Provision of Specialist Contractors/Contingent Labour - Rail Enhancement Projects Cost Reviews

The ORR's Planning & Enhancements team leads on holding rail infrastructure managers to account for delivering their licence obligations in relation to enhancement projects.

We perform this role for rail enhancement projects across England, Wales and Scotland, working with infrastructure managers including Network Rail.

As part of our statutory obligations we perform cost efficiency reviews of rail enhancement projects for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: • Determining cost efficiency on projects within the current 5 year control period (CP5, from April 2014 to March 2019) as part of 'lessons learned' reviews or license breach investigations; • Reviewing cost efficiency for projects proposed for the next control period (CP6); • Determining efficient cost baselines for government funded projects in Scotland, using the Enhancement Cost Adjustment Mechanism (ECAM - as described on our website at: http://www.orr.gov.uk/rail/economic-regulation/regulation-of-network-rail/price-controls/periodic-review-2013/cp5-delivery-plan ); • Resolving disputes, relating to efficient costs, between infrastructure managers and their funders; and • Other ad-hoc efficiency reviews as part of our ongoing monitoring.

As well as these detailed reviews of individual projects, we may also seek to review infrastructure managers' capability to deliver enhancements at the portfolio level, in line with our regulatory framework.