Good morning everyone and welcome to the Rural Economy and Connectivity's Committee's 11th meeting in 2019. Could I ask you please all to make sure that your mobile phones are on silent? Could I also welcome at this stage to the committee Christine Grahame and Rachel Hamilton who will be listening and taking part in parts of the committee's activity this morning. A gender item one is to deal with the ScotRail remedial order. This is the committee's consideration of ScotRail's remedial order. First, the committee will take evidence from the ScotRail Alliance. Following this, the committee will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity. I'd like to welcome to the first panel Alex Hines, a managing director, David Simpson, the operations director for ScotRail Alliance, and Liam Sumter, the chief operating officer for Network Rail Scotland. Alex, do you like to give a brief opening statement to the committee of no more than three minutes? There are lots of questions. Thank you convener. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before the committee this morning. The fact that we are sat here today is an indication that the service some of our customers have received hasn't been good enough. We're sorry to those customers who've been affected and we know that we must do better. I'm confident that we will do better through the delivery of this remedial agreement with Transport Scotland. This is a ScotRail plan, and while ScotRail is reliant on infrastructure performing and suppliers delivering, ultimately ScotRail is responsible for the service that our customers receive. With this remedial agreement, we will invest an additional £18 million to give our customers the service that they expect and deserve. I'm sure that we'll go through the planning detail, but some of the highlights are as follows. We will recruit an additional 55 drivers and 30 conductors. Hitachi, the supplier of our brand new Class 385 electric trains, will increase the number of technicians on the trains to deal with incidents, will increase the number of people working within our control room, including seven additional people from Hitachi, and we're doubling our performance improvement fund to half a million pounds a year. We're extending the contract on our local hauled trains in five to protect capacity and, taken together, we believe that the actions in this £18 million agreement will enable us to improve the service that our customers receive. There are some positive signs that performance is improving. We recently recorded our fourth consecutive period of improved performance, with almost 90 per cent of our 2,400 services a day meeting our punctuality target. That's up from 2,200 services a day at the start of the franchise. In fact, in the most recent four-week period, more trains in Scotland ran on time than ever before. Glasgow Central recently recorded its best period for two years. The performance of our infrastructure has improved significantly. The number of daily cancellations linked to train crew has reduced dramatically, and more than half of the Hitachi trains are now in service. We need to do much, much more to regain the trust of our customers, but things are moving in the right direction. That rail will face further challenges throughout the course of 2019. Training new drivers takes 18 months in total. We remain at the mercy of our train suppliers, who have let us down badly in the past. Although Network Rail is investing more than ever to prepare for the extremes of Scottish weather, its unpredictable nature will continue to significantly impact Scotland's railway. We are delivering the biggest change to Scotland's railway for generations, reflecting the fact that last year we were the fastest-growing part of the UK rail network. Change is difficult. Change brings many challenges, but changes will deliver huge benefits for Scotland. If we weren't electrifying much of the central belt, if we weren't introducing so many new and upgraded trains that will benefit the whole of Scotland and if we weren't training so many of our people, then our job would be less complex. We are transforming Scotland's railway, and I am confident that we will get this right. Thank you. The first question is for Mike. Can I just say that the apology that Alexi started with was a very good way to start for the apology for the passengers that have not received the service that they deserve? I would like my questions to focus on the plans that have been put in place since the contract. You took the contract on in 2015. In 2016, you had the first improvement plan, and you had 249 action points. Then, two years later, we have a second improvement plan with 20 measures for improvement. Now, we have the publication of the remedial plan with nine new initiatives in it. We are looking at the 249 action points, the 20 measures for improvement and the other nine new initiatives. Why have they failed to produce the required level of performance across the piece? I do not accept the premise that these improvement plans have not worked. As I said in my opening statement, train says performance on Scotland's railway has seen its fourth consecutive period of improvement. Everybody seems to accept. You are saying that they have worked. Why are we in the position that we are in now? We are here to discuss the remedial plan and remedial agreement with Transport Scotland, which is specifically about the number of cancellations that we experienced late last year in the east of the country. That is what this £18 million investment is about. It is targeted on those issues that we saw at the end of last year. If we look Scotland-wide across the whole of Scotland's railway network, there is evidence to suggest that the underlying performance of Scotland's railway network is improving. We have had our fourth consecutive period of improved performance. More trains ran on time in Scotland last period than ever before. If you look at some of the changes that we have made to our timetable in the Glasgow area, into Glasgow Central on the Strathclyde Electric Network, we are delivering much better levels of performance there. The issue that we are discussing today is primarily confined to the train crew issues that we have experienced in the east of the country, which is why we are going to invest an additional £18 million to make sure that our customers get the service that they deserve. I want to challenge you on that, because the information that we have got in front of us produced by the clerks says that, when you took over, the Scotland Rail Performance and Moving annual average was about 91 per cent when you took the contract over. The target is 92.45 per cent, and we are sitting in the last information that we have at 87.5 per cent, according to the information that the clerks have provided to us. I would dispute your analysis of the situation that things have improved. In fact, they have got worse. That is why we are here again. To see why it has got worse, I think that we have a problem if you are saying to us that you do not accept that these improvement plans have not worked. If they worked, those performance indicators would be reaching the target that you are supposed to be at. I accept that we are not hitting our target, which is why we are working flat out on remedding the issues that cause trains to be delayed so that we can give our customers the service that they expect and deserve. I am not disputing that we are not yet hitting our targets, but we are working flat out to do so. Can you show how you have taken forward the recommendations when the Donovan report shows more in detail how you have taken those forward? Obviously, we commissioned an independent review of trains' performance at the back end of 2017, and we published all the recommendations in the early part of 2018. Across Scotland's railway, we accepted each of those recommendations, and we have implemented them. For example, the cessation of skip stopping, apart from a last resort, and the number of skip stops in Scotland is now down by over 80 per cent, which I am sure is a measure that this committee and our customers would welcome. The independent office of rail regulation commissioned an independent review by Nicholls of our implementation of the Donovan review recommendations and published that document. That confirmed that the Donovan recommendations reflected the best plan to improve trains' performance in Scotland's railway, and that we were getting on with implementing those recommendations. They identified some areas of best practice here in Scotland, which we were proud of. It also identified some areas where we could do even better around strengthening our level of programme management resource and governance to make sure that we did an even better job of implementing those recommendations. I will finish on one last question, if I may. You are not hitting the performance targets, and you are not likely, from what the minister said in Parliament yesterday to my questions, you are not likely to reach the level of service that the contract sets out until May next year, and yet the Government has an opportunity in April next year to give you an order to end the contract. Do you believe, by April next year, that your company will be able to meet the contractual targets that have been set? I believe that performance is already improving. We do not have to wait until May next year for performance to improve. The way that the contract works is that it measures the number of cancellations on what is called a moving annual average basis, and therefore it takes a year for a historic performance to drop out of that number. Customers will not have to wait until May next year to deliver an improved service. We are improving as we speak, week by week. You will reach the performance targets by April next year. In respect of the remedial plan, the £18 million investment that we are making due to cancellations that we experienced in the east of the country, customers are already benefiting from improved service delivery, and we expect to be out of breach level by May of next year. That is not because customers have to wait until May of next year, it is because the contract works on a moving annual average basis. I just said in one of the responses to Mr Rumbles, am I correct in assuming that this remedial plan that we are talking about this morning is only to address issues in the east of the country? I was under the impression that this was a remedial plan for ScotRail per se to deliver demonstrable benefits right across the country, but it seems from what you have said to be purely a focus on the east. Therefore, my question would be for the rest of Scotland, which of the 2016-18 improvement plans or the Donovan report are relevant to improving performance in the rest of the country? On Christmas Eve, Transport Scotland issued us with a remedial notice because of the level of cancellations in the east of the country and an expectation that we would also breach the company-wide PPM limit. We actually haven't breached the PPM overall company target. We do expect to in coming months because of the way the moving annual average works. The vast majority of the remedial plan, the £18 million investment, is targeted at the issues that we saw pre-Christmas, which were primarily around train-cree-related cancellations in the east of the country. That's not to say that the rest of Scotland's railway won't benefit from that, but that is the focus of the plan. Colin, you want to come in, particularly on that subject. Did you just follow up on that point about—obviously, Mike said that the remedial plan indicates that it will take until May 2020 to exit the breach performance level, but when will performance levels on services meet the full performance target set out in the franchise agreement? Are you referring to the 92.5? Our aspiration is to hit that target as soon as possible. It could be as long as 24 months before we reach that target, reflecting that we're trying to shift a moving annual average calculation of trains' performance. Clearly, it's not just ScotRail issues that cause trains to be late in ScotRail. We're managing external influences like weather, trespass, suicide. We're managing infrastructure-related issues, which are the responsibility of Network Rail. Finally, we're managing ScotRail issues, which are primarily around train crew and the performance of our rolling stock. By continuing to improve in each of those categories, our aspiration is to hit the 92.5 as fast as we can, but it could be 24 months until we do that. Yesterday, during topical questions, the cabinet secretary stated that ScotRail was expecting to hit those targets by the end of 2021. I'm just looking at your remedial plan. It puts the projections for PPM at below 90 per cent at this point, and you've just said that it's what, 24 months before you're likely to meet that. Were the projections stated by the cabinet secretary yesterday wrong, because he specifically said that ScotRail would expect to hit those performance targets by the end of 2021? What the cabinet secretary said was accurate. The point that I'm trying to make is that it's not just ScotRail, which directly influences what causes trains to run on time in Scotland or not. As you will have seen yesterday, the new control period for Network Rail in Scotland, which starts next week, is the outcome of a regulatory review with the independent office of rail regulator. As part of that process, Network Rail had to set out a expected performance trajectory, so we could set the outputs and the funding for Scotland's railway. As part of that work, we set out an expected trajectory to hit 92.5. Our target is 92.5. We want to get there as fast as we possibly can, but it might take us two years to get there. I'm confused. You said that the cabinet secretary was very clear of what he said yesterday, which was that ScotRail expected to hit 92.5 per cent by the end of 2021. I'm looking at your remedial plan on page 29, the graph at the franchise ppm forecast. According to your remedial plan, you don't expect to hit 92.5 at the end of—basically in December—or period 13 in 2021, so there's no projection in your remedial plan as to when you will hit 92.5 per cent. David, do you want to clarify that? Yeah, the graph in the remedial plan. If I just clarify something, the graph you're looking at, Colin, is on page 29 of the remedial plan. To me, that only appears, and I may be misreading it up till the end of—yes, period 13 is 2021. It's mid 2021. That's March 2021, convener. That's the question, correct. Thank you. Sorry. David, do you want to answer that? Yeah, the graph takes us up to March 2021. The next couple of years shows how the ppm forecast moves the MAA back towards target. The end of 2021 is a point that Alex and the cabinet secretary have stated that we expect to reach the 92.5 target, although we are doing everything we can to try to get there before that point. My interpretation of the end of the period 2021 is obviously a period 13. That's what everybody else interprets as. Obviously, people interpret that differently. So you're absolutely adamant that you will hit that 92.5 per cent. You're absolutely confident that you'll do that within this franchise because so far you haven't. Well, that is our projection. Clearly, that's not something which is wholly within the direct control of ScotRail and not even the railway system because that is a measure that takes into account all causes of delay. So trespass, suicide, weather, infrastructure-related causing delays, train operating cause delays, other train operating cause delays. So that's our target and that's our forecast. I can't guarantee it because ScotRail doesn't fully control the delivery of that performance. Richard, do you want us to come in? I have to ask. If you watch the programme that is presently on inside Glasgow Central, you see that 950 trains go into Glasgow Central a day. How many train journeys are in Scotland a day and how many train journeys are delayed, cancelled or not put through because of Network Rail? One of the other things that you should be doing is gathering data and information on how much Network Rail is affecting your business. I'd like to know that. One of the key benefits of the ScotRail Alliance is that we run track and train together. When my team and I get together to review the performance of Scotland's railway, we have the train operating company and Network Rail infrastructure manager working together to deliver performance on Scotland's railway. About a quarter of a million customers per day use Scotland's railway. Scotland's railway is the fastest growing part of the UK rail system and we're operating 10 per cent more services now than we were at the start of the franchise. Generally, Network Rail is responsible or Network Rail has attributed the majority of the delay, reflecting the fact that weather infrastructure in any railway system accounts for most of the delay. Clearly that proportion has changed a bit in recent months as we've seen those issues before Christmas, which is why we're sat here today talking about the £18 million investment that we're making. It is true to say that there's lots of reasons why trains run on time or not in Scotland, and they're not all within ScotRail's direct control. Drivers, you have no drivers, you have no trains. I really want to know what's the percentage if we're going to lay the blame at you on Network Rail? Who primarily should be laid the blame at you? I'm not interested in laying blame. I'm interested in getting the trains to run on time, and that's what the ScotRail Alliance is about. It'll not part of your problem. The remedial plan sets out very clearly why trains don't run on time. In order for ScotRail to succeed, Network Rail has to succeed. Jamie, you want to come briefly before we move on to the next question. On page 29, you say that you're not currently in breach of PPMAA as a whole, but there is a risk of this during 2019. In effect, is that an admission that things are going to get worse before they get better? No, it's the fact that in the coming periods we're not expecting to achieve the same level as we did last year. Therefore, the moving annual average will drop, and that will breach the PPM level in the franchise agreement. So you expect your performance numbers to dip before they rise, is what I'm asking? On the moving annual average, that's correct. So therefore they will get worse before they get better? On a moving annual average basis, yes, but not on a period basis. As I said in my opening statement, we've now had four consecutive periods of improved train service performance in Scotland, and more trains run on time in Scotland in the last four weeks than ever before. So there's a difference between the period number, which is the four-weekly number, and the moving annual average. The contract works on the basis of a moving annual average. Thank you. To yours is the next question. Under this plan, ScotRail will invest £18 million to give our customers the service that they expect and deserve. My question is, where do these funds come from? In other words, are these alliance funds or are these taxpayer funds, and over what period will this £18 million be spent? £18 million, in effect, is a £6 million a year investment for three years, and it's fully funded by Balli O ScotRail. Right. Are you confident, Mr Hines, that this £18 million is enough to achieve what you clearly have to achieve over that three-year period? Given that this is only £18 million over that three-year period, to me that doesn't sound like a whole lot of money on the scale of the Scottish railways. This is an injection by Balli O ScotRail of an additional £18 million over and above all our existing plans. For example, on the infrastructure side, we're already planning on spending 20% more on the operations maintenance and renewal of Scotland's railway infrastructure. This is an additional over and above anything that has previously been planned, because we know that we need to do better and deliver this remedial plan so that customers get the service that they expect and deserve. Okay. Still on the money theme, much of your problems are caused by the late delivery of the Hitachi trains and the refurbished 125s. Clearly, the companies that were tasked to do that job have failed and are in breach of their contracts. What financial compensation are you pursuing with these companies to try and get some redress to that fact? You're absolutely right. Hitachi and Wabtec have failed, and we're very disappointed with both of their performances in that respect, and we're working hard with both Hitachi and Wabtec to do the best we possibly can to minimise the impact that it's having on Scotland's railway. Clearly, the contracts that we have with those manufacturers have an element of payment adjustments in the event of non-delivery, as does our franchise agreement with Scottish Government. Essentially, we get a money flow from the suppliers who have let us down, and then to the extent that we're not delivering the contract in full, there's what's called a committed output, committed obligation payment adjustment, where we have to pay penalties to Scottish Government. That's the way it works. Stuartine on this particular point, because he had some issues here as well. Yes, I'm reading the remedial plan, and by December 2018 you should have had 26 HSTs, and you've had two. That's the most appalling contract failure of anything that's before us. I just want to be quite clear who is the contract with, because the leasing company is Angel, but we're constantly talking about Wabdech. In other words, who really are you pursuing? Is it Angel or is it Wabdech? Our contract is with Angel Trains Limited. They own the trains, and Angel Trains Limited are actually project managing the refurbishment of these trains. It was Angel Trains Limited who decided to give the work to Wabdech, and Wabdech have really struggled to deliver that refurbishment programme. Essentially, that's the way it works through the supply chain. Our contract is with Angel Trains. Angel Trains' contract is with Wabdech, and it's Wabdech's poor delivery, which has meant that we're not where we needed to be on the delivery of high-speed trains for Scotland. I'm pleased to say that we've now got the third high-speed train here in Scotland. The customer feedback has been absolutely extraordinary. We're really looking forward to working with Wabdech and Angel Trains to deliver the full 26, so we can recreate a genuine intercity network for Scotland. I'm just wondering why Wabdech has still got the contract from Angel Trains, but I want to explore Angel a little bit. Who currently owns them? The last thing I've been able to see is that the Royal Bank owns Angel Trains. Is that correct? I'm not sure they are any more. I can get back to you about that. I suspect there are a number of shareholders there. I don't believe they're owned by banks any more. Let me return to the fundamental point. Isn't it time for Angel to discontinue the contract with Wabdech and give it to somebody who can actually do the job? If you were expecting 26 trains by December 2018, and they managed to deliver three over that period, isn't it at the current rate of progress going to take until 2030 to deliver the 26 trains? No, it's not until 2030. As you might imagine, we've explored all options with Angel Trains and Wabdech, and that includes termination. In fact, we recently decided that in order to accelerate the refurbishment programme, 17 of the carriages that require refurbishing, we are actually going to do at Kilmarnock in Scotland, which is a good news story for Scotland PLC. We are working very hard with Angel and Wabdech on all options to give us what we want, which is the best high-speed train that has ever built, to create this intercity network.  Given that the classics that are unrefurbished have different operating profile and you had not expected to have to train staff to operate them, what is the impact on the training schedule and the deployment of staff being of the failure of Wabdech on the HSTs and your necessity of having to put the classics into service? Failure by Angel and Wabdech essentially compounded the training issues that we saw at the back-end of last year in two respects. Firstly, the trains were late to us and therefore the period over which we had to train our people, primarily drivers and conductors, was compressed and that made the December timetable change more difficult. Because we had to press what we call classic high-speed trains into service, as well as refurbished, that actually added to the training requirement because conductors had to be trained on both the classic HSTs and the refurbished train. This is a great example of where our suppliers have really let us down and it made worse the issues that we saw at the end of last year. Okay, just before we leave the situation of money and it's a question that this committee has asked before, squire funders made up of fines for not achieving targets. How much money is in the squire fund at the moment? I'd need to confirm that in writing to you. You will have seen in January that we announced that we reached a two-year high in terms of squire. We're working really hard on the squire and it's going in the right direction and we're really looking forward to that feeding through in better customer satisfaction. I don't understand what you mean by the right direction. The squire fund is built up of fines as a result of failing to meet targets. Is it going in the right direction? Are you getting more money in so you'll be able to do more? Or is it going in the right direction by getting less money in? The way squire works is the toughest service quality regime anywhere in the UK. Our squire performance is getting better and therefore the rate at which the money is paid into the squire fund is slowing down. So could you explain to me as well what applications you've made to the Government to use the squire fund and what are those specifically for in the last six months? There are hundreds of squire applications every single year so far too many to detail here but one example for example is making sure that every station in Scotland is fitted with real-time customer information which is something that we're delivering. We also upgraded our stations on the key route between Edinburgh and Glasgow so there are literally hundreds of these proposals we make, Transport Scotland, approve them as necessary and that's something I can follow up in writing with the committee if you'd like. Finally on the squire fund could you confirm to me if any of the money from the squire fund is being used to fund the £18 million that you're investing in the railway? Absolutely not. This is £18 million of new money being funded by a Bellio ScotRail in full. Sorry now the final question on the squire fund is could you confirm whether you've got any aspirations to use that money to fund cheap travel to compensate passengers for the performance of ScotRail in the last year? So not at the moment because we're funding that ourselves so in January we announced a compensation offer over and above the delay repay guarantee for those customers who saw their service particularly affected by the issues that we're discussing today and that gave customers on a series of weekends in this spring free travel anywhere on the ScotRail network and as I've said before that's fully funded by a Bellio ScotRail. Thank you and I'm sure the committee would welcome your offer to give details on the squire fund so that they can consider them after this meeting. The next question is from John Mason. John. Thanks convener. I think a number of us have questions about staffing and around that area and my specific one is on the question of staff having to work voluntarily on rest days which I believe the contract and the timetable is dependent on. Can you just explain to us how that has come about and where it's going in the future? Well I mean it's standard practice across the rail industry in UK to rely on some level of overtime working in all grades in fact cleaners station staff drivers conductors and one of the decisions we've made is to invest further in the number of people to reduce our reliance on rest day working to make our service delivery more resilient and also provide better work-life balance for our employees. So clearly the £18 million investment that we're making over and above our existing recruitment and training plan for train crew is aimed at reducing our reliance on overtime working. So that's always been the case or as long as you're aware of that's not a new issue that's happened? So in UK rail an element of overtime working is standard. So my wider question then following on from that is in this whole big picture you've clearly got some long-term issues like that as an example as one and then you've also got these temporary issues of the new rolling stock and then linked to that training up staff and drivers. I mean how much would you say how much is do we have underlying problems here that we need to deal with and how much is it that we just need to wait and see all these new rolling stock and all these new staff come into place and then almost automatically the thing will settle down? Well customers don't need to wait to get improved performance because we're delivering improved performance now and we're working flat out to make sure we get back to the levels that customers expect and deserve particularly in the east of the country where we saw too many cancellations. So for example we finish attacking the training backlog at Edinburgh depot for drivers at the end of this week so every single driver at our Edinburgh depot will be trained in the brand new Hitachi trains. So we've seen this week our service delivery being better than the previous week because we've got more of our Edinburgh drivers trained. It is true to say that we're spending £16 million a week transforming the capacity and the quality of Scotland's railway and that gives challenge when we're delivering the biggest upgrade Scotland's railway has ever seen and we have to deliver a safe clean reliable service to our customers. Those are the challenges of change. I'm looking forward to a situation where Hitachi deliver, Angel and Wabtec deliver, some of the big infrastructure projects are completed so we can really focus on getting this system to work really really well for the people of Scotland. I'm very enthusiastic about the rail when I'm trying to be sympathetic but you know I get a constituent coming to me and on the one hand they're saying well a Bello ScotRail are basically incompetent and therefore it doesn't matter what they do they should be replaced and on the other hand my own feeling is more well there's a lot of new things happening here there's a lot of hiccups it's nothing to do with the underlying management so I mean how do I answer the constituent on these two things? So if you take what happened pre Christmas it was the late delivery of trains to Scotland's railway by Hitachi, Wabtec and Angel which compressed the training programme. We did also have the industrial dispute with RMT which compounded those issues which are thankfully now resolved. I mean those issues would have been faced by whoever was operating the railway this time. Alex has a series of questions I think on staffing so I'm going to take Maureen John and then Christine Grahame so Maureen would you like to? Thank you, convener. Morning gentlemen. Yes, can I just explore the HR issues a bit further? I mean on one graph we've got between 30 and 40 per cent of causes of cancellations are train crew yet you say that you're going to be recruiting 55 drivers and 30 conductors given staff turnover and plan service increases. I mean what is the level of staff turnover at Ibello, ScotRail? I can't see anything that you're recruiting the right people in the right place. I mean the trains that are cancelled are often first thing in the morning which would seem to suggest that the right people aren't in the right place or aren't getting out of bed to get the train up and running on time. So can you explain a bit more what the HR position is in Ibello, ScotRail? The issue that we saw pre-Christmas which is largely resolved now but not completely was not an issue in terms of not having enough train crew. The issue was not having enough train crew trained on the new types of train and on the new routes and so in some cases we've had to make the very difficult decision to cancel service trains in order us to attack that training battalog which was made worse by the late delivery of the trains and the issues that we saw with RMT last year so that we can eat away at that training battalog. For example, all the Edinburgh drivers are trained in the new types of trains by the end of this week and that's why we've seen a steady improvement in service delivery for the last four consecutive periods, that's 16 weeks, it's why last period more trains ran on time in Scotland than ever before and this £18 million investment by Ibello ScotRail is over and above anything we were planning to do anyway so it wasn't that we didn't have enough train crew, it was the fact that they weren't trained on the new routes and the new traction. If I look at your website and look at jobs available and look at train drivers it doesn't say we need them across Scotland, it doesn't say that you can train in Aberdeen or Inverness or Glasgow or Edinburgh. How do people who are not in the know because we know that ScotRail employ a lot of families, how can other people break into working for ScotRail? Firstly, we're recruiting hundreds of people in every position in our company, train cleaners, on-board hospitality staff, station staff, ticket examiners, conductors and drivers because our railway is growing and it's growing fast and we're the fastest growing part of UK rail and so we're delighted by the people that we managed to recruit into our business and we recruit and train them and pay them well and I would recommend the railways a career to anybody and we are very proud of our record of recruiting and training more people, paying them properly, we're a living wage employer for example and giving people skills not just to do their job but also to help them get the next job. You haven't really answered what staff turnover is in ScotRail? Less than 5 per cent. We get very low levels of turnover in the UK rail industry because generally our salaries benchmark well with the wider market. How many people would apply for one position as a train driver? We get thousands of applications, every time we go out for drivers we get thousands of applications, we pay a good basic salary with a good pension, job security, free travel and therefore these jobs are very attractive so the issue is not an attraction issue to the railway, the issues we faced were the training backlog for the reasons that we've discussed. On the training aspect, you mentioned 18 months to train a train driver, have you looked at any ways of trying to reduce that time? It seems quite a long time. We have been working with the train drivers union to try and reduce that training timescale as much as we possibly can and we have to remember that those are highly professional safety critical roles and train drivers have to be trained on all the types of train and all the routes served by one particular depot which is why it's a very complex task but it's one of the ways that we keep the railway safe which is why it takes so long. Can that training be done in different parts of the country or as everybody got to come to Glasgow for example for the training? There is a part of common training so every train driver no matter which depot they are destined for has a period of classroom training which we do from Glasgow generally and then once the drivers have got the generic training they then go to their home depot whether that be Edinburgh or Bathgate or Inverness or Fort William to do the specific training on those specific routes and those specific train types. We are quite pushed for time. John, I'll try and bring you in. John. Okay thank you. Good morning panel. Mr Hines, it seems to me that and certainly the Scottish Green Party that there's a structural flaw here when we look at the issues around the train operating companies in a privatised UK rail network there's a lot of people need to get their cut but I genuinely wish you well in your improvement plan because it's our constituents who are standing waiting for trains and want them to run effectively and efficiently and I do know that there's 10 per cent more services than when the franchise started but looking at tackling the causes of cancellation can you tell me Mr Hines what is it that's been redacted there's a few graphs in there in those redactions and we're told they're redacted under that's permissible under freedom of information what is that information that we can't see please if I which bit yes prepare with me please there's text removed on page seven there's a graph removed in page six and so on throughout where where the detail is either commercially confidential or it relates to the market for train crew we've redacted some elements of that where we don't believe it's in the public interest to publish that okay thank you very much for that now 211 a number of train code key depots you tell us that scot rail recruited 72 additional drivers in 2016-17 why was that number recruited at that time please well the fact is we're recruiting train crew all of the time based on a number of assumptions we make around the timetable the rate of retirements train crew leaving scot rail to go and work for any train other train operating companies so we maintain a workforce planning tool which looks out three years it makes a number of assumptions around what we're doing with the timetable the train types sickness levels retirement levels the age profile of the workforce the rate at which people might leave scot rail to go and work for other train operating companies so it's a very dynamic tool which we update on a four weekly basis and in the next paragraph indeed of 211 the second sentence significantly larger number of drivers and conductors on forecast left scot rail during 2018 turnover rates are reasonably predictable do you do exit interviews with people leaving at all we do and what information do you glean from that Mr Hings well as you as you can see from the remedial plan historically the driver turnover in scot rail has been very low reflecting the issues we were discussing earlier on with Maureen the number of drivers leaving scot rail increased last year because of the service expansion by other train operating companies here in scotland it's not just scot rail which is expanding its service so is LNER, TransPen and Express etc etc other train operating companies pay different terms and conditions sometimes our drivers fancier change they want to drive a different type of train or a different route and therefore the number of drivers which left the business increased over those historic levels some of them come back and as part of our remedial plan planning we have been talking to our recent leavers and actually some are coming back to scot rail and the information you've gleaned from these exit interviews has that resulted in any changes you've done perhaps regarding terms and conditions at all well clearly the terms and conditions for train drivers is something we talk with as left about often and in fact we've been working with as left in a very cooperative fashion to help remedy some of the issues that we saw at the end of last year so this is an ongoing process we work very collaboratively with as left in the drivers company council to work through what it takes to make sure that we deliver a better service for our customers thank you the reason i mention these things is because the next sentence goes on to say in the period august to November 2018 which has an impact for now this meant there were fewer spare staff within rosters to cover training requirements so driver numbers do clearly i mean i'm going to be self evidently driver numbers affect potentially affected performance have you recruited enough so to deal with expansion are you doing enough to retain staff so essentially we we have drivers to cover train services we have spares we have drivers who are training and essentially the training the compressed training timescale due to the late delivery wrong stock meant our service wasn't as resilient as it should have been that's one reason why we're investing this 18 million pounds to make sure not only we're delivering the full train service and improve performance but our ability to absorb any future risks is better okay will the new staff be based at depots best located to tackle roots suffering significant disruption for instance the borders railway absolutely yeah so clearly customers in borders and five have had a very difficult time i've experienced that at first hand myself i've been engaging a lot with the public in five and msp's covering that part of the country and that's because the train services in borders and five are served by drivers who reside at edinburgh depot and it's at edinburgh depot whereby we've been having to tackle the training backlog due to the delay delivery of hitachi wrong stock okay thank you very much that stage it's the perfect moment to bring in christine graham christine interesting segue to me i'm as you know the border railway runs through most of my constituents and terminates their lots of correspondence with you about failings and cleaning of sunday when we lost five services i want to talk about the staffing which is one of the main issues raised about why trains weren't running you say in the papers in the past two years you're more than double the number of staff has been lost you must have known that was happening and you knew a timetable was coming in the december 2018 new timetable meeting more staff when did you start planning for the necessary crew with both these factors in play well we started planning for every timetable change at the start of the franchise which is why we recruited so many drivers in 2016 and 2017 we don't actually know that drivers will leave the company until they hand their notice period in and that notice period is less than the training training timescale so as i said before the issue wasn't that we didn't have enough train crew at edinburgh for example the issue that we didn't have enough train crew at edinburgh who were trained on the new types of train and on the new routes and i'm asking you when you planned i mean you must have seen this coming new timetable in december 2018 you're losing train drivers you see it's increasing when was any plan put in place to make sure there was sufficient crew to maintain the service in the east coast in particular in the boggers we're planning it all the time because this is a dynamic situation so there's no flaw in the planning well i think clearly with the benefit of hindsight we could have done a better job and we're very sorry to customers who experienced a poor service at the back end of last year that's why we're investing 18 million pounds to make our service better convener with your leave because nobody's asked about page 25 of the plan where it says develop and maintain a plan christine christine with the greatest respect i respect you in the chamber and i'd ask you just to let me move on because rachel wants to come in and there are other people i think that's fair thank you very much mr hind's this investment and remedial action plan is very welcome however i do believe that my constituents believe that it would is abstract and futuristic it doesn't deal with the current disgruntled passenger hell that is happening for commuters and i just wondered what can you say to them it's not a quick fix what can you put in place to make sure that people who are being charged extra for nursery fees who cannot get to work on time their jobs are on the line what can you do regardless of this remedial action plan what is here now because yesterday i was there and the 828 we're promised three peak trains there was two it's causing overcrowding at stow you've already mentioned the issues on borders rail please they really need to have reassurance the short answer so the first thing to say to those customers on the borders railway is we're very sorry we're working flat out to fix the issue we don't have to wait to spend the 18 million pounds to improve service delivery our service delivery on the borders railway is steadily improving week by week and as i've said finishing the driver training backlog at Edinburgh which we're going to finish this week will really help our ability to run all the planned train services on borders and making sure that those train services that we operate on borders are formed of the correct number of carriages uses the next question thank you very much i don't think i'll take a lot of time i've covered the HSTs which i'd planned earlier this week i'll be on 12 trains 2 HSTs 1171 1588 385s the 385s absolutely lovely trains we've got Hitachi personnel deployed i see them on the fleet i see them on the stations i've been to craig and tinny and i've seen the investment that's been made there how much difference is that hands-on engagement of Hitachi maintenance personnel in particular making to this and how much is that real insurance in ensuring that the 385s deliver on the very substantial potential that these lovely quite comfortable most spacious trains provide well clearly we're delighted that Hitachi is now finally delivered some trains to us and we're absolutely delighted that customers love the trains the feedback we've had from customers has been extraordinary clearly when any new train is introduced and is exposed to our people and our customers for the first time there's a familiarity there's a learning curve and i'm pleased to say that the performance of that train in service has been pretty good we've gone in at number three in the league table charts of new train introduction which we're pretty pleased with the technical reliability of those trains has already exceeded that being delivered by the previous class 170 trains and the great thing about brand new electric rolling stock is that because a lot of the issues are controlled by software once you get the software to work reliably you get very very high levels of reliability so clearly in the short term we've been putting a lot of pressure on Hitachi to deliver us a train which works well in service particularly around door issues which often we see when when we first introduce a new type of train which is why you'll see every single day at Glasgow Queen Street and at Waverley and at places like Falkirk High and Croy technicians from Hitachi deployed so that if our train crew do experience any issues with the train we're able to respond to that really really quickly. For the next question, John Finnie-John. The ScotRail Alliance Integrated Control Centre there, you have plans to supplement the staff, understand four new incident managers, three additional train running controllers. What's the existing complement and what difference do you anticipate these new staff making? We have about 75 staff in our integrated control centre made up of both ScotRail employees and Network Rail employees working together as one team. That's one of the key benefits from the Alliance in fact. We have one control centre with one head of control leading the team for Scotland's railway. Clearly, to improve train service performance and reflect the fact that we're also operating more services than ever before on a network which is the fastest growing in the UK, we are as part of the £18 million investment, we're injecting additional resources into our control centre to help our ability to plan the network and recover from incidents when we see them. In practical terms, what difference does that make? If you have a breakdown, presumably you're able to respond to it now, what you're going to do? Essentially it means that we have more resources to cope with the issues that we see. As the network gets busier, sometimes it might be the case that we have two live incidents on the same bit of the network. By injecting more resources into our control centre, our ability to respond more quickly than that we had before is really important because we're operating so many more services each day. The potential impact of any one incident is getting greater because we're operating so many more services than we did before.  Just on the control centre, I understand that there are both ScotRail and Network Rail staff in the control centre. Is that unique or unusual in the GB network? To what extent does that help when problems arise in the resolution? As we know, the majority of the problems arise from the infrastructure rather than the operator, so having them sitting together sounds like it helps, does it? I mean it does, which is one reason why we have one of the lowest delay per incident anywhere on the UK rail network because it provides for swift and decisive decision making. The best example of that I can give is actually during the beast from the east where we had a red weather alert for the central belt and my team and I made the very difficult decision to close the railway in those parts of the railway that were affected, so that we could get everyone home safe, which we did. That was a decision that we were able to make as one team without any negotiation with any other parties, which tends to be how it works south of the border. Refer back to my colleague's question. I don't think that it's been asked. You've said that often there's a complaint that a company has too many managers. Do you have enough, in particular, to create a head of operations strategy role within the ScotRail operations department organization, which role shall be responsible for maintaining the three-year train crew resource plan? Is this supposed to be in by April this year? We do have enough managers, but what we're going to do is give this area additional focus as part of the £18 million investment that we're making. We're going to create an additional post that is purely focused on the delivery of the three-year work plan. They're going to start in line with the remedial plan. The remedial plan highlights a new focus on data collection and analysis, looking at the causes of delays. What will that mean in practice, and what impact can we expect on performance levels from this new focus? Clearly, we collect a lot of data as to why trains miss PPM. On the UK rail network, any delay that causes a delay in excess of three minutes is attributed down to a root cause. As the remedial plan sets out, the main reason why we've missed PPM target in recent periods is the number of trains that miss PPM by one minute. These are trains that are six minutes late, rather than within PPM, which is four minutes 59. That's why we've made some small changes to our timetable in the Strathclyde electric area, including things such as the provision of platform staff in the peaks at Glasgow's central low level, who are encouraging better customer management to get customers on board and off trains more quickly, to reflect the fact that a lot of these PPM failures are by as little as 60 seconds. If we can drag those trains that are currently outside the target within it, we can have a big impact on the public performance measure. In those cases, a minute can make a huge difference to your figures, so that should have a real impact in the figures going forward. One of the challenges that we have is that the railway system has only measured delay to a minute, and we've got to look at seconds here. One of the things that the remedial plan talks about is using GPS data that the trains have, so that we can measure things like the time that they take between sections, station dwell times to the second and not to the minute. That will help us to target where the trains are losing time at stations and route sections, and tackle those issues much more effectively than with the data that we currently have. Maureen Watt, you had a question that, unfortunately, you weren't able to ask earlier. Maureen Watt, would you like to ask that now? Well, yes, it's kind of out of shape now, which is back to HR problems. We talked about drivers. What we didn't talk about and what a noise a lot of people getting on a train is to be told that there is no tea trolley coming along, and that really upsets a lot of people you think you're going to sit on a train, especially on a longer journey, and not have a cup of tea in a biscuit. Why is it so often that there is no tea trolley? We know that the ones that you have are really good, often they're Eastern European, is that having an effect, but why are there no tea trolley folk on so many trains? Well, the squire regime measures the delivery of service quality against the contract, which includes whether services have a hospitality steward on board. Clearly, sometimes, for unforeseen reasons, we're not able to provide one, where that's the case. We're sorry, but our performance in that respect is much improved because we've been recruiting and training so many people in the hospitality grade as well. We don't always get it right. It's improving. That's measured by squire, and our clear target is to make sure that every train that should have the ability to buy food and drink on board is provided with it. In fact, we're investing more money in our food and drink offer on board, as we can demonstrate with the intercity service, where we're creating a cafe for the first time and double staffing some of our intercity services. In that respect, getting that right is very important, and we're getting in the right direction. It's something that's measured by squire. In January, our squire results were at a two-year high. I think that that neatly leads on to the deputy convener's questions at Gail. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I want to talk a little bit about customer satisfaction. At the last survey in autumn 2018, it's the lowest. It's been at 79 per cent. We know that the national rail passenger survey samples 30 aspects of service. What are you finding that people are most dissatisfied with? The overall satisfaction score for any train operating company is primarily driven by the punctuality and reliability of the train service. As part of the £18 million investment that we're making in remedying the issues outlined in our plan, we expect that to have an impact not just on train service performance, but that will flow through to customer satisfaction because punctuality and reliability is the biggest driver of customer satisfaction. If you look at the national rail passenger survey, we can see some good increases in those areas that we're investing in, but it's punctuality and reliability, which is the biggest driver of customer satisfaction. You were issued with a second remedial plan notice. I believe that that's due to be published by 3 May. Will we submit our remedial plan for the national rail passenger survey target on 3 May? Clearly, much of the territory covered in that plan is discussed here, because it's primarily around train service performance. The £18 million investment that we're making will really help us in that respect. Are there any other aspects, as Maureen Watt mentioned, about trolley service and anything else that you're planning to have as proposals in that plan? We're still compiling the plan, but I would say that we are working really hard on Squire and we're going in the right direction, so customers can look forward to more reliable services, cleaner trains, better stations, the investment that we're making across the network in making that happen is feeding through into better Squire results. Okay. There are a few other questions that committee members want to ask. Jamie, you wanted to ask one, I think. Thank you. It's really just the point of clarification on a few things that have come up over the discussion. Can I just check a few things? In the remedial plan, it says that it takes 12 months to a driver. In your opening statement, you said 18, which is it? It varies by depot because it depends on how many routes and how many types of train a driver has to learn, so it varies based on a depot by depot. Worst case scenario, it's 18 months where we have lots of routes and lots of train types. In other places where there's maybe just one route a driver uses and maybe one type of train, it's more—it's quicker than that. Another one is another point of clarification on the HSTs. Is it the case that you will be introducing unrefurbished HST classics onto the network in the absence of the ability to refurbish them? We've already done that. We did that at the back end of last year. Each day, we have 10 sets of services that rely upon high-speed trains. Today, for example, we have two refurbishing city trains in service, and the remainder of those trains are served by classic high-speed trains. Customer feedback has been that people prefer a classic high-speed train over and above a class 170 train, which are the trains that were replaced, but we're keen to make sure that we work with Angel and Webtech to deliver the full refurbished product, because the customer feedback on that has been extraordinarily good. My final question is—you may have spotted comments in the Parliament made by the First Minister who said that this really is the last chance to learn for ScotRail. Do you agree with that premise, and do you feel that you can turn it around this time? We're confident that the £18 million investment that we're making in this plan is going to give our customers the service that they expect and deserve, and that is our total focus. There are a few members who want to ask questions, and I will allow one question from each member just to allow for the time so that everyone can get them in. Maureen, go first, Peter, and then I'll try and take Christine in with one quick question. Listening to radio traffic problems, signalling is often given as a problem for delays and cancellations on our railways. Is the signalling structure fit for purpose? My understanding is that it's Victorian. We often hear of problems at Montrose. This week, there are problems between Inverruri and Aberdeen. I understand that if we improved the signalling, we could speed up the Aberdeen to the central belt without having to duel at the Montrose Basin. Can I have your comments on that, please? Signalling is a key part of any reliable railway system. In fact, in the current period, our biggest incident so far is a signalling failure in the hay market area around a more modern type of signalling. It's one reason why we're spending 20 per cent more money on the operations maintenance renewal of the network. Obviously, it's the responsibility of network rail colleagues to deliver reliable signalling infrastructure so that ScotRail can do a good job. Liam has got that as a key area focus for him in the coming weeks and months to make sure that we're delivering reliable signalling, because that's a prerequisite for providing a reliable train service. I'll just reiterate the word. I use quick question, Peter. Going back to where I was before Alex, I spoke about the late delivery of the trains and the breach of contract by the companies that are doing that job.  It's in the order of millions, essentially, the penalties that are paid by the suppliers who have failed so badly. As I said earlier, the way that the franchise agreement works is where we don't fulfil our contractual commitments. We pay what's called a committed obligation payment adjustment to Scottish Government, which normally works back-to-back with the commercial contracts that are in place. Is there at least two sums of monies balanced out? Is that what you're seeing? Generally, they do, yes, but our focus is not actually on the money. Our focus is delivering the contract to Scottish Government because, by delivering the contract to Scottish Government, we'll deliver a better service to our customers. That's our focus. I want to get back to page 25 of your plan. Paragraph 5, create a head of operations strategy to develop and maintain an on-going three-year train crew resource plan based on future requirements. Why wasn't there somebody there before doing that job, making sure that you had enough crew for the forthcoming needs of the ScotRail franchise, because you're creating and developing now? There are two issues here. Firstly, the issues that we saw in recent months were not due to not having enough train crew. They were due to not having enough train crew trained in the new routes and the new types of train. That's separate from not having enough train crew. In addition to addressing the training backlog at places like Edinburgh, which finishes this Friday, we're creating this additional post. We're looking further out into the future to give this area additional focus. It's one of the things that we're spending £18 million on, because, clearly, we never want to see those challenges again. Okay, thank you. Alex, we mentioned earlier in one of your remarks about skip-stopping and how you were eliminating it. In the last week, I'm sure you'll have these figures to hand, how many trains have skip-stopped? A train skips a stop not just because the control centre is instructive. With the grace of respect, you've explained skip-stopping to the committee, and I'm pretty sure that the number of skips stops is down by 85 per cent since we've implemented the non-free recommendation. I'm sorry, I asked how many trains had skipped-stopped in the last week. I don't have that information to hand. I can confirm to the committee. Would it surprise you that just yesterday trains on the east coast of Scotland were skip-stopping on a regular basis? Do you think that that's acceptable? It's one of the issues that this committee and this Government have questioned you on, and we were given an undertaking by the Government and by you that skip-stopping would stop, but it's continuing. Are you satisfied with that? The Donovan recommendation was to stop skip-stopping apart as long as we only use it as a last resort. It's true to say that, in the past, we overused it. We have implemented the Donovan recommendation in full, and the number of skip-stops is down by 85 per cent. We only use it where that is the last possible way to restore the trains. I think that my question was straightforward. Are you satisfied in the last week that you have cut skip-stopping in line with what the Government said would happen in relation to this? I'm satisfied that we've implemented the Donovan recommendation. I've satisfied that we've cut skip-stopping by 85 per cent, which is what we've promised, and that's what we've done. Maybe that's a point to leave it and let the passengers decide on the east coast where the skip-stopping has been appropriate. Thank you Alex, David and Liam for coming in and giving evidence to the committee this morning. I'd like to briefly suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to depart before we take the next evidence session. I now reconvene the formal meeting of the Royal Economy and Connectivity Committee. I move on to the second panel to hear evidence on ScotRail. I welcome Michael Matheson, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity, Bill Revy, the director of rail and Andrew Mackie, the head of rail franchising transport Scotland. Cabinet Secretary, could I ask you to give an opening statement of no more than three minutes? As the committee is aware, I instructed Transport Scotland to use the available contractual lever set out within the ScotRail franchise agreement to serve a remedial plan notice. This notice was specifically required as a consequence of ScotRail's unacceptable level of cancellations in the east of the country, where the moving annual average threshold level for cancellations exceeded breach in period 9 of 2018-19. ScotRail can point to the impact of late delivery of trains and previous industrial relations challenges, but those reasons are of no comfort to passengers in some parts of the country, where service reliability continues to be woefully below requirements. If ScotRail is to address the unacceptable performance levels, the steps contained within ScotRail's remedial plan must fix the specific contraventions of the franchise contract. Only through the key operational steps will we see reliable delivery of the planned benefits of the Scottish Government's record investment in rail with more services, more seats, better reliability and faster journey times. You have heard from Alex Hines and his team on the commitments contained in the remedial plan aimed to restore the confidence of passengers and the Scottish Government. As a committee will expect, delivery of those commitments to the required timescale will be closely monitored and challenged by Transport Scotland. I have also instructed an independent senior industry specialist to closely scrutinise ScotRail's management of this critical plan. Let me stress again that the remedial plan must address the franchise contraventions that have frustrated passengers throughout Scotland. The duration of the remedial agreement will span to May 2020. That timescale is necessary to allow the full programme of contract commitments to be delivered. Secondly, as a consequence of contractually tracking ScotRail's key performance indicators on a rolling 12-month basis, it will take this timeframe to recover the lagging annual average calculation on performance for cancellations to fall below contract intervention levels. However, ScotRail can only achieve that by making improvements now to deliver solid week-by-week and month-by-month performance improvements. The First Minister was very clear at FMQs last week that ScotRail should treat the remedial plan very much as the last chance saloon. That is the nature of it. ScotRail has been left in no doubt that its recent performance levels have been completely unacceptable. As you have heard from Alex Hines and his team on the recent positive trends in performance, particularly in the Strathclyde network, that is to be welcomed. However, as a national rail franchise, all parts of the country must be on a trajectory to meet our challenging but achievable contractual regulatory targets. Professional and competent delivery of the remedial plan is now a mandatory step for the operator to retain stewardship of the national rail franchise. I will end my opening remarks there, convener, and I am happy to answer any questions. Cabinet Secretary, we have just had Alex Hines give us evidence. He started off, in my view, the right way by apologising to those passengers who had been receiving this unacceptable service. When I questioned him, he then seemed to be in denial that the performance levels were not bad and that they were really improving and were on the right trajectory. What I could not understand is that, chapter 4, the remedial plan starts with an analysis of the cause and the drop in overall franchise public performance measures. It says, why has performance continued to decline? It is obvious. As you have just said, they have completely unacceptable performance levels. Now, you understand that, Cabinet Secretary. I think that everybody understands that. I am absolutely somewhat shocked by Alex Hines' attempt, if you like, to say that it was not that bad. Do you retain confidence in the ability of Bello to deliver the required level of service and performance set out in the franchise agreement that they took on in 2015? If you do have that confidence in them, can you explain what gives you that confidence? The previous improvement plans have not worked, and we are now on the remedial plan. There seems to be a situation where Alex Hines seems to be in denial. Do you have confidence in them? Let me try to unpack a few of the different issues that Mr Rumbles has raised. First of all, it is to understand the purpose behind the remedial plan, which is to deal with the very specific breaches of the franchise contract. As I mentioned in the chamber yesterday, it is very specific to get ScotRail out of those breaches of the franchise agreement. However, the reason that we took that action is because of the unacceptable levels of cancellations and performance, particularly in the east of the country. It is not an action that you take lightly, because it is consequences for the franchisee if they fail to deliver on any measures that are set out in the remedial plan. I am very clear, and the Scottish Government is very clear, that performance has not been good enough, particularly in areas such as the east coast. The remedial plan is drafted in a way that is to address that specifically. Now, there is wider work that has also been undertaken in the network. You made reference to the improvement plan. The improvement plan, which was in 2016, and then there was a further iteration of that in 2017, which led to the Donovan review being instructed by ScotRail. We can see from some of the work that has been taken forward through the Donovan review that there have been areas where improvements have occurred, not on the east coast, and certainly not for the passengers who have been suffering cancellations to the levels that they have been. However, we can see in the west coast that there have been improvements. For example, in the Strathclyde electrics area, in the particular central station, PPM, it centres up at over 95 per cent. Areas such as Mulgyi, there have been marked improvements on on-time departures and the whifflets. There have been improvements as a result of actions that have been taken through Donovan. That also has to address wider issues in the whole of the network. That includes the east coast as well. That will take time for some of those actions to be taken. The ORR report indicates that they are making good progress, but there is more that they need to do and there are further actions that they could also take. However, even with those improvements, people in the east coast are certainly not experiencing that. That is why the remedial plan is so important in addressing those issues. On your point about confidence in this matter, I asked to meet the chief executive and the chief financial officer of Abellio in order to discuss the extent of my concern about their performance. I met them in January to figure out very clearly the extent of my concerns about performance to date, the fact that we had gone into a major timetable change where there was clearly very significant assumptions made in that timetable change by ScotRail Abellio that had presumptions that were clearly inaccurate and resulted in the crew shortage and training issues that we are now having to deal with as a result. I have made it very clear to them that the remedial plan has an opportunity for them to get this right. If they do not, it could have serious consequences for them. Equally, the wider actions that are taken around Donovan, I expect to continue to see progress being made on those matters. I am of the view that it is clear from the remedial plan and from the discussions that I had with the senior management within Abellio that there is determination in the near part in order to address those issues. Ultimately, the proof will be in the pudding and whether they deliver on those matters. That is why I have asked for an independent level of oversight on taking that forward so that I can get the assurances that I require that I can see them making the progress that they need to make. I am glad that you have said that, cabinet secretary, but I can just pursue that with one more on that point. Forgive me, I know that you will not have this in front of you, but this is a private paper from committee members produced by the clerks for us. Since Abellio took the contract in 2015, it seems from the graph that they have provided to us, they have never on the ScotRail public performance measure moving annual average. They have never achieved the level that they are supposed to have achieved constantly in the contract since they took it over. Recently, the graph is almost falling off a cliff at 87.5 per cent. The trend is down. I hear what you are saying and I think that it is absolutely right that you are holding them to account. That is why my question is focused on what confidence you may be doing everything that you can to make sure that they achieve the objective of the performance level. Do you really have confidence, looking at the past history of the company, that they can achieve the level that you are expecting them to achieve? I have not saw the graph as you made reference to its committee paper. As the member will be aware, there are a whole range of different factors that have an impact on performance within a rail network, some of which are within ScotRail's console, some of which are not within their control, but there is a complex range of different issues that have an impact on them. There is no doubt that the accumulation of those has had an impact on performance over the past couple of years. Having said that, we can see that within the UK as a whole. That is not peculiar to Scotland. We have saw it in a downward trajectory, to the point where the UK Government has commissioned the Williams review to look at the whole issue because of that. There are systemic problems within the system that have an impact on performance. Alongside that, there have been issues relating to, for example, the rolling stock issues that you have already discussed this morning, which have had an impact on ScotRail's ability to take forward the new timetabling programme. The challenges that we face are not due to a lack of financial resource on the path of the Scottish Government and investing in our railways. There are clearly issues about performance in the infrastructure element and in the rolling stock element of it. At this point, time and time again, most of them have to play their part in making sure that we get better performance. I am of the view that, with the additional rolling stock that is brought in, with the measures that have been taken forward through Donovan and the remedial plan, they should improve performance. However, it needs to be sustained and it has to be maintained, and passengers need to experience that as well. Why do I say that? We can see some of the benefits that have already come, as I mentioned earlier, from Donovan in the west of the country in the Strathclyde Electrics area. If we can make improvements there through the actions that have been taken, we want to see that in the rest of the network. My view is that it can be done. What we need to do is to make sure that there is a clear focus in both ScotRail and also Network Rail in taking the actions that are necessary to deliver that on a sustained basis, on a national basis. I do want you to ask it, but I am going to encourage both of you to remember that there are lots of other members around the table who want to ask questions, and succinct answers to succinct questions will allow every member the opportunity to ask their question, so I do not get evil looks when I do not allow people in. Cabinet Secretary, short answers, Mike. Finally, what role did you and your officials play in the development of the remedial plan and its adoption as a formal agreement? The remedial plan was submitted to Transport Scotland officials. They had the opportunity to review that. They also had external expertise brought in to give some additional scrutiny to it as well, and then they gave formal feedback to ScotRail on that issue. Bill, do you want to say a bit more about that particular process internally in Transport Scotland? Just as you described, Cabinet Secretary, we received the plan. We subjected it to some scrutiny, including some independent expert advice. We took appropriate legal advice about how to make the plan enforceable. We went back with some required changes, and after the proper process, we came to something that we were content to turn from the plan into an agreement. Following on from what you have been asked, how much of all of the problems is an underlying management problem with Abelio ScotRail? How much of it is just teething problems because there has been a delay in the rolling stock, we have grown things so much, we have put in electrification and any management would have had the same problems? Which problem are you referring to? We have a remedial plan here. There is a whole package of things. Could we say that it is 75 per cent teething problems and 25 per cent management? Let me deal with that. There are a number of different factors. There is no doubt that the late arrival of the Attachee rolling stock had an impact on the training programme. That continues to be the case. Secondly, the late arrival of the HASTs has a similar impact. That is also an impact on capacity on particular routes because where the three at five Attachee trains are meant to go into, it allows the diesels to then be cascaded to other areas such as the borders and to Fife, which has not been possible because of the late arrival and the delays in training, and then the knock-on effect to train drivers in those areas to take on the new rolling stock that is going to operate on the east coast. Whether it was publicly owned or anybody else had been running in the railways, those things would still have happened. The failure in the delivery on Attachee and the high-speed trains is down to Attachee and Labtech, respectively. That is their failure. We can see LNER, which is in public ownership run by the UK Government. There is the late arrival of the Zoomer trains there as well. It is not about public or private. That is train manufacturers or companies that are undertaking refurbishment work failing to deliver on what their commitments were. That is the basic facts of that. However, the timetable change in December last year was a significant timetable change, a very significant timetable change to provide enhanced services. It was dependent on the new rolling stock being in time in order to deliver that. The training programme and the crewing programme for that timetable change was an issue for ScotRail to manage and to plan effectively to deal with that timetable change. It got it wrong. It clearly had made assumptions on the basis of the information that it was giving to Transport Scotland that its crewing and training plan was achievable, although challenging. Once in timetable community place, it was clear that those were assumptions that were wrong. That is reflected in the remedial plan in terms of the arrangements that are put in place in order to address that with having a senior manager who will be responsible for oversight of this and also having a crewing strategy that she will take forward in order to plan in these issues more effectively. Combination of factors and they all interplayed at one time. Aside from train cancellations due to ScotRail, there continues to be infrastructure issues such as signalling, track issues and other delays across the rail network, which is regularly impacting on customers. What are you doing to manage the network rail's performance and how much say do you have over network rail? There is no doubt that network rail infrastructure has an impact. Both parts of the system have their part to play in performance. There is no point in looking at just part of the system and thinking well if we just keep saying that ScotRail will have to do X, Y and Z, that that will resolve all the problems because in some periods in excess of half of all cancellations and delays are the responsibility of infrastructure failures. There is clearly work that still needs to be done there. Andrew Haines, who is the new chief executive of Network Rail, who is part of his 100-day review, has agreed to give greater devolution of the management of Network Rail in Scotland, so rather than being controlled in melting keins, his headquarters will look to try and evolve more of a management into the Scottish route. However, as an organisation, they are accountable to UK ministers and they are not accountable to Scottish Government ministers. We fund the work that Network Rail undertake here in Scotland. I announced that just yesterday some £3.8 billion we will invest in rail over the course of the next five years, which is a 21 per cent increase in investment. We have an infrastructure manager in Scotland and Network Rail for which we fund, but I have no response. They are not accountable to me. We fund something, but we have no control over it. No, we are not accountable to us. Thank you, Mr Lyle. The next question is from Jamie Greene. Thank you, convener. With the good respect to the last line of questioning, is the case though that Network Rail is the third party in the Scottish Alliance and the Scottish Alliance is directly accountable to yourself? Is that not the case? Alex Haines is the head of it, but in terms of the actions of Network Rail, no. Is not also the case looking at the remedial plan that it states on page 15 that infrastructure asset failures have caused 2 per cent of trains to fail PPM in the past year? That is 2 per cent, too many in my view, but let us put this into perspective, cabinet secretary. In terms of PPM, the figure that you referred to is 4.1. 4.1.2, page 15 of the remedial plan. Asset failures have caused 2 per cent of trains to fail PPM in the past year. If you look at the moving forward target in terms of infrastructure failures in causing cancellations and delayed trains on average in excess of 50 per cent of them are the result of infrastructure failures. If you go back to, for example, during the summer period when it was very hot, over 70 per cent of all cancellations and delays were due to infrastructure failures. It is not a case of trying to blame one or the other. My view is, and I know when I say in the chamber and I raise this issue, members will say, oh, you are just trying to use Network Rail and excuse for it. I want Network Rail to get it right as well. It got it right on the Highland Mainline. It has completed the programme of upgrades on time and under budget, which is great. What we do is we need to see more of that, but where we have an axle counter at Haymarket that fails twice in the course of two days, that is unacceptable. We need to see improvements in those things. It is not about playing off one against the other. We need both of them to improve the performance so that passengers get the best service. I could not agree more. It should be all the focus is all about passengers. What I wanted to quickly ask was around some of the issues that were mentioned in the previous session, which you may have seen. We heard that it takes up to 18 months to train a driver, a new driver. In Scotland, Earl is part of this remedial plan, a flagship announcement of 55 new drivers. On the face of it, what confidence does that feel that passengers will see any improvements any time soon, given that substantial time lag from recruitment to being live on the service? It seems like a very long time before we are expected to see the benefits of this new resource. Jamie Halcro-Hamilton 2 points on the remedial plan on east coast to keep up to addressing issues in the east coast as a training of crew on traction and on route. As you heard from ScotRail this morning, it is on target to get that work completed, that training programme, so that will give them more resilience in the east in addressing the significant challenges that they have had around cancellations. Going forward, they need to continue to recruit drivers because they still have a dependency on rest day working. They have set out an expression that they want to end the need for that, and part of the additional recruitment will assist them to do that. However, as you will be aware, there are potentially a variety of different things. One, it depends—the timeframe can be longer—it depends on where they are going to be based and the types of trains that they are going to be covering, the routes that they are going to be covering, that takes longer. If they come in as a ready qualified driver, then they just need to do traction and route knowledge, then it can be much quicker. So, there are different timeframes, which ScotRail explained to you in their evidence, but the key issue for the remedial plan on the east coast is the completion of the training of their crew. As I have said out, they expect to have that completed by the end of, I believe they said, next week. John Finnie John We are here a couple of hours, cabinet secretary, and I have not mentioned the Highland Main line, and I have no intention of mentioning it, but since you have, and very briefly, although the modest improvements are most welcome, the greater part of that line remains a single track that will provide considerable challenges, all the meantime you are spending £3 billion on the adjacent road. Can you set out what would happen and when should Abelio or not meet the contractual requirements set out in the remedial agreement, please? On the main line, he will also be aware that the Highland main line is one of the lines that we are looking at in control period six to see what further enhancements we can deliver in that particular area, given its importance to the highlands. The remedial plan is now part of the franchise contract. If they fail to deliver on the commitments that are set out in the remedial plan, they go into default, which they are defaulting on the contract. If that is the case, depending on the nature of that default and the purpose of that default, as a Government, we will then be in a position where we can consider where we should terminate the contract with them early. The next step for failure to deliver on it could be the determination of the contract. Cabinet Secretary, in your statement on 22 March about ScotRail, you said, I have instructed my officials to ensure that robust measures are put in place to monitor progress very closely. Can you explain what those robust measures are and explain how they differ from the current monitoring procedures? For the remedial plan, there will be full weekly meetings with ScotRail to go over progress that has been made on the action set out within the remedial plan. I am also appointing Andy Thomas, who is someone with considerable experience in the rail industry and expertise to provide independent oversight of ScotRail's progress on that matter, which will report into my Transport Scotland officials on his view on the progress that they are making. That combination of direct engagement with ScotRail and the independent oversight that I am putting in place will allow us to track very closely the progress that ScotRail is making. I can see that that is a useful increase in monitoring, but you could ask the question why it has taken so long to get to that situation. If monitoring closely is important, as it obviously is, why didn't we do some of those things previous? The monitoring is specifically for the remedial plan, so that is why that enhanced monitoring has been put in place. If its reference, if your point is about issues around crewing for the timetable change, there is a process that has gone through for ScotRail to set out the plans and the arrangements that they have put in place to manage those types of issues. I think that it would be fair to say that all of the assurances and information that was being provided by ScotRail prior to the timetable change was that they had some challenges, but they were all achievable, all manageable, and that they would be able to meet the additional crewing demands that would be required for the timetable change. It is very clear that their planning on that and information that they have provided on that was wrong. The work that has now been undertaken by ScotRail to analyse in detail how they got it wrong in part is reflected in the measures that are now contained within the remedial plan so that they have a clear line of management within the organisation that is responsible for dealing with those issues. If you were to ask me the question, why did you not have that before, I would say that that is a very good question. Putting it in place, in my view, is the right thing to do. Thank you for that. We have heard about the extra £18 million that the Alliance is going to put in to help the situation to improve over the next three years. Have any additional Scottish Government funds been made available to Abelio to develop or implement any of the proposals? Under what mechanism and from what budget line if there is any extra money? No, there is no additional money from the Scottish Government in this matter. The £18 million is entirely money that is coming from Abelio. The next question is from Colin Cullidane. I think that it says a lot about how lower expectations are of ScotRail that we are discussing how they are going to get a lot of breach in the franchise rather than actually hitting the targets that are being set, but Cabinet Secretary, during topical questions yesterday and reply to a question from myself regarding ScotRail's overall performance targets, you said in a quote, ScotRail's forecast for achieving the 92.5 per cent target is by the end of reporting period 13 in 2021 and they believe that they are on track to achieve that. Do you stand by that statement? I think that I may have caused some confusion for the member in that response in the chamber yesterday. The figure that I was quoting is the figure that is contained within the Donovan review, the latter part of the Donovan review, which ScotRail is working to. However, the figure that is contained within the remedial plan is for period 13 in 2021-22. That is the figure that is being set, the trajectory that is being set by the ORR because of the work that they believe that network rail needs to undertake in order to achieve the 92.5 per cent target. However, as you heard from ScotRail, ScotRail is working to the Donovan review figure, which is for period 13 in 2020-21. However, in my response to Mr Smith's question yesterday, I should have referred to the remedial plan figure, which is for the agreement in 2021-22. My apologies for not providing him with the accurate information when I was responding to the remedial plan question. The remedial plan is very clear. It says that, by March 2021, the performance figure will be effectively less than 90 per cent, so well below what that target is. Today, ScotRail confirmed that it will not meet the 92.5 per cent target by March 2021, which contradicts the statement that it made yesterday. It said, however, that it would meet the target by the end of 2021. Do you believe that that is accurate and achievable? In fairness, I apologise for giving them the wrong information yesterday, but I do not think that it contradicts it. The figure that is in the remedial plan is the ORR figure, which takes account of what network rail needs to undertake in order to achieve the 92.5 per cent target in the agreement. However, the figure that I quoted yesterday was the figure that ScotRail is working to, which was set out in the Donovan review. As you heard from Alex Hynes earlier on, it is working to the Donovan review figure, but the remedial agreement recognises the ORR projection and that is that the work that network rail needs to take means that it could take a year longer. ScotRail is very clear that they are not working to March 2021. They are very clear today that they will not meet or they do not believe they will meet March 2021 figures. When do you think that ScotRail will deliver that performance target of 92.5 per cent? I may have picked up ScotRail wrong then, because when I heard them giving evidence that the figure that I offered up was the correct figure that they are working to, however, the figure that is in the remedial agreement is a different one. That is the one that is from the ORR, so they are still working. For example, as far as ScotRail is concerned, the new period starts next week. They should be working to reach the 92.5 per cent within the next period. Absolutely. The figure comes in that the 92.5 per cent starts next month, period six, so they are not going to meet that target. Do you think that they are going to meet the target in March 2021 then? If that is the target that they are working towards, are they going to meet that in your opinion? In this Government's opinion, are they going to hit that target in March 2021? Frankly, they made it clear today that they did not believe they were. There will continue to be challenges in being able to achieve it, but they should be working to meet that target as best they can. The question is, when do you believe that ScotRail will meet that 92.5 per cent target? They should be looking to meet it, as was said out in the Donovan review. Cullen has pushed you quite hard on that one. I think that the question is when you think they will meet it, not when they should be looking to meet it, or what the figure is in which review. When do you think they will meet it? I expect them to meet the target, as was said out in the Donovan review, which is for period 13, 2020, 2021. If you were to look at what is in the remedial plan, which is a projection that says that it would be below 90 per cent, frankly, in March 2021, how do you believe that they will meet 92.5 per cent by that period? The range of actions that they can take in order to improve performance are all the measures that will sit out in the Donovan review in order to achieve that particular target. If they continue to make progress with those, it is possible that they can make that target. What I want to do is to keep them focused on that and to make sure that that is the date that they are aiming to achieve target on. If they fail to meet that target by March 2021, if that is the target that they are working to, what action will the Government take? It depends on how much they have failed it by and the reasons as to why that may have been the case as well. Clearly, if performance has not picked up on where it is at the present time, they might have to look at taking further action. I want to bring Mike in and then I will come back to you if I may. I am pursuing the point that Colin Smyth has raised. As I understand it, the earliest time you can give them notice of terminating their contract is April next year. It sounds to me from your responses that you are not even expecting Abelio to reach those targets until another 11 months later. Considering my question earlier on that, they have never achieved the target, and they have never reached the target since they took the contract. We have to put a performance through their whole track record. Don't you think that it would give them a major spare if you told them that you would be examining at the earliest opportunity whether to end the contract? Would that not give them a greater spare? Will they already be aware of that? Let's keep in mind that if they fail to deliver on the commitment to set out in the remedial plan, which they have to start implementing now, any of those who fail to meet the timeline that is set out in the remedial plan gives us the opportunity to consider whether we terminate the contract or not. We do not have to wait until April next year in order to make that decision, if they are ready to go into default on the remedial plan. If they do that, in April next year, would you make an assessment of whether you should give them notice to end the contract? As the First Minister has already said, they are in the last chance saloon. If they do not get it right, that should make it very clear to them what the potential consequences could be. Colin, I will come back to you. The problem is that, when they fail to hit a target, sometimes that target changes, and it is not just about hitting a target, it is about a certain level below a target before you take any action against ScotRail. So, looking at the remedial plan, you have indicated that, if they do not meet what is in the remedial plan and the timelines in that remedial plan, the franchise could be terminated. Could you expand on that and say what that means if they fail to miss one of those timelines? Will it be terminated to those timelines? By how much will they have to fail to meet that timeline to have it terminated? What exactly is the criteria that you will use? Previously, when they have been effectively in breach of their performance targets, those targets have been amended, so what exactly within their remedial plan targets will they have to breach?  So, if they, because the remedial plan commitments are now part of the contract to get them out of breach, if they fail to deliver on it, they go into default, which is the next level. If they go into default on their contract, we then have the opportunity to consider whether we should terminate the contract. In asking me what exactly will it be that will determine whether you terminate the contract, it depends on what the purpose for the default may be. So, for example, if they default on one of the commitments on the basis that they were a day late in doing it, does that justify termination of the contract, even though it was only 24 hours late? Or is it something that we now know that they are just not going to be able to achieve it at all and they are not going to deliver on it and they are not intent on delivering on it? Does that merit us giving consideration to terminating the contract? So, when you ask me for the very specifics, what will it be, it does depend on a number of different factors. As I say, if it is something where it is clear that they are not going to deliver on it or are incapable of delivering on it and there is no will for them to deliver on it, then we would have to consider where we should terminate the contract on that basis, because they are failing to deliver on a contracted commitment that puts them into default. As I mentioned, if it was something that was a day late or a small oversight that caused a delay in them actually completing a piece of work that can be closed off within a relatively short period of time that has not adversely impacted on the wider benefits that are being gained from the medial plan, then clearly we will have to give consideration to that as well. Jamie, you wanted to ask a brief follow-up and then we will go to Stuart Stevens. Thank you. This is getting as clear as mud as we have progressed through this conversation. There are 19 contractual commitments in their medial plan, but it is entirely unclear as to how many they will have to fail to meet before they will consider terminating the contract, given that some of them are not expecting to be achieved until May 2020. In effect, you are giving them carte blanche to continue as is, with no real teeth to the threat that you may remove for the franchise. Do you only have to fail to deliver on one? It is not a civil one. If they fail to deliver on one of those commitments, they are in default. This is to get them out of breach. If you go into default, you are the level below that again. It automatically gives us the right to consider where we should terminate the contract as one of our options. It is not a combination of different issues that have to be breached, it is just one of them that automatically gives us that ability. I hope that that is cleared up in the mud for him. Thank you. Given that we are talking about the potential end of the contract, how prepared is the Government to put in place an operator of last resort? We legally have to put in place an operator of last resort, and we have arrangements in place for an operator if that was necessary. That is a piece of work that is regularly reviewed. Bill can say a bit more about the internal work that we do around that, but we have legal arrangements in place should we need to step in as an operator of last resort. We have arrangements in place and legal contracts in place to deliver an operator of last resort if required. No, I just miss out on that. Not very much to add, but we do have some shelf companies ready as a standard practice for the eventuality that might be required. We do keep the operator of last resort arrangements under review. We are refreshing that process as we speak. Andrew has in his franchise management team a team focused on that piece of work, that is good and prudent practice. We have done that throughout the life of this franchise and, indeed, the previous one. That is standard operating practice for us. There are issues about the whole structure of railways and the Williams review addresses. I know that my colleagues will ask about that, so I am not asking about the Williams review. However, in general terms, there has been a discussion about Scottish public sector organisations perhaps being a follow-on operator or bidder for the franchise. The only name that I have heard so far is CalMac. I have a view that they have perhaps got enough in their entry in trying to run the ferries. Can you assure me that it will not be CalMac? I can hardly imagine that that is going to make things better. Or, indeed, that you personally take control of it, minister, much as I respect your capabilities, I suspect that it might be beyond your personal reach. Probably more within Bill Reeves' personal reach than my personal reach. We have secured the right to a public sector bid for a franchise. Dave McBrains is the only company in the public sector that has expressed an interest in possibly bidding for a franchise. It is ultimately a public body when it comes to the opportunity to bid for a public sector contract. It would have to assess its decision to lodge a franchise bid and the issues that go alongside that. If someone else is going to ask about the Williams review, however, this now feeds quite strongly into the whole Williams review because, as we know, Keith Williams has already said that the existing franchise structure needs to change. We are facing change of some shape or fashion. We do not know what the nature and scale of that change will be, but it is clear that, from what Keith Williams has said to date, the existing franchise arrangements are not going to continue. We are going to come on to the franchise arrangements at the moment. Stuart, my question is, are you satisfied that you have got an answer that you don't need to be worried about who is taking over control? I have heard what the cabinet secretary has had to say. Just as a supplementary, it has been suggested to me that the cost of preparing a bid is in the order of £10 million to £15 million. Of course, it would be what it is. If CalMac were to spend—or McRange, rather—the company on CalMac, it would spend that money. Would that be useful spending on money, or would we rather bid to see it improving ferry services? The cost to prepare a bid for a franchise bid is in the order of around £10 million. That is not to secure the contract, that is just to prepare your bid and to submit your bid. I don't share Mr Stevenson's concerns about CalMac, but what I would like to ask is what the operator of last resort looked like in advance of the Scottish Government being able to prepare a public sector bid. You have said that there was a legal requirement that there was something in frame. What did it look like before then? Who was it? What was it? How was it configured, cabinet secretary? The operator of last resort? Just as I said before, we maintained that the shelf company is ready to start if we needed to keep under review a company prepared and ready to be taken off the shelf company, ready to be taken off the shelf and used as a legal vehicle to allow us to take over as the operator of last resort. We keep the key contracts of the current franchisee under review that we have a standard pack that we keep under review of the information that we would need, the process that we would need to follow. We stay in close liaison with colleagues at the Department for Transport who have been through this process on a couple of occasions now and make certain that we are kept up with best practice and we keep that process under regular review. We have maintained that ever since we have had responsibility for franchises in 2005. Is it able to see what it looks like? Who it is? Clearly, we are not going to engage a whole new lot of staff. It is presumably a senior personnel. To take the example of where the Department for Transport has stepped in in the operator of last resort, which would be a similar model, it would entail the transfer of all but a small number of senior managers from the existing operator. There would be a need to fill some senior posts with people with appropriate experience. I cannot say who that would be because we would need to find out who was available at the time, but we have means of securing people of suitable expertise. It is terribly complicated. It is therefore very disappointing that the Scottish Government seems to have completely cooled on this, and we have heard a lot of comments about public ownership, but I will leave it there. Richard, do you want to come in briefly? I think that John John says to leave it there, but if ScotRail cannot solve it, why should we give it to another franchise, another private company? Why do not we take? What is the word that they are using nowadays in this Brexit? Take back control? Should we not take back control of ScotRail? We are putting millions of pounds into ScotRailways. Millions of pounds. So why do not we take it back under public control? Mr Lyle's issue and Mr Finney's issue—the idea that the Scottish Government is completely cooled in this issue—is struggling to hear. There are some conversations going on. Sorry, could you— Let me deal with that. It is completely cooled in this issue. That is factually wrong. That is not the case at all. We have the William review, which is taking place at the present moment, where it has already indicated that franchising of its existing nature is going to change what we do not know is what that change will be. What I have said to the William's review is that I want all options on the table, including the ability for us to look at a public sector-run railway as being an option, and including alongside that the full devolution of Network Rail in Scotland. Hold on. Can I finish this point? Hold on. When Mr Finney says that the Scottish Government appeared to have cooled in this issue, he is wrong. What we are dealing with is a changing situation because of the William's review, which we need to take into account. That takes me on to Mr Lyle's issue. That is why do not we just take back control of it? We cannot just take back control of it because we do not have the powers to be able to do that. We are legally obliged to have a franchise in place in running rail services in Scotland. All that we have is the right to be able to have a public sector organisation to bid for a franchise. My view is that the existing franchise arrangements do not work in the interests of passengers. It is no longer a fit for purpose. It needs to change. We need to see greater integration of the infrastructure elements, Network Rail and the rolling stock providers, whoever that may be, where it will be a public or private sector. We need to see a complete realignment of how rail services are delivered. That is why I want to see, through the William's review, if franchising is ending, that is to be welcomed. However, if this franchising arrangement is to be ending, I want to see the options that allow us to consider all the various models that could be applied in Scotland that allow us, including, to pursue the option of a public sector rail service in Scotland. However, it needs to give us the pillars to be able to do that, not just on the rolling stock element of it but also on the network element of it as well around Network Rail. That is the opportunity that we have with the William's review. From the discussions that I have had with Keith Williams, that is the views that we have expressed to them, that we want to see coming from the rail review in the UK. I hope that that clarifies my position for Mr Finnie. I think that the next question is around that. Jamie, that is your question. I thank the cabinet secretary for answering the question that I have not asked yet. It is a unique ability. It is an important point. I want to take the politics out of this. There is a lot of discussion around who owns the railways and the nature of the franchises, but what it comes down to in the conversations that I have with the industry is that the problems that the industry is facing at the moment, even if, with respect, David McGrane took over the railways tomorrow under some shelf company arrangement, and at the end of the day, anyone can set up a shelf company. It does not actually mean that you are running a business. We still face the same problems with weather, disruption, driver shortages, late delivery of fleet, enrolling stock and so on. Your view that you want the flexibility and the options to do it a different way, but what makes you think that things would be run any better, any differently from how they currently are? That is why we want to be able to look at all of the options to see is there a better way than the existing franchise arrangement that we have at the present time that could provide us with a more passenger focused railway service, with greater integration between the infrastructure and the rolling stock element of the present time. No-one is going to persuade me, given the recent challenges that we have had, that we have got the optimal model for running railways in Scotland. Is MD going to seriously argue that? That is clearly not the case. What we need to do is identify what is a better way in which to run our railways in Scotland, and that includes the possibility of having it within the public sector. The member may raise a number of important points. For those who say to me, including some around this committee table, just tear up their bellio contract. What it does not do, it does not resolve the crewing issue, it does not resolve the issue about the late arrivals of trains coming from Wabtec and from Hitachi, it does not get as any more drivers, it does not deal with the infrastructure challenges that we have within the Scottish route as well. All of those challenges are still there. The challenges that we have at the present time cannot be magicked away. We need to find a way in which to try and work through it. In trying to improve services for passengers, my focus is on what can we do with the contract that we have in place to apply as much pressure as possible on the franchisee to deliver for passengers. One of the strongest elements that I can pursue is through a remedial plan that then puts into the contract, so if you are in breach of it, you are going to default on the overall franchise. We have to use the contract that stands at the present moment to try to maximise the benefit for passengers as best we can, and that is what my focus is at the present time. However, that bigger picture is clear to me, that we do not have an optimal model. It would be fair to say, and I cannot speak on their behalf, that the UK Government has now woken up to that as well, which is why the Williams review is taking place. The question now is about what comes from Williams. We have already got an indication that the existing structure is going to change. The franchising of this nature will come to an end. What will the future look like? Our engagement with them is very much focused on that we want to be able to look at all options in Scotland, including the devolution of network rail, so that we can get greater alignment between rolling stock and infrastructure as well, and at the same time the opportunity to look at different models for how we run a railways here in Scotland, including through a public sector option. I share some sympathy with what you are saying in respect of the problems that we are facing today that will not go away overnight, and ripping up the existing contract and replacing it with a new one under a different legal framework does not necessarily remove any of the problems that ScotRail faces. I picked up a hint of criticism of the ScotRail alliance and what you said. You said that you would prefer a more passenger-focused railway in Scotland—those are the words that you used in your answer to me. Are you implying that ScotRail is not passenger-focused at the moment, and what is your vision of the publicly run rail network that you would like to operate? What I am saying is that when I referred to ScotRail, I am drawing the rail network in Scotland as a whole. Although I know for passengers that may not feel that from a discussion that I have had with ScotRail, they want to deliver the best possible service for passengers that they can. We are clearly going through a period where they have got aspects around training and crewing wrong. The purpose behind it was to provide better passenger services. That has not materialised yet. That is a source of real frustration to me, given the amount of resource that we are putting in to rail to help to deliver better services. I do not want it to be unfair for me to say that I do not think that ScotRail is interested in trying to deliver good services for passengers. I believe that they are, and they are committed to doing that. What I do think that there is a need for it to become more passenger-focused is on the infrastructure side. The infrastructure side to me feels too detached, too remote, too process-driven and not passenger-focused. There is a need for that to change so that they see that they have a much closer role, a much more focused role on the work that they can undertake in order to reduce the risk of disruption to passenger services. To me, at this time, that does not feel to be the case. I also happen to think that the regulatory framework that we have in place at the present moment is also too inward-looking. It is not focused on passenger needs to their level, although I welcome the ORR's suggestion that they are looking at the possibility of finding senior managers in network rail for failure to deliver on performance. To me, that might be welcome, but we should have been focused on driving better performance in network rail at a much earlier stage. The regulators have their own carrying that out. In my view, it is not served that purpose as well as it should have. The structure of the current franchise means that one of the parties is Abelio, a private operator. We know that the £18 million in the remedial plan that we have been discussing this morning is coming from them or from ScotRail, as opposed to coming from public funding. Therefore, the risk that Abelio takes or any other company that operates the franchise would be transferred to the public purse. At what point will the Scottish Government come forward with proposals or plans as to the cost considerations of a fully publicly owned and run service with 100 per cent of that risk on the public purse? We would expect for you to be forthcoming with such plans. That depends on what comes from the Williams review and what the extent of the powers will be that we have. Does it give us the power to be able to look at a completely different model here in Scotland, including the possibility of us having a public sector run railway in Scotland? In doing that, there is a variety of different models that could be considered. They would all have to be worked through and considered. We need to see what comes from the Williams review. What we do know is, so far, is there going to be significant change? The question is what the scope and nature of that change will be. That will then give us the opportunity to consider how we then take that forward here in Scotland. I have been very clear with my engagement with them due to our officials who have engaged and submitted material to the Williams review with continued engagement. I will be looking to further engagement with them as well, because they are due to report by the end of this year, on making sure that Scotland's needs are taken fully into account on any changes that they are planning, and that we should have all the levers of power around what those options should be for running the rail services here in Scotland. The next question is from Gail Ross. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary. I want to move on to customer satisfaction. The latest figures that we have from August 2018 tell us that it is at its lowest at 79 per cent now. That has obviously prompted the second remedial plan that is due with us on 3 May. I asked Alex Hynes a bit earlier, and he said that around the 30 aspects of service that is looked into, the greatest disquiet, if you like, which is not a surprise, is around punctuality and reliability. Can you provide us with an update on that plan from your point of view, and what you think should be in it to improve the levels of customer satisfaction? As Gail Ross has mentioned, it is due to be with us by the beginning of May, which we will go through the same process that we have gone through for this remedial plan. We will consider the detail that is contained within it, take legal advice and then we will feed back to ScotRail on that in the aspects that we believe need to be either included or that need to be expanded upon within the actual remedial plan. Two key areas are absolutely no doubt how they can take actions that address issues around punctuality and reliability. That fits in very much from what we get from the transport focus. Feedback is two key areas. One of the areas that they need to give much greater consideration to is advance warning to passengers. If your train is going to be cancelled or your train is going to be delayed for whatever purpose, it is giving people as much advance notice of that as possible. That is an issue that I have raised with ScotRail in my discussions with them before. There is nothing more frustrating. I have been there myself when you turn up through a train and it is cancelled. Had I known that an hour earlier, I could have made alternative arrangements to go a different way or by a different means. That earlier notification will be extremely important in helping to inform passengers because it is a major source of frustration that I know from the feedback that I get from passengers and they need to look at how they communicate that more effectively. Another thing that annoys people and you can see why is skip-stopping. Are you satisfied that that has come down to acceptable levels? Is any level acceptable? I suspect that there has been a level of skip-stopping that has always taken place within the system at some point as a way of managing rolling stock and lines. I do not think that it is a new thing to the industry. Historically, in the past couple of years, it has been over-utilised by ScotRail. There have been significant reductions. I think that it is almost 85 per cent reduction on the number of skip-stopping that is taking place. It should be at an absolute minimum. It should only take place as a matter of last resort. There are processes in place to monitor that. Through the contract, it is only using it for that purpose. I would always expect it to be used as nothing more than an issue of last resort. The fall-off that we have saw over the course of the last year is part of the Donovan review that has been implemented. We have saw a significant drop in skip-stopping taking place. You talk about giving passengers advance notice if their train is cancelled or delayed, but how do you give them advance notice if you are going to skip their stop? It must be intensely frustrating to be waiting to get off at the stop that you have maybe got somebody to pick you up from or that is closest to your house. That is why you get off there and a train rushes through it. I think that part of that is communication from on the trains to passengers, not just that they are doing it but explaining why it is the case. For some occasions where it is not clear to part why it happened in the first place, it could be because there is a broken down train somewhere else. If they stop there, it will cause even bigger problems. It is a ripple effect within that particular line or into other lines as well, so they make a decision looking at the network, thinking that if we skip that stop, I know that inconvenience passengers will have, but it reduces the wider inconvenience that will cause for an even greater number of passengers who may be impacted because of a particular issue that has happened, whether it be rolling stock or infrastructure failure that has taken place. It should only ever be used a matter of last resort, but communication to passengers is critical in explaining why that is the case as well, so that passengers have an understanding as to why that has occurred and why it has been put in place. Is there any form of compensation to reimbursed passengers that might then have to get an alternative form of transport home if they cannot get off at their stop? I would need to check the exact details of that. There are the delay and repay system, but I do not know whether it covers the skip-stopping, but I can check that for you. In the event that there is a part cancellation of a customer that is affected by a service that stopped earlier or a skip-stopped, that passenger is eligible to claim delay and repay if it delays more than 30 minutes. If they have to get a taxi to their house, which they would not have had to get if they were allowed to get off at their own stop? I am aware that a lot of customers make representations to ScotRail for often-above conversations where there have been inconvenience to that short notice and it is required a taxi. Any other questions from the committee? I have one cabinet secretary. I have been slightly heartened today that you agree that the most important thing is getting it right for the passengers who travel on the train. What I find difficult to understand is that every time that we get into a discussion in the chamber, it seems to be that blame is passed to other people. I was looking at the moving annual average for delays, and if you exclude delays due to external reasons—which we all know what those are—unfortunate events and people on the line and you exclude the extreme weather, it is clear that, for the annual moving average, the biggest delays are caused by ScotRail and not Network Rail. Why do we therefore just continue to blame Network Rail where the figures actually prove that it is ScotRail that is more at fault than Network Rail? I do not blame either or, both of them have a part to play. But it seems to be the answer is that, oh well, if we had control of Network Rail, all the problems with ScotRail would go away. That is not true. In all due respect, convener, I do not think that today I have come in here and said that it is all because of Network Rail. There are occasions when it is Network Rail and there are periods when the majority of the cases might be Network Rail, and there will be times when it is ScotRail when both of them are focused on delivering for passengers. No matter how few or how many they are responsible for, they both have a part to play. My view is that the present time and the present structural arrangements do not allow that to be as focused on passengers' needs as it should be. The idea that we fund Network Rail investment here in Scotland in the next five years to £4.8 billion of investment into our rail system is that we have an infrastructure manager network rail that is not accountable to the Government that is funding the infrastructure investment. That simply is not right and needs to change. In fairness, I look back when I was looking at these figures the other day and I can give you examples where Alex Hines has blamed Network Rail, where you have blamed Network Rail, where the First Minister has blamed Network Rail. In the last year, it is clear that the figures show that more of the delays are due to ScotRail than Network Rail. My plea, as somebody who used the railway, is to make sure that we all work joined up together to get the best result rather than looking to blame other organisations, because all organisations share responsibility. Let me take an example in blaming Network Rail. The axle counters that failed twice at Haymarket last week were because of Network Rail, not ScotRail. The consequences of dealing with that were for ScotRail to deal with. The communication of that problem was undertaken by ScotRail. It was not undertaken by Network Rail. I watched the communication from ScotRail saying, problems being identified, Network Rail are en route. They are en route on site. They have identified what the problem is. It will take an hour for the part to arrive. The guys are trying to replace the parts that stand at the present moment. It will take an hour to be completed. What did we get from Network Rail? Zero. The point that I am making to you is that that is an example of where there has been a failure in the part of infrastructure provider, where they need to be communicating that more effectively to the public so that the public understand that. I am not playing one off against the other, but what I think is also important is that if we are looking at our rail network and holding it to account, we need to be able to deal with both parts of it. Right now, we do not have the power to be able to do that. Cabinet Secretary, the point that I am making is that a lot of the ScotRail delays are due. According to the listing, there is a defective train, a lack of train staff, which also affects other rail operators, not just the one in Scotland. Maybe we can leave that there as an observation. With due respect, convener, I hope that you do not think that it is all just ScotRail's fault that you also recognise that Network Rail needs to deliver on its responsibilities as well. Absolutely. I accept both. If you heard what I said at the beginning that I do not like blame being shifted to other people when other people in the form of ScotRail as it appears in the last year are more at fault than Network Rail. On that note, Cabinet Secretary, I would like to thank you and your team for giving evidence. I am briefly going to suspend the meeting just to allow the witnesses to change over, and I would ask members of the committee to stay in place, please. We move back into session, and I would like to move on to agenda item 3, which is subordinate legislation. This is the formal consideration of motion S5M-16261 in the name of the Cabinet Secretar