back on trains Saturday just gone we carried 300,000 people on the network it was a very busy Saturday that was 50% more than the year before so growing revenue and being efficient is critical to reducing the subsidy requirement as well as delivering a great service for passengers as well Thank you David, do you have anything to add? I think again coming back to the fact that passengers are continuing to adjust we're not maybe convinced that people have found a definitive position as regards hybrid working and the great thing about our timetable is we change it twice a year so we can continue to evolve and respond as passengers continue to find what the new norm actually is I think a really important point is as colleagues have just said to determine what the new norm is we need to provide services to satisfy that because our role is ultimately to provide the best real services that we can for the people of Scotland Liam, I didn't ask you to comment because I assume that this is more directed at your colleagues but if you have anything to add, feel free Alex mentioned how we're looking more innovative ways to take what we call access to the railway to undertake engineering works so we're spending time looking at whether moving works away from weekend traditionally we usually do our work Easter holidays Christmas holidays things like that but if that becomes more popular for customers then we want to be agile and responsive to that so we've got a really big programme working with operators and customers to understand when best to do our work so that we can more accurately reflect the changing travel plans and we're really open to doing that because we really see that as our part in this passenger numbering or the busiest day what's the new least busy day? Sunday Is that a change or is that the same as it was before? That is the same but one of the things we did last year was negotiate a pay deal with ASLEF and RMT who you heard from earlier on and Jo's the expert on this so I'll bring in Jo but Sundays currently aren't in the working week for ScotRail staff and as part of that pay deal we agreed with ASLEF and RMT that we would work towards bringing Sundays within the working week by 2027 and if indeed that's successful that will enable us to expand our Sunday service because we actually think because the Sunday service is relatively limited it's suppressing revenue in other days as well and we want to be able to accommodate this leisure driven growth to the railway and to come in on the working party around Sundays For us and the trade unions we have a lot more in common than it might sometimes appear on the surface and one of the things that we are committed to is reducing our reliance on what we call rest day working so we provide trains across seven days of the week but we actually contract our staff to work across six days of the week so the working parties towards 2027 are focused on how we introduce Sundays so that we normalise them and that staff are in fact contracted across four or five days and that Sunday is part of that contractual obligation and that allows us greater flexibility when we're looking at future timetable reviews Okay, thank you Thank you, the next questions come from Jackie Dunbar Good morning We heard from the last panel about their reasons why they thought that there should be a challenge group created and I'd just like to hear what your thoughts are on that is that something that you'd be keen to see? We transport focus all the time on helping to listen what customers are saying about our service so increasing the volume of the customer voice in the way we plan our service is absolutely critical Transport focus obviously undertake the independent survey and we got a 90% satisfaction rating in that last survey which we're very proud of but we know it can be better and Robert Sampson and all his colleagues are actually on our independently chaired stakeholder panel so we're very keen to hear from Transport focus if they've got some best practice or good practice from other sectors to see whether we can strengthen the customer voice within the way we run our services So sorry, I'm being a bit thick this morning Does that mean that you would be keen to see a challenge group going down into the depths that they were suggesting? Anything which increases the voice of the customer in the way that we plan and deliver services we'd absolutely support the written submission from Transport focus at the same time as you did and that's one thing we'll be talking to Transport focus about, we're always keen to learn from other sectors if there's an opportunity to strengthen the way we run the company Okay, thank you Okay, the next questions are actually going to come from me So, my question is is that one of the key milestones or assessments of the way network was operating was to see whether the moving annual average performance targets were being met and the Scottish Government constantly said that a bellio was failing them and Alex, I remember you having to answer those questions We now have less trains and we're still not meeting the target so can somebody explain that to me please? So our target is 92.5% across the entire year we measure trends of punctuality across the year because it's seasonal and ever since the network rail RMT dispute was resolved we've been living really strong operational performance so we're delivering at that level currently the challenge of course is to deliver it throughout the calendar year what we've seen is a growing impact of severe weather on the network in the recent years and we're working hard in network rail and ScotRail to reduce that impact so primarily around extreme rainfall and of course the impact of autumn so now that management in both organisations is undistracted by industrial action we can work together on the improvement plans to improve punctuality so as of this morning we're at 89% we're a few percentage points shy of the target and that's for us to work together on to improve that we believe it can be better and we need to make it so one of the reasons why Abellio lost the contract is that they failed to meet that target and I remember having lots of discussions with you about that in this meeting we now have less trains so there should be less problems but we're still not meeting the target so was it wrong to criticise Abellio because it seems to be that you're blaming it on the weather which Abellio were never giving the opportunity of doing I don't know I'm struggling to understand the er as I mentioned earlier on the rail industry is a system and no matter what the structure or the ownership of the railway is it's our job as railway managers to do the best possible job within the structure and ownership that we have one of the things that is a benefit of public ownership is we can take a longer term view so for example if you're a short term private operator you're probably not going to invest in the resources in order to bring Sunday within the working week for example five years into the future so that's an example where our ownership allows us to take a longer term view because we don't have to worry about the short term interests of shareholders but from our perspective particularly Liam Joe and I our job is to do the best job we can within the existing ownership structure I still haven't had an answer to the question, Abellio were reaching roughly the same targets that you are reaching now they were running more trains so it was a more cluttered landscape and they were criticised constantly for doing it by the Scottish Government for failing to reach the target by the Scottish Government but you're saying it's okay now because it's in public ownership that that target isn't met The ownership of ScotRail is a matter for Scottish Government so you need to talk to them about why they took the decision that they did which was to nationalise ScotRail at the break point I understand the Government will choose the ownership structure I'm just saying that we were criticising somebody for not reaching the targets you're not reaching the targets at the moment should you not be criticised as well we should be held to account absolutely which is one of the reasons why we're here and I can guarantee you that colleagues in ScotRail and in Network Rail Scotland are working really hard on improving the punctuality of the service I would add that even though we're not hitting target ScotRail punctuality and customer sat outperforms most of its peers across GB but we know it can be better and we will make it better So when do you imagine that he will reach the target that you aspire to that's current we don't honestly know because as I've highlighted some of the things are not within our control so what we're seeing is climate change happening for real we now know that Scotland is being affected more by climate change in parts of the UK so not everything is within railway management's control so our aim is to deliver that target as fast as we possibly can Okay it seems I'm hearing exactly the same story that I heard in 2019 just in the slightly different guides Liam the next question is yours Thank you convener, good morning panel on a related point David Lowry how does Scottish rail holdings incentivise good performance by ScotRail and equally how does it penalise poor performance? I think if we step back and look at what Scottish rail holdings is for I think it's to help manage on behalf of the Government good performance and improvement for the long term a couple of the issues we've already touched on already are symptoms of long term issues we are as I think some other colleagues said earlier here to be expert railway people to help manage ScotRail trains on behalf of the Government and public the expert railway people to do it so some of that is in terms of how we interface with them on a day to day basis and in board meetings with the experience in my part for example of 25 or so years in the industry and seeing things done elsewhere it's about encouraging good behaviours for the long term thanks for that but I'm not sure I heard an answer as to how you incentivise performance or don't or is it just when you say you encourage better performance is that just you're sitting in the board meetings and saying come on chaps must do better I think it's about encouragement mentoring discouraging things that might have an adverse result about taking the long view one of the most important things we can do in that is make sure that we have the right people running the business day to day because if we're to look at and I say it's a long term business why is it a long term business our assets last 30, 40, 50, 100 years so the big decisions are made a long time out there's always an innate conflict between the long term electrification, greening etc and the day to day issues of the timetable it rained yesterday whatever but these things are how do we address them in the long term and set the long term direction and tone thank you just before I hand back a very quick question to Alex Hynes then I think what I'm hearing is that there's no financial incentive to either promote good performance or to penalise poor performance coming from Scottish rail holdings just for the avoidance of doubt is there any similar incentive scheme coming from any other body so there is a performance regime which governs the performance of the trains across GB rail so if Scott rail causes a delay it pays compensation to Network Rail so that incentivises both parties to improve punctuality Scottish rail holdings holds Scott rail to account and the office of rail and road holds Network Rail to account and one of the good things about working in Scotland is Transport Scotland set an identical performance target for both Scott rail and for Network Rail and the two teams work together to improve punctuality and how does Transport Scotland penalise if those targets aren't met so ORR would take enforcement action against Network Rail if it felt that Network Rail wasn't taking all reasonable steps to improve performance and Scott rail management is held to account by Scottish rail holdings and where targets are not met we have to produce a performance improvement plan understand just before we briefly move on if I may under a bellios when they were in charge there used to be the squire fund which used to get lots of money from a bellio in fines and then was used to increase an upgrade infrastructure across the network does the squire fund still exist do you have to contribute to it and if it doesn't exist have the monies that have been lost from that fund being made up by the Scottish Government so squire as in the incentive regime doesn't exist any longer so that was a function of the franchise agreement between Transport Scotland and a bellio of Scott rail what we have now in the grant agreement which has replaced the franchise agreement is a regime called service quality which looks very very similar but it doesn't have the financial penalties and bonuses attached to it and I'm pleased to say that our performance on that service quality regime is really rather good right now but it's no longer a financial regime okay I seem to remember it did rather a lot of good the squire fund to many stations Mark I just want to go back to industrial relations again the first panel we had this morning union colleagues we were getting a strong impression that things had perhaps turned the corner things were improving can you say a bit more about what your impressions are on industrial relations and whether you think anything needs to continue to improve or change on that regard the committee heard from this morning three of the four rail trade unions and you will have heard from them that their overall impression of the first year of public ownership of ScotRail was a positive one of the fact to think one of our colleagues said that industrial relations had dramatically improved for which particularly Joe the CEO of ScotRail deserves a big amount of credit for that clearly as Joe mentioned on most things we actually agree we want to deliver a great service for passengers we want to see a growing railway and we want to provide great jobs for our staff so we would agree that industrial relations have improved under the first year of public ownership and one of the things that Joe and the team have been working hard on recently is actually this year's pay round and as we sit here today our staff as left and RMT members in ScotRail are voting under a referendum for a pay deal which the trade union has recommended to our staff that they accept so Joe, anything you'd like to add on that? Yes, thanks Alex and thank you for your words but none of this works without all of the parties coming to the table so there's a huge deal of credit to be given to the trade unions and to many of my management colleagues who they all work consistently hard you don't do a pay deal many of you will know by sitting down once a year and having a conversation this is about day to day relationships and hard work from all sides transparency under public sector is certainly helping us in terms of our industrial relations climate we've just opened an employee engagement survey to get a real temperature test as to where our culture is at as a public sector employer and we will remain committed to working with our trade unions will we always agree on everything? No, but that's not the deal the deal is that they should challenge us and we should challenge them and as long as relationships remain constructive we remain optimistic that we can work in partnership and actually really deliver the best railway in Scotland because whether it be our customers or whether it be our staff are always about people and that's what's important to us that's very good to hear can I just switch back to the question about the removal of peak time fares and that pilot from October it sounds like one outcome to this might be that a lot of people start getting back on the trains again which is great for fare box income but I suppose there may be issues there around overcrowding potentially I don't know how prepared are you to introduce that pilot because I guess it's a little bit of an unknown now given that we're in a new normal and the peak has moved anyway so obviously it's a trial and one of the reasons why it's a trial is we're not entirely sure how customers will react to that trial which is the abolition of peak fares for six months across all routes from October and one of the things we've seen is these huge shifts in the market and obviously as you might imagine we're trying to predict what is going to be the impact of one of the boldest fare initiatives that we've seen anywhere across rail full stop let alone in this country and there's probably quite a wide range of outcomes even the best modelers in the world won't be able to predict this with a level of accuracy so we've got to be flexible to be able to respond to that and add additional carriages and or additional services we will where resources are available but for example currently some of our busiest trains are actually the first off-peak train because people are holding back to buy the cheaper fare and so what we probably need to do is reallocate the way we use our carriages across the network to accommodate that but we do have spare seats available still in the peak most of the network and where we think that we need to add more carriages and more services we will Okay, Monica did you want to come in on that? Yeah, thank you, convener Both panels this morning have talked us through the new institutional arrangements and how they're working, how they might be improved as only a year on but I was keen to pick up an issue that's been raised in Parliament according to board papers that have become public the former chair of ScotRail Chris Gibb who is also the chief executive officer of Scottish rail holdings I hope I've got that correct he's no longer in those roles but he raised concerns about micro-management by Scottish ministers, advisers and officials David Lowry, do you recognise that? I obviously can't talk for Chris personally in terms of his leaving he had a fixed-term contract and he was employed by Scottish rail holdings for the entire originally expected period of that contract so it was always anticipated in that sense contractly that he would leave when he did in terms of those phrases, I've heard those phrases since he left before I knew he was going I didn't hear I had no conversations with him on that sort of stuff in terms of worries and I just do not recall a conversation before he announced he was not going so I've got this right so back in 2020 you were the chief financial officer is that correct? we've heard a little bit about how the different organisations work and the different interfaces so did you have contact with Government both ministers and officials? I've always had routine contact with Government various civil servants officials etc and I've met the ministers on several occasions but the main contact is always with the officials so you have not had concern about micromanagement? since I became chief executive officer and chairman of scot rail I've got no concerns on that I think the relationships have all worked very well we've got a good relationship with Government but in the past was there interference by ministers for example from Jenny Gilruth was there overreach? Government funds us substantially and it's quite entitled to make requests from time to time because it sets policies it wants to implement this or implement that whatever we have plenty of requests plenty of discussions with Government officials that's the extent of it really I think I think we'd expect that to be robust but you're not aware of any I mean there's been some discussion in Parliament that might have been interference by ministers or overreach so you don't have those concerns you didn't experience that or witness that I think the actions of ministers are probably a question for Government rather than ourselves as the actual operators and managers of the business okay but I was keen to hear from our panel so thank you for that convener I'll leave it there I was interested to see where that was going next John McGuire How will ScotRail go about procuring new rail stock? Will that be through Roscoe's or is ScotRail going to do it directly? Thank you for your question it's very early days with regards to our procurement journey and we are I will bring David in because we will do our procurement with and through Scottish rail holdings as you would expect as they set governance and policy what I would like to reassure at the panel is that we are hugely aware that these are some of the largest investments that the Scottish Government will have made and will make for some time when we go to procure our rolling stock we are making significant long term commitments on behalf of the Government when we procure and we are hugely aware of our responsibilities as a public sector body and with regards to technicalities it is very early days but I don't know if David you want to comment I think as Joe said very early days these are assets that we are hoping and expecting to acquire sometime over the next 10 years which will last generations to come therefore I think it's absolutely the right thing to do to consider with our colleagues and government how we fund those at that time and what the best way to do it is and I would not want to close any options down at this stage because we need to appraise that decision of whether it came from Rosco of internal funding or somewhere else at the time that we make that decision Thank you I'll stick with you David Lauri if I may then because transport Scotland has expressed that Scotland's railway should be decarbonised by 2035 so given the hopes and expectations that you've just outlined how can you ensure that there will be effective decarbonisation by 2035? I think it's all about steps on the road it's how do we plan the long term what can we do each day and year to make things better in terms of when decarbonisation will happen we will only be able to know that once it's happened I think my we have a series decisions to wholly decarbonise the railway you'd have to electrify every route in terms of current terms and that's really a question for colleagues at Network Rail to when they could do that because then once it was electrified we'd have zero carbon trains on it So in 2020 Transport Scotland published its rail services decarbonisation action plan which committed to removing diesel vehicles from the network by 2035 most passenger journeys on ScotRail are already made on electric trains so we've already decarbonised most of the network already and we've got a proud record of electrification here in Scotland we're currently on site electrifying the railway between Glasgow and Barhead we're electrifying the railway between ScotRail so we'll have electric trains running round to Barhead later this year in fact and between Network Rail, Transport Scotland and Scottish Rail Holdings we're working on the plan to decarbonise which will see more electrification and decarbonised trains and we've got a joined up track and train plan for that the decarbonisation action plan which was published in 2020 that's due a refresh this year and we're working with Transport Scotland officials on that and I think it's important to say the biggest thing we can do in that is encourage mode switch from for example roads to rails and we can do only do that by providing reliable services that people believe in that's what union colleagues were talking about earlier on and it's why we're all in one community in this we have shared objectives which is why we want to all improve performance sticking with Alex Hines and sticking with exactly that point union colleagues were pretty clear earlier on that whilst most journeys might be electrified there is a significant part of the network which is not and is running on 50 year old high speed trains and we heard earlier, this committee heard earlier just how polluting they are in relation to an example given in Glasgow but Kevin Lindsay also raised significant concerns about safety on these HSTs the RAIB after Carmont raised or made significant points certainly about these HSTs and you heard I'm sure Mr Hines Kevin Lindsay's points about how crucial it was that these were replaced so Alex Hines what is being done to replace the high speed trains and when will they be replaced so we're already planning the renewal of the high speed trains essentially the intercity fleet for ScotRail as it stands today those trains are on lease by ScotRail until 2030 but we are looking at options to replace them earlier than that in the context of the need to decarbonise so currently you've got a high speed train which runs from Glasgow to Aberdeen and it's diesel operated all the way even though we have wires to sterling so for example one of the things we're looking at is could we procure a hybrid train which would enable us to run electric at least out of the city centres and then move on to diesel power later in the context of the overall decarbonisation by 2035 obviously we're aware of as less concerns around the safety of the high speed trains those trains are safe, they have a good safety record they meet all the requirements to operate safely on the GB rail network but we recognise as less concerns and we're working with them constructively on those concerns so in the coming weeks we're going to modify those trains in line with the rail accident investigation branch report which was published in the March of last year since the tragic accident at Stonehaven on 12 August 2020 we took immediate steps to reduce the chances of that happening again and whether that's on the infrastructure, on the rolling stock or indeed our control centre and our operational rules we've already made the network a lot safer but we need to make sure we track all those 20 rail accident investigation branch recommendations through to conclusion in fact we've got a meeting with the trade unions on that next week so just to be absolutely clear and reflect that back, notwithstanding the RAIB as less concerns driver dissatisfaction it could be 2030 before Scotland's railway fully moves on from those HSTs currently they're on lease until 2030 and clearly if we decided to replace them earlier than that then that ultimately is a decision for government so understand that that wouldn't require the development of a new train and I remember certainly when the 125s or the HSTs came up six years ago you were saying they were a great step forward but the railway the new trains took quite a long time to come into service and development we're 2023 now, we're seven years away if the design process started now and the procurement process started now would they be available by 2030? Yes basically from a standing start through to the delivery of a fleet of new trains in passenger service that process takes about five years from start to end we've already done some advanced work on procurement of a suburban fleet for example enabling us to retire some of our diesel trains in the next five years if you look at our rolling stock strategy we've got a clear plan where we essentially procure new trains as rolling stock reaches its date of life expiry and we've got a rolling stock plan which is complementary with the infrastructure plan so we can deliver the decarbonisation we don't just want more modern trains so we can deliver great services for passengers we also want decarbonised services so for example on the Aberdeen central belt project we are already bringing bridges down on that route in advance of full electrification and that development work is being funded by the Scottish Government even though we're not in full delivery mode yet final question before I go to Jackie just on the you say the contract for the leasing last till 2030 are there break clauses before that or are you absolutely tied in without significant penalties or with significant penalties if you break that lease only I don't have that contractual detail and even if I did it would probably be commercially confidential because those trains are of course owned by Angel Trains Limited but as it stands they're on lease to ScotRail to 2030 I think that we could just amplify one of the key things Alex said there was options we're continually looking at options de-risking things how to do things to reduce emissions in the long term do things in the short term modal switch is lowest reasonably practical which we're bound to do for safety these trains are safe and for the financial duties to taxpayers to provide value for money so we're continually looking at options and to work out the best and most robust way through this for the long term okay thank you Jackie the next question's up with you thank you can I ask you what your plans are on how you're going to improve the accessibility of Scotland's rail network especially around about improving access at stations and making sure that the new rolling stock allows level boarding from platforms thank you well obviously the services we provide we want to be for everybody and we have a Victorian rail network where that wasn't a priority but we're investing heavily both in ScotRail and indeed network rail to improve the accessibility of our network one of the things we're very proud of is that we roster two people on board every train so we can help people board and light trains but obviously people with reduced mobility want the ability to turn up and go quite rightly so any new trains which we procure in the future will have level boarding as a requirement built into that procurement process and what that means is where the platform is a standard height it will deliver perfect level boarding between track and train now obviously that's a relative medium to long term investment but as we stand here today across the network we're investing in access for all schemes where we fit accessible footbridges to improve accessibility so we recently completed schemes at Johnston, at Croy I was at Port Glasgow a couple of weeks ago on site looking at the project to deliver an access for all scheme there to improve the overall accessibility of our railway so it's a big part of our plans both on trains and on infrastructure and indeed the way we operate the service in regards to your platforms there's going to be a lot of work needed for all the platforms or do you think that it's just going to be the occasional one underneath so more modern rolling stock generally has a lower floor anyway so it will reduce the size of the gap so that's great news everywhere for example on the borders railway which is a relatively new railway all the platforms are of what we call a standard height compliant with the standard and that will deliver perfect level boarding everywhere where we go in and undertake infrastructure work so maybe we might be renewing a platform or creating a new platform all the new infrastructure investment is built to that standard so it would deliver the perfect level boarding if the train had level boarding thank you Jackie the next questions come from Monica Lennon I want to return to the issue of antisocial behaviour we heard from the panel this morning some of the challenges and some of the real concerns I think it was Mick Hog at RMT was suggesting that perhaps it's getting out of control already and he doesn't want to be the person to say I told you so and he talked about something really serious happening including the loss of life in future I don't know Joanne McGuire I think you've got responsibility for safety so perhaps you could kick this off but what are the challenges around antisocial behaviour what's causing it and what is the impact right now both for passengers and for staff thank you and you'll not be surprised here we talked to the trade unions about this and we are committed to resolving it our starting point and what I've discussed with the trade unions unfortunately antisocial behaviour isn't a scot rail issue and it's not a railway issue this is a much broader societal issue and I'm sure the panel are much better versed on that than I am we were encouraged to see that the Scottish Government are going to launch conversations in schools talking about violence in schools and what can be done to tackle that and we are committed to working with partners across the public sector as to how we best tackle antisocial behaviour because unfortunately we are seeing a lot coming from the younger elements of our population whether it be a member of staff or a passenger our strong view is that one assault is one assault too many and we want to do our best to protect all parties we're working with British Transport Police where we look at hotspots and where we're seeing specifically challenging areas we've increased the numbers on our travel safe team who work out and about around our network and work with our on-train staff and sometimes in stations to best prevent antisocial behaviour but unfortunately there are no magical answers or no simple answers we were delighted that the Scottish Government recently backed our spending on body cameras they are fast becoming a very important element in terms of our preventative measures and we will see an increase a threefold increase in the availability of body cameras for our staff from around September of this year so there are lots of different ways to see social behaviour and as I say very very cognisant the fact that there is a societal issue out there that's a really important point that you made and we did discuss in the earlier session about the forthcoming summits looking at violence in schools but I think a joined up approach would be a smart one that's been helpful what more could we do in the Parliament and across the Government I'm looking back at what Jenny Glover said last year about discussions between ministers particularly transport and justice looking at whether more legislation is required clearly there's a frustration that there are offenders and persistent offenders who cause havoc and then get back on the train hours later or days later so could legislation play a useful part in terms of trying to better manage access to Scotland shieldways for those who are persistent offenders in terms of violence and serious disorder colleagues might want to further comment but what we are focused on in ScotRail is what we can directly influence for our staff and our passengers at ScotRail one of our challenges is we run what is broadly an open network so it is impossible for BTP, Police Scotland and others to be everywhere at any given time so we are committed to ensuring that we have the right staff in the right place to try and ensure that we drive down for example ticketless travel which is another reason for which we see antisocial behaviour in terms of policy legislation obviously that's a matter for government but now that we are within the public sector looking at multi agency work where we can to best combat so for example we've been engaging with local authorities where we see specific incidences of antisocial behaviour and how we can best partner with them on it okay and just to ask about the particular issues that have affected women and girls again Jenna Goryth in posts put quite a lot of focus on that what has been done to improve the safety and security of women and girls travelling on the Scottish rail network so I think a starting point is we acknowledge the study that was done by Scottish Government across public transport and specifically looking at women and girls who use public transport we don't want anyone whether women, girls or any of our users to feel unsafe so ways in which we're working so we're working with British Transport Police as I mentioned we've increased the numbers of our travel safety and we are looking at how we best man our stations and our trains at times when safety may be a particular concern or where we have particular safety hotspots I think as I mentioned it's something we're really committed to and we are working in partnership with our trade unions but unfortunately there's just no magic answers so can the public be confident that there's a zero-tolerance policy against antisocial behaviour or criminality on Scotland railways so we have made very public statements people may have seen them through social media through our various ways of communicating that we do take a zero-tolerance approach whether it be violence between members of the public or in fact against our own staff I thought it was interesting the attitude that I didn't realise that the chains were pulled to stop the train on numerous occasions and there hadn't been one single conviction it seems to be that there needs to be a complete mind switch on what's acceptable and not acceptable on trains we had about spitting and feet on seats are you going to do anything to address that because it's not just can't be other people it's got to be you pushing it because that all would be contrary to the culture of respect for the staff who have to operate the railways so as Joe says one of the things we've done in the last since Covid we're replacing our body cam fleet and it's voluntary for our staff to use body cams because it's up to them and what we're seeing is growing use of our body cams we rolled them out six years ago now they've been phenomenally successful and we're seeing increasing use and we're in the process of replacing those and one of the reasons why we're such strong advocates of our body cams if our staff want to use them is that we can collect evidence which can be used in prosecutions which obviously is a real challenge we didn't used to have a travel safety team of 28 colegs who help, support passengers and staff on those bits of the network where we get hotspots so it might be particular lines of route at times of day it might be event driven good weather people go down to the coast and they come back having consumed alcohol those are the sorts of activities that that team undertake to try and keep the network safe for everybody I think some of those cameras came from the squar fund if I remember rightly which would be a welcome addition to the safety on the train but are you encouraging staff to lead prosecutions or push for a prosecution where people behave badly because I think that's important we're encouraging our staff to take a body cam if that's what they would like to do whilst they're undertaking their work because we know on the rare occasions when something does go wrong that evidence is absolutely critical if we're able to mount a prosecution or indeed the police are of course the British Transport Police are responsible for the policing of the network which is why we work in partnership with them to keep the network safe thank you Mark you've got a question can I ask about your plans for ticket offices or maybe we should just call them station offices because it's quite clear that the staff working there do a lot more than just ticket sales where are those plans currently sitting because there was some widespread concern not just from rail unions but from passenger groups about either ticket office closures or changing the times that these offices are open and how that might impact on the passenger safety and the passenger experience and I think in the first panel this morning we were hearing again about antisocial behaviour and how having staff stations could really help with that as well so can you give us a rundown on where we're actually at with your plans which were quite widely opposed I'll bring Jo in shortly but the first thing to say is we're not planning to close any ticket offices and actually no decisions have been made so that's the first thing a couple of years ago now we did a big review of the way we staffed our stations and we made some proposals that were consulted on and we made some changes to those proposals in the light of the consultation so it was a genuine listening exercise and we changed our proposals in the light of the consultation responses that we got we believe there's an opportunity to improve the visibility of staff for customers to be more efficient and to grow revenue and the fact that the way people buy tickets has fundamentally changed over the last 30 years when we've not changed our ticket office opening hours so as we sit here today 62% of our revenue comes from self-service methods and 16% comes from ticket offices so this is about adjusting what our staff do and where they do it as customers change their behaviour but as I said at the outset no closures are proposed and no decisions are being made this is a matter for government Joe, anything you'd like to add? The starting point would be that as part of last year's pay deal we agreed there would be six years protection on no compulsory redundancies at ScotRail and when we approach our station staffing strategy we will engage comprehensively and when we looked to review opening hours we didn't actually just look at it through the lens of ticket sales we took a more holistic view so for example we carried out a diversity impact assessment and through that we took our original proposals and we added 167 hours back in where we identified there was demand for assistance boarding or disembarking our trains so there's not just through a single lens of ticket sales as I said when we have authority to progress we will engage extensively with our trade unions and their input to this will be really important but this is about making our railway as safe as possible this is about trying to decrease ticketless travel which reduces our reliance on subsidy but it is also part of our deterrent measures against antisocial behaviour and this is about staff being more visible which again is a further deterrent to antisocial behaviour and an enhancement to our desire to being the most accessible railway that we can that original consultation and your reflection on it has sometimes elapsed between that and that and we talked to everyone about the new normal removal of peak time fares travel changing consistently changing is the plan that you've currently got is that still fit for purpose might it change again is there clarity on what the demand on staff might be at stations what I would say is that the longer time elapses from the point at which we consulted on the proposal then obviously some of the assumptions we made become out of date because we're seeing this huge changes in demand patterns so just to reiterate we're not proposing to close any ticket offices and no decisions are being made and if and when Government would like us to proceed with those changes we'll engage fully with the trade unions on any of those changes which would include changes to the way customers have changed their behaviour since we originally did the review I'm just trying to get a sense of whether a decision, a Government decision is now overdue in which case is it worth just revisiting the whole thing again because if things have shifted is it not better for Government to reconsider where we are now and then maybe come to a decision or are you still wanting a decision on that based on your current proposals? What I would say is obviously our job is to run the railway as it is today and key strategic and policy decisions like station staffing, like fares, like the peak fares trial are a matter for Government and so those conversations are happening all the time between ScotRail trains, its owners, Scottish rail holdings and officials about the finances and the service that we provide to customers. Thank you Mark. Now we come to the deputy convener, Fiona. Thank you and yes I think we're still good morning just. Can I check that it's correct to say that you do think that it is realistic for Scotland's railways to be decarbonised by 2035, is that correct? That's the current plan. In doing so would you also be looking at other new alternative technologies whether it's hydrogen, battery electric is that something that you are looking at or do you think that it's sufficiently not advanced to be part of your planning? Yes we are looking at alternative technologies so primarily our assumption is that in order to decarbonise we would electrify the network and procure electric trains to electrify ScotRail services we also want to electrify freight for example and we're seeing very strong demand for rail freight in Scotland but there are some parts of our network which we would never electrify because it's just not economic to do so so looking at other opportunities like hydrogen trains and battery trains is under active consideration and colleagues from ScotRail and Network Rail are talking to the suppliers of this rolling stock and indeed visiting countries which already operate this rolling stock to see what lessons we can learn so we can decide what's appropriate for Scotland so pre-pandemic I went out to Germany to see one of the manufacturers hydrogen trains in passenger service already and there are some pros and cons of each different type of whether you go hybrid whether you go hydrogen one of the key obstacles we've got right now on hydrogen is actually the cost of it and what we want to do is make sure that as we decarbonise the network we don't add cost in because that will just increase the subsidy which is required from the taxpayer so we want to decarbonise but we also want to deliver a great series of passengers and be efficient at the same time so on trunk routes like Central Belt to Aberdeen or in Mines we're anticipating full electrification but in other parts of the network like the far north line on the west island line actually the solution to decarbonisation will probably be around the train rather than the overhead wires and in those discussions with the Scottish Government and indeed energy suppliers would you think in terms of the sourcing of some of this renewable energy being in the northeastern places that you've just described that there might be more integrated approach to how we might view railway energy and delivery of trains services in the future? Yes, so obviously as part of our decarbonisation plan we're talking to the providers of electricity because we're going to need a lot more of it and so making sure they've got the investment to prepare their network for it so for example right now we're investing £1 million on the infrastructure to work with the power suppliers to upgrade the power supply in advance of electrification and then we're also talking to the hydrogen sector in places like Aberdeen but not only Aberdeen my understanding of hydrogen economics is that it works better where a number of different industries decide to club together in one space to drive down the cost to make it economic so as we sit here today we believe the costs of operating a hydrogen train could be up to double what it is to operate a diesel train which clearly would not be good news for taxpayers so there's some work for us to do with the hydrogen sector to drive down the cost so it actually makes sense for us and then looking at infrastructure issues we've heard from unions about real concerns about safety in terms of investment in maintenance and repair of existing lines so do you have sufficient investment in terms of capital to deliver that? So the short answer to that question is yes and I'll bring Liam in shortly but the way the infrastructure is funded is that every five years the Scottish Government sets out the outputs it wants the infrastructure to deliver, the funding that's available and in fact in recent weeks the Scottish Government has just made an over £4 billion commitment to the operations maintenance and renewal of the infrastructure in Scotland which is a great vote confidence in fact in what the rail industry does here. In Network Rail we have a productivity scheme called modernising maintenance and that's about making the way we undertake maintenance on the infrastructure more efficient we've actually recently concluded consultation with trade union colleagues here in Scotland on that and we're working through the safety validation of it, those proposals are safe, if they weren't safe we wouldn't do them but the way maintenance is currently undertaken to the infrastructure is relatively old-fashioned and we're seeking to modernise it. Liam anything you'd like to add? Yes thanks Alex, so what I say the outset is safety is our number one priority when it comes to maintaining the railway and we would never even propose anything completely safe and that's not just our internal view of safety we'll go through hazard workshops with the office of road and rail who are our safety regulator and they will make sure that we're not proposing anything unsafe so as Alex says modernising maintenance is about changing the way in which we do it it's about making it more productive so I'll give you a very quick example within if we do signalling maintenance and maintenance to the signals to the points and things like that 5% of the tasks that we do to maintain the signalling infrastructure can be done with two people but at the moment our rules say we send three people to every single thing and all we want to do in the future is send the right number of people which will be two for 95% of the time and then more for the remaining 5% of activity so we're making those sorts of changes which will improve productivity but safety is the number one priority and that will not change and we are funded perfectly adequately Finally, are there any of your current major infrastructure projects that aren't on time and on budget and David Bowie talked about the need for modal shift and clearly if we want to try and stop increasing number of commuters going into Edinburgh the proposed developer led Winch per station would be a good relief for that and I'm expecting to hear from the network rail and the others in terms of the report prepared at the request of the former transport minister to help get revised costings on that so two parts to that question one national and one local but it has it has implications for Edinburgh and the modal shift that David Bowie referred to First of all, on the project side we've got a proud record actually in Scotland of delivering these infrastructure projects not only on time and on budget e.g. the lever mouth project which we're creating a brand new railway which we'll open next year which will be incredible for that part of Scotland or new stations but actually we're trying to drive down the unit cost of delivering those so we can deliver more lines of route, more new stations for the same amount of money and we've got a good track record of that it's far cheaper to build a new station in Scotland than it is elsewhere in the UK for example but later this year we'll be opening some more stations on Winchborough specifically pre-pandemic I was able to undertake a site visit with you and others at the time the intention is the developer would contribute to that and in the last few weeks I've personally reviewed the submission between Network Rail and officials and that very recently was sent to colleagues at Transport Scotland and we'll no doubt be considering it so if we're able to secure an appropriate contribution for the developer of that scheme there's no reason why we couldn't build a new station at Winchborough and I assume from what you're saying that all the other major infrastructure projects are on time or budget and indeed you're getting more value for money than perhaps previously indeed Liam very quickly that I'm interested in that line of questioning Alex Hines going back to the projects being delivered you will have seen me ask earlier about the commitment in 2016 by the Scottish Government to invest £200 million to achieve a 20 minute reduction between Aberdeen and the central belt and you heard me say earlier that only to the best of my knowledge just over 1% of that has actually been spent and that project we haven't got the deliverables of the 20 minute reduction so it doesn't sound like that project is on time can you give this committee any update on whether that £200 million will be spent and when the 20 minute reduction will be delivered so that 200 million that you reference was actually a city deal around Aberdeen it wasn't money which was given from Transport Scotland to the rail industry so we wouldn't recognise that as a project which was currently in flight but we've got a strategy for the Aberdeen to central belt line which essentially sees us speeding up journey times between now and 2026 and we're delivering infrastructure already to help deliver that particularly in the Perth area we're also going to expand the gauge which is the size of the route to enable us to accommodate more freight trains in advance of electrification which we would like to do in the early 2030s so one of the issues we've wrestled with is often even though it's Aberdeen city deal money from a railway perspective it makes more sense to spend it outside of the region than within the region but we've got a clear strategy for that route and any of those big investment decisions obviously are a matter for Transport Scotland we're doing all the design and development work for that Aberdeen to central belt strategy you may have heard me communicate that with stakeholders at a recent stakeholder round table and we're already in delivery in terms of advance works on that route where we're already demolishing bridges which need to come down in order to electrify thank you okay there seems to be a whole heap of insured brief supplementary questions I haven't found one of those brief supplementary ones but let's see Mark if you can but the trend it's just to pick up on the point about cost reduction particularly in relation to new stations it seems that there might be an opportunity to bring more new stations on to the existing rail network if there was a shift to more modular stations sites that have been mentioned to me have been to Orlandie, Eventon, Nubra where lower cost stations could be brought in without necessarily having to build new rail lines what's your thoughts on that is there still innovation to go in terms of the rail industry and expanding the network sounds like a short question Alex modular stations are a great idea in theory but actually the rail network isn't uniform so take Winch but for example where actually there's quite a steep cutting a modular station wouldn't work in that area so one of the things we've done in ScotRail and in Network Rail is actually learn by doing and set ourselves the objective of getting better each time and that generally is what we've done so for a sort of standard two platform station here in Scotland we can do that for about £15 million in other parts of the country numbers of 25 are quoted I've heard some concerns that ScotRail has an ageing workforce with the average age around 48 I just wonder what has been done to to address that and how many apprenticeships will be filled this year and next I'll invite Joe to come in on specifically apprenticeships because I know that's an issue with RMT in ScotRail so we do generally have an ageing workforce which is one reason why both ScotRail and Network Rail are doing huge amounts of recruitment in fact as we replace those people who are due to relieve the workforce actually in recent months we have seen a slow down in people leaving us obviously there's no retirement age anymore and obviously we've seen cost pressures elsewhere in the economy so people have retained in employment a little bit longer both Network Rail and ScotRail have well established apprenticeship programmes not just in traditional roles like engineering but in other places as well as customer service, IT for example and certainly the apprenticeship strategy in ScotRail is something we've recently discussed with the RMT Joe would you like to come in on that specifically? As Alex said it's becoming increasingly difficult to protect retirement ages due to the fact that there simply is no default retirement age and like some of the murmurs I heard from the committee that the cut of age of 48 being indicative of an ageing workforce is a bit of a concern to myself and others we are seeing staff working beyond 65 and beyond 70 some unfortunately as Alex referred to due to the simple inflationary pressures and staff who told us they may retire this year simply changing their decision making we're working really hard not just on apprentices but across the piece in terms of recruitment Scotland as many of you will know is in the fortunate position of having even lower unemployment rates in the rest of the UK just now and unemployment is really low just now being under 4% we want to do more on apprenticeships but not just traditional apprenticeships so I've been talking to trade unions about how we attract more young people and increase our apprenticeship numbers but indeed what we can do to offer and excuse my parlance but this is my old fashion language adult apprenticeships so how can we offer opportunities to our existing workforce who want to upskill whether they be in our operational businesses whether they be in our support functions or in traditional areas that you'd associate apprenticeships with like engineering and we're hearing some great ideas coming from our workforce about how we can upskill and offer apprenticeships not just to people joining us but internally as well so there's lots to be done on it and lots of ideas and innovation coming through and we are proactively engaging with Skills Development Scotland and other partners and we can't give the numbers to the could-you-right courses and keepers in Fordham of course we can thank you just looking around the table to see if there anyone else wanted to come in thank you very wide-ranging discussion today we've heard quite a bit about Edinburgh and Glasgow and Winchborough and Aberdeen and the panel of course has failed to talk about Inverness which is subject close to my heart but the dueling of the A9 also requires the dueling of the railways up there to double track it up there so that's something we can develop off the committee meeting but thank you very much for your time this morning and I'm sure we'll be seeing you again so I'm going to suspend the meeting now to allow the witnesses' department and I think we go into private sessions so we'll move into private session thank you