Report urges rail freedom

Press, 11 February 1981, Page 6

Report urges rail freedom

PA Wellington Government control of the Railways Department should be reduced to - give railway managers more commercial freedom, a Commission of Inquiry said yesterday. The Commission of Inquiry into freight forwarding said in its report that Government controls put an un-. fair burden on Railway’s management. I It described' the management as very, capable and experienced, but a hardpressed group faced with difficult technical, administrative, and political problems. In supporting turning the Railways into a public corporation, the ! commission blamed Government controls and requirements for the big deficits incurred. The commission’s report said a huge capital injection to continue improving all railway freight services was probably needed. “We see such an outlay largely as the. price of previous government neglect and intervention' in railway development policies,” it' said. A provision should be made in the Railways’ financial arrangement with the Government‘. for explicitly accounting for the losses made on socially worth while but unprofitable services.' Funds should be provided for social services without i - constraining available to the Railways for

i f inancing commercially ~ worth-while activities. ' The commission said these ‘ recommendations would reI store realistic financial , objectives for the Railways and provide more - freedom for railways’ managers to ' develop initiatives to meet ' them: ■ The commission, chaired by a Wellington barrister, Mr Bruce Bornholdt, said it was concerned the Railways did not appear to have people in commercial management. It wants the Railways to widen its recruitment programme and look more often to appointing people capable in commercial management from outside the Railways. The commission was set up as part of a settlement to an industrial dispute. The National Union . of Railwaymen. had said the Railways’. arrangements with freight* forwarders .were unprofitable and the freight could be handled more profitably by the Railways. In its report, the commission said -it : believed the activities, of: freight-forwar-ders had had no significant effect on Railways profitability. Existing contractual arrangements with' private f r e i g fi t-forwarders were financially beneficial. to the Railways . . and, theterms under which forwarders occupied railway lafid were fair and reasonable, s The c X development .of freight forwarding had not

directly led - to the downgrading of the Railways own freight services. But the forwarding had adversely affected the morale of some railway staff. More information should be given to Railways employees in freight handling to enable them to comprehend the role of freight-forwarding, the report said. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with industrial relations in the department, the commission'. said, but management should improve its communication with district offices by expanding schemes it had already started, and it should discuss over-all policy and freight-handling planning with the N.U.R. executive. The commission said it recognised the exchange of. more detailed information 1

depended on ah atmosphere of greater trust between Railways’ management and N.U.R. officials. “In particular, the obvious antagonism and bitterness which mark the relationship between the General Manager of Railways (Mr T. ,:M. Hayward), and some of the N.U.R. officials, especially the general secretary (Mr D. C. Goodfellow) represent a substantial impediment.” The commission rejected a N.U.R. proposal that the Railways should set up freight-forwarding to compete with private forwarders, saying the scale of the task of improving existing railway freight services ruled out-such initiatives. . But the * Railways should consider the matter once it has implemented its present freight-handling proposals.