Joana Whittington Chief Executive OFFICE OF RAILAND ROAD Email only Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup House of Commons LONDON SW1A 0AA \3 April 2016 Dear Mr Brokenshire, Network Rail di ry to Southeastern Railway Thank you for your letter of 7 March 2016 requesting an update on ORR approach to Network Rail performance in relation to the services it provides to the Southeastern Route. One of the principal roles of the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is to hold Network Rail to account for complying with its licence and delivering its obligations for which it was funded, while acting in the public interest. As set out in our Final Determination for the control period 2014-19 we may intervene if punctuality, as measured by the Public Performance Measure (PPM)' and Cancellations and Significant Lateness (CaSL; fall outside of the thresholds (two and point two percentage points tespectively) we have set for variance from the targets agreed between Network Rail and the operator. ‘Our analysis shows that this is likely to be the case in respect of Network Rail’s delivery to Southeastern. The PPM Moving Annual Average (MAA) for the London and South East sector stood at 88.1% at the end of 2015-16 Q3. The decrease in performance of this sector can in part be attributed to an increase in delays attributed to Network Rail ‘These include fatalities and trespass incidents and track faults such as broken rails. Delays attributed to TOCs, in particular due to rolling stock and traincrew problems, have also increased compared to the same quarter last year. * Percentage of rains that arved at their final destination within 5 minutes oftheir scheduled arial ime (within 10 minutes for Long Distance services) "Percentage of trans that have been canceled (in part orn ful andlor arived at their nal destination iste by mare than 30 minutes 9030107At the end of 2015-16 Q3, Southeastem PPM MAA was 88.5%, 0.5pp better than the same period last year but still on a gradual downward trend this year. The results from the Autumn 2015 National Rail Passenger Survey (NRPS) show that overall satisfaction with Southeastern was 75%, up 2pp from Autumn 2014, however, satisfaction with punctuality/reliability was 67%, which is statistically significantly lower than the Autumn 2014 result (72%). We have therefore added this issue to our “regulatory escalator’ and my team have recently met with Southeastem to discuss the issues that have impacted on the level of performance that it has been able to deliver to its customers. We will undertake detailed analysis to assess whether Network Rail has done everything reasonably practicable to meet its obligations (including performance targets). Based on the analysis, ORR’s Board may decide that Network Rail has breached or is likely to breach its licence. In such cases this can result in enforcement action. You might be interested to read our Economic Enforcement Policy which can be found through the link below. nsultations/policy-consuttations corr, ik/consultatio enforcement-policy-consultation This sets out the options for enforcement action that we have. In updating this policy we took on board feedback from a broad spectrum of stakeholders and funders and the overwhelming view, and one with which we concur, was that the imposition of a financial penalty should be the last resort in the case of Network Rail, particularly given the reclassification of its ownership to the public sector in 2014. We would look to use other options as set out in this policy to encourage Network Rail to return to compliance. | hope this helps clarify our approach to this issue. Please do not hesitate to get in touch again if you would like to discuss this or any other rail or road related matter. Yours sincerely, focrrrner Wig Wn - Joanna Whittington Chief Executive 2 9030107