CPA Bulletin

60 CPA Bulletin > February 2025 www.cpa.uk.net The first was that Network Rail spent as much as expected, in real terms, for the first 6 months of the control period. The second was that RRV shifts are down 20% on what would be expected which would indicate that less work is being done as the RRVs are the workhorses of the railway. So we are spending all of the money but doing 20% less work. I immediately jumped to unit rates being higher than anticipated but then the third piece of information was that unit rates are broadly being delivered in line with expectations. So how do we make sense of those 3 facts? The answer maybe that overheads are higher than expected. Or in other words, there is a lot of expenditure not directly involved in delivering work on the railway asset but nonetheless incurring significant costs. And this is in spite of the downsizing that we have seen in recent years through various voluntary severance schemes. Whatever the reason is, the supply chain continues to feel the significant impact of less work being undertaken than would normally be expected. I have been amazed at the recent number of launch events for new CP7 frameworks that have been held. This does seem very late in the day. It is a bit like starting to run a 5,000m race after everyone else has already ran 800m. The good news is that, between Christmas and Easter, the work volumes look much better than we have seen of late so hopefully we will see a good finish to the first year of CP7. That said if Network Rail is going to deliver the overall CP7 work volumes then it is going to have to significantly up the pace in 2025 otherwise asset deterioration will result in poor infrastructure reliability and consequently poor train performance. The government is undertaking a comprehensive spending review which will be published in late Spring 2025. The Department for Transport (DfT) funding envelope for the remainder of this parliament will be a part of this. Hopefully investment in public transport will be seen as very supportive of the government’s missions. However HS2 continues to eat up transport funding, and as the DfT has to balance its books across all of its arm’s length bodies, there is a significant risk that funding to Network Rail and National Highways could remain constrained for a considerable time. Whilst we spend a lot of time talking about short term challenges, the RPA discussions with the Department for Transport also look out 25 years to what the railway plant requirements will be in 2050. The RPA and DfT are looking to jointly work to produce a roadmap to 2050 identifying the various points at which new technologies will be introduced and what some of the key enablers will be on the journey. It will be important that railway clients understand the 2050 roadmap for railway plant so that they do not specify a change of technology, before the market is ready to provide it, otherwise it will unnecessarily increase supply chain costs. The Transport Select Committee is currently undertaking a review of Railway Investment, particularly the boom and bust nature of spending that we have seen over many years and the impact that this has on efficient and effective delivery of work. The CPA and RPA are actively contributing to this and will make a formal submission on behalf of their members in late January. The RPA recently facilitated a meeting with Network Rail’s Professional Head of Plant and a selection of plant converters and plant suppliers to discuss product approvals, particularly for attachments. The meeting covered a lot of ground and provided clarity on the requirements of the current Network Rail survey of plant attachments. The RPA has been representing its members for 25 years. To celebrate this milestone, the RPA will be holding a dinner on 25th February, the evening before the Annual General Meeting and the next Rail Plant Association Leadership meeting. I look forward to meeting with lots of RPA members over the two days. Steve Featherstone RPA Consultant RAIL PLANT ASSOCIATION: 2 • Incursion numbers by project • Details of incursions (inner/outer) • OS map view, visualizing incursions • Ability to review incursion reports at bespoke intervals • Approve people who can access incident-based footage to support investigations Incursions heat map The use of HFR systems is still in its infancy and the RPA is also liaising with the CPA led Construction Industry Plant Safety Group (CIPSG), who have established a working group which is in the process of developing a ‘Good Practice Guide on the Use of Human Form Recognition Systems’ document. The working group includes plant hirers, OEM’s, third-party HDS suppliers and Tier 1 contractors. The main working group has recently divided into two sub-groups to tackle different subject areas. One group is focusing on the regulative/ standards, types and fitment, responsibilities sections, with the other group focusing on the management on site, education and behaviours and the data monitoring sections. We will provide further updates on the progress of the HFR guidance document as this initiative progresses. At the Rail Plant Association Leadership Meeting on 5th November 2024 we received 3 pieces of information from Network Rail which at first seemed contradictory to each other.