Whitehall failures over the West Coast rail contract will cost taxpayers “at least £50 million”, a report by MPs said today.
There was a lack of leadership at the Department for Transport (DfT) and a failure to “get basic processes right” over the West Coast fiasco, the report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said.
MPs said they were concerned that these basic mistakes could be repeated in future projects such as the London to Birmingham high-speed HS2 scheme, which will run through part of Northamptonshire.
The report said the department failed to learn from mistakes made in previous projects and senior managers failed to apply common sense during the West Coast bidding process.
They also said senior managers had “missed clear warning signs, including from the (rail) industry, that there were serious problems with the (bidding) competition”.
The committee said: “We are astonished that there was no senior civil servant in the team despite the critical importance of this multibillion-pound franchise”.
After DfT errors in the process had been identified, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin scrapped the bidding which had seen Virgin Trains lose out to rival transport company FirstGroup in the battle for a new, 13-year West Coast franchise.
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