Network Rail stakeholder engagement remains good, says ORR

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The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has announced that its annual assessment of how Network Rail engages with stakeholders has shown a strong performance in the past 12 months, though overall satisfaction has dipped slightly.

ORR assessed how well Network Rail performed against the four overarching principles of good stakeholder engagement defined in its licence from ORR: inclusive, transparent, well-governed and effective. The assessment derives from an ORR stakeholder survey and Network Rail’s business unit self-assessments.

A total of 288 rail industry stakeholders shared their experiences with ORR. When asked to rate the quality of Network Rail’s overall engagement, 60% of respondents deemed it as good or very good, however this is a drop of 13% from last year.

Overall, however, the assessment shows that Network Rail’s performance on stakeholder engagement remains strong. There were no significant differences between business units in terms of performance, although units had different areas of strength and areas for further development. The self-assessments provided good evidence of improvements the business units have made.

ORR has repeated the recommendation from last year’s report that Network Rail’s Senior Leadership Team and Board drive a strong culture of stakeholder engagement whilst continuing to support locally tailored engagement across the relevant business units. This will be particularly important as ORR moves through the crucial next phases of its ongoing periodic review (PR23) of Network Rail’s outputs and funding for the next five-year control period.

ORR also encouraged Network Rail to continue to share best practice on stakeholder engagement between the business units.

Image credit: ORR

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