Agenda and minutes

The Chair to welcome attendees to the meeting.

Lead: Chair

1.1          The Chair welcomed Members to the meeting and apologies were received from Mayor Coppard, Cllr Hunt, Cllr Kilbane and Cllr Renwick.

1.2          The Chair informed the Committee that this special meeting had been convened to consider recent performance of Northern. He described the service being provided to residents in the North as not good enough with people's plans ruined or significantly disrupted during half term week, and business damaged by repeat ‘do no travel’ notices on Sundays. He emphasised the importance of the run up to Christmas and how the constant cancellations and poor performance by Northern can only damage growth in the North of England.

1.3          He recognised that there are certain factors that are beyond Northern’s control but there are other things they do have control of and the aim of the meeting is to establish and understand how much of this is out of your control, but how much is and what can be done to put things right.

Members are required to declare any personal, prejudicial or disclosable pecuniary interest they may have relating to items on the agenda and state the nature of such interest.

Lead: Chair

2.1          There were no declarations of interest.

To consider the current performance of Northern trains and to identify those actions required of Northern and/or other parties in order to restore service performance to an acceptable level. 

Lead: David Hoggarth/Katie Day

3.1          Members received the report from the Partnership and Programme Manager. The Head of Strategic Rail then outlined the key points within the report.

3.2          The Chair then invited Ms Willams and Mr Rice to provide an update to the Committee.

3.3          Ms Tricia Williams acknowledged that services are not where they want them to be and apologised to customers for this. She recognised the impact that cancelled services have on customers day-to-day and weekend activities as well as the important role that Northern play in contributing to the Northern economy.

3.4          She informed the Committee that they understand the root causes of the current problems that they are experiencing as well as highlighting other issues which are historic and complex which need addressing. Issues brought to the Committee’s attention included Sunday services and Sunday working arrangements for staff specifically conductors who don’t have to work on Sundays in the Northwest, lack of a Rest Day Working agreement in place for drivers which is currently exacerbated by high sickness levels as well as a lack of investment in the business over many years.. She stressed that there are no quick fixes to these issues.

3.5          Mr Matt Rice offered his apologies to passengers and colleagues who have been impacted by their poor service delivery. He addressed the issues in relation to Sunday working explaining that within short timeframes they are trying to find volunteers to work on certain routes to try and deliver a timetable. This has worked on some occasions but more often than not it hasn’t worked, and this has led to people being left behind. He explained that there is a sharper focus on this now and they are making more direct interventions and working with stakeholders to say whether or not there is going to be a service. Additionally, they are looking to strengthen bus provision and this will particularly be increased in November and December in the run up to Christmas.

3.6          He also informed the Committee that they are looking to alter the language they use moving away from the ‘do not travel’ language to something more meaningful that will focus on the travel opportunities available. Addressing the issue of the Christmas period he explained that they will monitor things throughout November particularly the work that is being done with Central Government and if this doesn’t lead to change then they will look to get ahead of local issues ensuring that the big events in December are covered. He stated that they will look to run a more distinct list of services, between core economies and core events and putting a high level of guarantee on these services.

3.7          He emphasised that the current situation is not where they want to be, and they want to be running a reliable weekday and weekend service. The breach remedial plan is a longer term view, however Northern's problems have been routed for eight or nine years and need addressing. In the short term, he stated that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

The next meeting will take place on Wednesday 20 November at 11am.

Wednesday 20 November at 11am