Yet another year of weekend closures

[Deleted]

Well, it seems that the upgrade is no further forward than it was a year ago and there will be incessant closures into 2011.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10931528

Plenty of excuses in that article.

"Unlikely to be completed by the end of the year". That means it won't be, so why not just say so?

"Closures for a further 14 weekends". That one comes round regularly.

"and on three days over Christmas". I believe this is the SIXTH Christmas holiday shutdown in succession, the first being 2005.

(Mike Brown) said "It is now clear that we inherited from Tube Lines a Jubilee line upgrade programme which was badly behind schedule." Um, was that not clear before? Everyone else seemed to know it. If not what oversight was LUL performing on the project? None, by the sound of things. Is this really some new revelation that LUL have just discovered?

"Once complete, he said it would offer a much-improved service for passengers with increased capacity and shorter journey times". Don't believe you. Outside peak hours Monday to Friday I bet it will be exactly the same intervals daytime, Saturday and Sunday as we get now (these last two, of course, on the odd days when it actually is running).

Lets start taking bets now on whether it will be finished by the Olympics or not.

[Chris M]

Aug 12, 2010 20:58:05 GMT @diana said:

(Mike Brown) said "It is now clear that we inherited from Tube Lines a Jubilee line upgrade programme which was badly behind schedule." Um, was that not clear before? Everyone else seemed to know it. If not what oversight was LUL performing on the project? None, by the sound of things.

I read a good article recently (I thin on London Reconnections) that basically said LU/TfL had no power to do any meaningful oversight on Tublelines' project, and had to go along with whatever tubelines planned unless that plan was literally impossible - and while the tubelines plan was obviously unwise, badly managed and very risky, there was a theoretical possibility that it could have worked, so TfL's hands were tied.

[ducatisti]

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?
From the contracts I've seen (and I stress these aren't the PPP ones), that seems very unlikely

[Deleted]

Anyone can look at the Tube Lines / LU PPP contract, it's on the TfL website - just search for PPP Contract on the home page search box and you'll find it easily. There's even an email address for the 'PPP Knowledge Management Centre' for any queries about the various contract documents.

[Deleted]

Below is a link to a good explanation of why further closures are required. Chris, maybe this was the piece you were referring to?
londonreconnections.blogspot.com/2010/07/status-of-jubilee-line-upgrades.html

[Chris M]

It was indeed, particularly the comment by John Bull

under the terms of the PPP, LUL couldn't touch anything to do with the upgrades AS LONG AS Tube Lines could demonstrate, on paper, that what they were doing would result in their contractual obligations being delivered. So, despite the fact that removing those system boundaries and pursuing a closure-heavy methodology were so utterly, obviously, bad ideas, nothing could be done about it as long as - in theory - they would produce the required contractual outputs.

[messiah]

I've had a bit of a blunder around the contracts on the TFL site - on a first glance it looks like the works should be in scope of quality assurance. One relevant section (based upon my limited understanding of the contract documents) would be from schedule 5.11 Quality Plan:

In addition to any audit that LUL is entitled to undertake in accordance with clause 15 ( Audit ) of the Contract and Schedule 5.12 ( Audit ) to the Contract, LUL may require that an independent certifier examine the Quality Plan and supporting documentation including, but not limited to:

(a) data capture processes;

(b) record holding;

(c) management systems; and

(d) financial records;

and Infraco shall make all such documentation and other material related to the Contract available for inspection

This would seem to give LUL the right to have an independent assessor look at the plans Tube Lines had in place and report whether they were adequate.

Anyone know as to whether I am right or not?

[Deleted]

Taken from the House of Commons public accounts commitee and the time of the Metronet collapse.

The PPP contracts essentially specified the outcomes to be achieved, giving the private sector contractors space to do things the way they thought best, without the scope for the public sector contract managers to exercise a firm grip.

[Chris M]

Aug 15, 2010 14:30:00 GMT messiah said:

This would seem to give LUL the right to have an independent assessor look at the plans Tube Lines had in place and report whether they were adequate.

My understand is that all the plans required to be adequate was that they present the theoretical possibility that the contract outcomes were achievable, not that they were realistically achievable, or that the plans were at all likely to work.

However one of the problems of the PPP was that it involved some of the most complicated contracts ever written, and so the chance of anyone who is not a highly experienced specialist contract lawyer fully understanding them is near zero.

[messiah]

Aug 15, 2010 15:08:30 GMT Chris M said:

My understand is that all the plans required to be adequate was that they present the theoretical possibility that the contract outcomes were achievable, not that they were realistically achievable, or that the plans were at all likely to work.

However one of the problems of the PPP was that it involved some of the most complicated contracts ever written, and so the chance of anyone who is not a highly experienced specialist contract lawyer fully understanding them is near zero.

Chris I can find one brief mention of this limitation of powers of TFL wrt Tubelines in the comments section of the linked LR article from John Bull, however no real evidence of it.

Further to that, even if contractually there were such limitations, undoubtedly political pressure would be able to overcome much of these in terms of allowing TFL more input into the decision making process, if the hierarchy of TFL/Mayors Office/National Government decided it was a priority. (Which it obviously has not been)

[Deleted]

Aug 15, 2010 15:59:06 GMT messiah said:

Aug 15, 2010 15:08:30 GMT Chris M said:

My understand is that all the plans required to be adequate was that they present the theoretical possibility that the contract outcomes were achievable, not that they were realistically achievable, or that the plans were at all likely to work.

However one of the problems of the PPP was that it involved some of the most complicated contracts ever written, and so the chance of anyone who is not a highly experienced specialist contract lawyer fully understanding them is near zero.

Chris I can find one brief mention of this limitation of powers of TFL wrt Tubelines in the comments section of the linked LR article from John Bull, however no real evidence of it.

Further to that, even if contractually there were such limitations, undoubtedly political pressure would be able to overcome much of these in terms of allowing TFL more input into the decision making process, if the hierarchy of TFL/Mayors Office/National Government decided it was a priority. (Which it obviously has not been)

I disagree Messiah. The law is the law and a contract is a contract. While there can be contractual and legal wrangling, no amount of political pressure should or could be used in a court of law to change the nature of contract. TFL had to involve the Arbitrator in order to get a few minor disputes ironed out let alone re-defining a contract. Your argument that Tube Lines as a legal entity were about to roll over due to political pressure was simply not a historical reality.

Ultimately, the PPP contracts diluted accountability and allowed private companies to cream off public money. Ill conceived and overly complex, PPP in the form that has been experimented with in terms of The Underground has been a shambles. In time it might be considered Gordon Brown's reverse equivalent of Thatcher's Poll Tax experiment.

[messiah]

Aug 15, 2010 17:26:25 GMT @cityboy said:

[
I disagree Messiah. The law is the law and a contract is a contract. While there can be contractual and legal wrangling, no amount of political pressure should or could be used in a court of law to change the nature of contract. TFL had to involve the Arbitrator in order to get a few minor disputes ironed out let alone re-defining a contract. Your argument that Tube Lines as a legal entity were about to roll over due to political pressure was simply not a historical reality.

Ultimatly it depends if you believe political clout can overcome a very badly drafted (ie unfair) contract.

In numerous examples of public interest in the consumer world (e.g. "unfair" terms and conditions in the contracts etc) then political will overcomes legal form.

I am not doubting that Tube Lines would not have rolled over easily, however considering how it was apparent to TFL that their plans were unlikely to suceed, it is inconceivable that Tube Lines wouldn't have internally known this. Hence a bit of political pressure could have given them a face saving way out.

[Chris M]

For all their faults, I doubt whether Tubelines would have proceeded with the course of action they did had they believed it was not workable. Given that one of the key ideals of the PPP was to give the private private sector freedom to do things in the way they saw fit, without interference from the public sector that had got it so wrong in the past, it would have taken monumental political pressure to allow LU/TfL any say in the way Tubelines went about things.
Remember also that the combined political pressure of Ken Livingstone, just about everybody in LU/TfL, the RMT (iirc) and possibly other unions as well (I can't remember) wasn't enough to convince Gordon Brown not to force the PPP on London when he was chancellor. Gordon's reputation for never admitting that he was wrong was even stronger when he was PM (look at how long it took him to resign), so it would have taken a truly monumental amount of political pressure to get the terms of the contract struck down as unfair.

[Deleted]

Interesting to see the comments above, as one who has to deal with contracts with major companies most days!

No way do you do contracts like this without having regular evaluation points along the way (nowadays "milestones" are the current flavour, but there have been many other comparable approaches over time). Typically they are every month, if the stated progress has not been made in a month then no payment until it's there. Those who saw the end of Metronet, asking for a fortune but actually getting a pittance, going to the arbitrator, and then going under once it was decided that the pittance was appropriate, will recognise the approach.

I have my own opinions on it all. I think that all the money on the table made A and B, the two owners, think it must be profitable work, but by the end it was clear that not only were they way behind time, but they actually realised that they didn't know how to do it. They might have had the capability once, but once some key people left, at the end of the original project timetable, the skills was gone. Some of the errors highlighted in the Serco report are absolute basis blunders you would be picked up on in a first year engineering course at university.

However, the customer, LUL, paying out the money each month for all of this, surely have the management and engineering skills to detect the growing problem. And quite why they actually paid out money at the end to acquire Tubelines, instead of demanding money FROM A and B to take the problem away from them, goodness knows.

But that's just an opinion, boys, what could Auntie Diana know?

Had to go on the Jubilee today, first time with the new signals I believe. I'll write about that fiasco separately.