New rail contract award to Go-Ahead branded ‘a sick joke’

theguardian.com:

Transport group Go-Ahead has been awarded a new contract to run Britain’s biggest commuter rail network – a week after being fined £23.5m for wrongly withholding £50m of taxpayers’ money on another franchise.

Unions said it was a “sick joke” that the group’s Govia joint venture was given a three-year deal to continue running the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise, which served about a million passengers daily pre-Covid.

Govia, a joint venture led by Go-Ahead with French firm Keolis, was stripped of the Southeastern franchise last September for “breaches of good faith”.

The firm’s £23.5m fine from the Department for Transport for failings on Southeastern was less than the £30m it had set aside. Go-Ahead’s share price has risen 20% in the last week on the smaller fine and rumours of a fresh award.

The group’s chief financial officer, Elodie Brian, who was chief financial officer at Southeastern during the period where most breaches occurred, from 2014-19, quit last October as the scandal emerged. Go-Ahead’s chief executive David Brown also stepped down.

Investigations since found more irregularities at Southeastern, dating back to 2006. Go-Ahead eventually repaid £51.3m, including interest, of the money it had wrongly withheld in overpayments from the DfT. The case has been referred to the Serious Fraud Office.

Although senior directors worked at both franchises, an investigation led by the chairs of Go-Ahead and Keolis found no evidence that any similar accounting issues existed at Govia Thameslink Railway as Southeastern.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “Shapps has done this having been reassured that Go-Ahead are safe with public money on the strength of a report conducted by the same people who ripped