TUBE LINES BACK IN-HOUSE NEXT YEAR

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2016 :: RMTnews 12 A long-running RMT campaign has scored a significant victory with the final confirmation from the London Mayor that a major slice of tube maintenance work is to be brought back in-house next year. RMT has welcomed this news that Transport for London will manage maintenance work on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines through its own in-house management team. The contract dates back to the failed tube maintenance privatisation programme and for the past 13 years the private company Amey has been contracted to manage maintenance work across the three lines – a legacy of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) contract that previously existed between Tube Lines and London Underground. However this arrangement will now be brought to an end at the end of next year – the earliest possible point the contract allows. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that it was a massive victory for RMT in terms of the fight to end profiteering and privatisation on London Underground. “This move helps to bring closer the end to the crazy experiment of tube maintenance privatisation and is another nail in the coffin of the tube PPP disaster. “It makes no sense at all having maintenance work hived off to private operators and RMT will continue the fight across the rail industry for these works, and all other supporting services, to come under the public sector, under direct public control with the staff jobs, pay and conditions protected,” he said. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said that he was “proud” that TfL would be bringing Tube maintenance work back into the public sector. “I’ve asked TfL to carry out a root-and-branch review of all its business operations, and the decision to bring underground maintenance work in-house will save tens of millions of pounds to invest in our transport network and pay for my freeze in TfL fares. “London Underground already has experience running successful maintenance operations in-house, and we’re making the changes as soon as the contract allows. “I want TfL to be the best in the world while staying in public control,” he said. In June, shortly after taking office, the Mayor ordered a root and branch review of TfL including eliminating unnecessary duplication in its operations, obtaining greater value from its procurement activity, and significantly cutting reliance on agency staff. London Underground already has experience of bringing operations back in-house following the demise of Metronet in 2007. Since then costs have reduced and performance has improved compared to the PPP era. Reliability on the Tube has improved by 38 per cent since 2011 alone. In total, managing the work in-house is expected to save at least £80 million over the next decade. TfL and LU do not make a profit, with all savings and revenue put back into the transport network and freezing TfL fares. Mark Wild, London Underground’s Managing Director, said that TfL would be working closely with Amey over the next 18 months to ensure a smooth transition. The PPP was devised by the New Labour government supposedly to attract private sector investment for infrastructure and avoiding such schemes ending up on the government's balance sheet. Instead of having conventional contracts whereby the public body – LUL – simply specified the work and put it out to tender, the idea was to privatise the infrastructure for a 30-year period and "incentivise" the contractors to take a long- term view of the assets. This enabled London Underground to remain publicly owned while the maintenance and the massive renewal programme was carried out by privately run companies with disastrous results. TUBE LINES BACK IN- HOUSE NEXT YEAR Final end to the disastrous legacy left by the Public- Private Partnership (PPP) experiment by 2017