'Spin row' rail figures released

Jo Moore resigned on Friday

The railway performance figures which indirectly led to the resignations of spin doctor Jo Moore and transport department media chief Martin Sixsmith have been released.

The figures, collating previously announced data, aim to make it easier to judge railway performances on punctuality, safety and comfort.

Disagreement over whether the statistics should be published on the day of Princess Margaret's funeral culminated in the departure of transport special adviser Ms Moore and communications director Mr Sixsmith.

Sixsmith branded the row a "distraction"

The figures, released by Transport Secretary Stephen Byers, repeat train company reliability and performance figures which had been announced last year by the Strategic Rail Authority.

Mr Byers' statistics also brought together the number of incidents of trains passing signals at danger (SPADS).

He said: "It is important that people can judge how we are doing as we tackle the problems caused by decades of under investment and a botched privatisation."

Downing Street said it was keen for the "old data" to be in the public domain so that ministers could be held to account.

But the Conservatives say the fact that the government was selecting the criteria by which its own performance will be judged puts a question mark over the exercise.

Reannounced figures

Shadow transport secretary Theresa May said: "These figures, first published in December last year, reinforce what we knew all along - that delays and cancellations on the railway network continue to get worse under Stephen Byers.

"However, it does seem odd that two high-profile people were to lose their jobs over reannounced figures."

Don Foster, Liberal Democrat transport spokesman, said: "These statistics are more about good news for Stephen Byers than good news for passengers."

The row over the announcement of the figures centred on the timing of their release.

Spin row

There were reports that Mr Sixsmith rebuked Ms Moore, who infamously wanted to "bury" bad news on 11 September, for planning to release bad rail figures on the day of the royal funeral.

Downing Street initially said the e-mail rebuke did not exist.

But then it said that while Mr Sixsmith did not write directly to Ms Moore he did raise the issue with Mr Byers.

The prime minister's official spokesman had said the e-mail was designed to stop the timing of what were "neutral" statistics being misconstrued.

Benchmark

And he said it was Mr Byers who had originally pencilled in Friday for releasing the figures before Princess Margaret died.

The statistics cover the punctuality and reliability of passenger train companies for the periods April to June 2001 and from July to September 2001.

One new aspect is a comparison with the previous 12-month period. Also, each set of figures from now on will include the annual average at the end of the April-June 2001 period.

The figures revealed that the overall punctuality and reliability figure for all train companies for April to June 2001 was 80.9% compared with 77.2% for the 12 months ending in June 2001.

The figure for July-September 2001 was 79.0% compared with 75.3% for the 12 months ending September 2001.

But the BBC's transport correspondent Simon Montague argues that Mr Byers is very likely to secure an improvement on numbers of late and cancelled trains, using the benchmark of 77.2%.

Success guaranteed

"This is probably an all time low, as the year to June 01 includes the October 2000 Hatfield crash, which caused the worst disruption since the war," he said.

A dramatic improvement in safety is guaranteed with the fitting of the Train Protection and Warning System at 11,000 signals nationwide by the end of 2003.

Significant pre-election progress in Mr Byers' third progress indicator of "the average age of rolling stock" is likely as train operators are due to deliver 1,700 new carriages by 2004 - replacing a fifth of the national fleet, says Montague. Half of these are to replace 30 to 40-year-old rolling stock.

Senior Labour MPs have since called for new legislation to give the rules governing political appointees working for government ministers the force of law.

And the Cabinet Office has said proposals for a statutory code of conduct for special advisers will be included in a consultation paper on Civil Service reform to be launched later this year.