B2.5 | Parties should promote innovation and a whole business approach - time will tell

The PPPs are intended to promote innovation and a whole business approach as follows:

■ Innovation - the Infracos are expected to apply private sector innovations to project management and asset design to ensure early identification of problems, on-time and on-cost delivery, and clear visibility of progress along the way. As might be expected at this early stage, there are no significant examples of a major innovation by the Infracos that has improved infrafrastructure delivery. But there are some indications of new responses to problems. For example, in the early months of the PPPs, signalling on the Jubilee Line was very unreliable, causing a high number of service disruptions. Infraco JNP responded by allocating resources in a new way - splitting up of staff into work groups and locating them at trouble spots on the line (previously all staff were all based at the Western end of the line) - to ensure a quicker response to signalling incidents and time will tell if this action on its own has a positive effect on the number of service disruptions.

■ Whole business approach - the PPPs are intended to promote a whole business approach where partnership decisions are based on what is best for the business as a whole, rather than what is best for any Infraco or LUL. In our report on the partnership between National Savings and Siemens Business Services, we found that the parties changed their respective objectives and the nature of the partnership to achieve a single business focus. For example, National Savings now require key information reports that are less detailed and all-encompassing than specified in the contract. With the Tube PPPs, there is a degree of flexibility to change the scope of the contract for the benefit of all, but the success of scope changes will depend to a large extent on the quality of information exchanged between LUL and the Infracos - see Case example 3: Scope changes and Section A3.2.

TFL consider that the Infracos are not demonstrating innovation or a whole business approach to any significant extent at this early stage.