'Whitehall branch office' fears for Transport for the North as redundancies loom

TfN, a statutory sub-national transport body which employs around 120 people in Leeds and Manchester, had sought £10m in Government funding for the 2022/23 financial year but has only been allocated £6.5m.

Concerns were raised by North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll about the impact of the funding cut on the organisation's ability to act as a "united voice for the North".

The Government settlement follows TfN being stripped of powers over the delivery of the Northern Powerhouse Rail network, with the Department of Transport moving from paying it to develop the route to an advisory “co-sponsorship” role.

At a board meeting to discuss the consequences of the funding cut, TfN chief executive Martin Tugwell said “morale is very low” at the organisation following the announcement of next year's funding settlement.

He said: “We will be a smaller organisation moving forward, we need to be more focused as a consequence of that and that will come through the business planning process. We’re going to need to have fewer members of staff.

“As part of this process I will be looking to open up VR (voluntary redundancy). But I also need to be clear that I anticipate there will be a need for some redundancies. I will look to minimise them, because clearly our asset is the people and the skills they bring. But I need to be really clear there will be some implications in terms of redundancies.”

He did not say how many redundancies are anticipated.

The 2022/23 grant is higher than what was provided for this year, which was £6m - but represented a 40 per cent cut on the £10m provided the year before.

A report to the TfN board noted the 2021/22 cut was mitigated by the release of £2.5m from reserves and £1.5m from recharges into the NPR programme but that was not possible to do again. As part of the changes in responsibility for delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail, 16 members of staff are to transfer to the Department for Transport.

Mayor Driscoll said: “The purpose of Transport for the North was always to have one voice for the North. We have got to emphasise that Transport for the North is the voice of the united North and not DfT’s branch office outside of Whitehall.”

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said the cut “is going to fundamentally change the capability of the organisation”.

He called on new TfN chair Patrick McLoughlin to begin conversations with Government to prevent similar levels of cutbacks in future years.

“We can’t have an annual situation where you keeping taking a chunk out of TfN. It is such an exceptionally large cut that if the organisation was going to face something similar again or annual uncertainty about its funding my worry would be it would severely impact our ability to plan and to develop our ambitions.”

Lord McLoughlin said he would work with the board to make the case for reassurance on future funding for the next three years.

Letter to Grant Shapps planned

Transport for the North is to write to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps expressing its disappointment with the level of funding that has been provided.

Chief executive Martin Tugwell said the letter also intends to set out the board’s position that the organisation’s new role as ‘co-sponsor’ on the Northern Powerhouse Rail project must be a “meaningful” role.

Mr Tugwell said propositions about how that could work in practice would be put forward at the next board meeting in March.

He added: “The door is not closed on some of the conversations around the Integrated Rail Plan and we need to use that co-sponsor role to get the North’s voice into the conversations as we have done in the past.”

Listen to the full episode of Pod's Own Country with new Transport for the North chair Patrick McLoughlin

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