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UK govt responsible for Govia Thameslink failings, says NAO
Failings on the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern rail franchise were laid squarely with the government in a damning report from the National Audit Office (NAO) on Wednesday.
The government's spending watchdog said decisions taken by the Department for Transport (DfT), "the cumulative effects of which have negatively impacted on passengers".
The DfT failed to understand how the combination of increasing capacity while improving services on Britain's biggest franchise, and the potential of strike action over staffing changes would impact on passengers, the report said.
"We cannot therefore conclude that the department has to date achieved value for money from this franchise," the NAO said.
Strikes on Southern, run by the Go-Ahead Group and Keolis's Govia joint venture, over the removal of guards in favour of driver-only operated trains, which left thousands of passengers stranded, were also to blame, it added.
Rail unions said the blame should rest with Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and his predecessor Patrick McLoughlin.
The Aslef union said called their handling of the Southern franchise a "fiasco" and for Grayling to be sacked.
"On their watch...they let the DfT get it wrong. Passengers have suffered, totally unnecessarily, and taxpayers have had to pick up the bill. The company got it totally wrong - with the connivance of the DfT - now we want heads to roll," said general secretary Mick Whelan.
The report found that since Govia began operating the full franchise in July 2015, around 146,000 trains, or 7.7% of services, had either been cancelled or delayed by over half an hour, compared with 2.8% on the rest of the network.
This was largely caused by a shortage of train crews, the NAO said.
"Some of the problems could have been avoided if the department had taken more care to consider passengers in its design of the franchise," said NAO chief Sir Amyas Morse.