4 On specification and procurement: We interviewed relevant specification and procurement staff at the Department to establish in what ways the approach differed from that followed for South Western. We also interviewed the NN Group's Director of Procurement, Director of Finance and Planning, winning and losing bidders, and the Chief Executive of CENTRO, (the West Midlands PTE), in connection with specification of the West Midlands franchise. The key procurement documents we examined were submissions to Ministers, evaluation reports on franchise awards, and details of the franchise awards.
5 On franchise management and monitoring: For the three franchises which began operations in 2006, we interviewed the Director of Rail Service Delivery, divisional managers, franchise managers, contract managers and financial analysts in the Department's Rail Group, and the rail performance manager, head of human resources and the head of the Rail Services Directorate to obtain the Department's perspective on how it now managed and monitored franchises. To triangulate this evidence, we reviewed supporting documents, including minutes of monitoring meetings, risk registers and financial and performance monitoring reports, data on human resources, internal audit reports and key franchise documents, such as the franchise agreement, business plan, revenue protection plan and subsequent reports and service quality monitoring reports. We also obtained the perspective of passengers through interviewing the train operator link managers at Passenger Focus and the chair and chief executive of London Travelwatch, and analysed the results of the National Passenger Surveys and performance trends. We also interviewed senior staff at First Capital Connect and First Great Western.
6 The case of GNER: We interviewed the Department's officials who were involved with monitoring GNER and negotiating the December 2006 agreement and we reviewed related documents, including those on lessons learned and monthly financial returns.