The aim of any of our round table events is to stimulate debate rather than parade a series of lectures. In welcoming delegates and setting the scene for the day, AMT-SYBEX Deputy Chairman, Brian Miller, confirmed that the theme and content for this event reflected past feedback. This had identified strong interest among our clients in being given a degree of political and media perspective on the present economic operating environment.

 

Steven Norris, Chairman of AMT-SYBEX then provided an excellent introduction to the context, social and economic, within which the world, not just Britain, is having to navigate – largely uncharted waters which he said would challenge the abilities of societies at all levels to hold together. There was he said a sense of these times being a cyclical reflection of the 15 years or so of huge growth which many of the world’s economies have enjoyed. The problem was that today’s generation of business leaders and politicians had no direct experience of real economic depression  - certainly the Britain of today was a completely different society than 40-50 years ago in terms of social and cultural diversity. London for instance had over 140 individual ethnic communities. While this added to the challenge of “sticking together” through the current conditions he finished by saying that Britain’s was fundamentally a society of which we should all be justifiably proud.  He then handed over to the first of the day’s guest speakers:

 

 

 

Shami Chakrabarti, Director of the Civil Liberties champion, Liberty. As a frequent panellist on talk shows such as Question Time, and a fully qualified barrister Shami certainly provoked some lively thought and debate, Taking Steven Norris’s lead on the “health” of society as a whole she suggested that within the notion of free markets there still had to be some fundamental rules and values. Regulation was a vital tool in elimination of boom and bust trends without which markets would effectively “eat themselves” if allowed to. Extending her theme she said that even democracies have to be tempered to prevent them encroaching more and more into our everyday lives and becoming effectively dictatorships. Democracy was essentially about free elections and majority rule but since “the Government always won the election” their had to be a core set of non-negotiable rights and regulations – that was essentially what Liberty was all about.

 

John Hayward, Head of IM Strategy, Network Rail. John opened with the suggestion that with the railways around 150 years old we all like to think of ourselves as experts on the subject. With Network Rail about to enter Control Period 4 (CP4) the mandate remained as it always had, i.e. to make the railways safe, affordable and punctual. The initial focus for NR when it was created 6-7 years ago was to demonstrate confidence, clarity and consistency in its operations. H ebelieved there was very strong evidence to illustrate they had achieved this:

• More Trains running
• Less delays
• The highest ever reliability figures
  

 
The challenge for NR in CP4 would be to secure a 27% reduction in OPEX, while at the same time introducing increasing capacity and further reductions in delays. To do this they would need to work smarter – particularly in terms of trying to change the regional culture/way of working within the Organisation and run it much more on common processes. He recognised NR had a unique set of challenges but was confident that with the range of initiatives already in place these would be overcome.

Geoff Aitkenhead, Asset Management Director, Scottish Water. Since its creation in 2002 Scottish Water has been through substantial transformation both in terms of the range and scale of changes. Owned by the Scottish government, there is always strong media attention on everything they do. Most important in managing the delivery of change has been the understanding and measurement of the capacity of the business to absorb it. Probably the biggest change has been the market opening in Scotland in April last year which saw competition for wholesale and retail water supply. In the absence of competition the Scottish regulator has played  a vital role in keeping Scottish Water “honest” and the constantly changing focus, targets and improvements has enabled him to position the Regulator almost as “the common enemy” on which to focus business the workforce through pride and ambition to succeed. Pride was now very a part of the business. Going forward Geoff admitted that Scottish Water had captured lots of easy wins largely by copying best practice form other parts of the industry – the challenge now would be to continue to drive improvement through innovation and risk management.

 

 

Peter Boreham, Director National Grid Grain LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas). Peter observed that as an unregulated business Grain LNG was somewhat unique in terms of the other companies represented at the Event. He gave a history of LNG in the UK and showed that the development in Grain (and at two similar non-National Grid sites in Milford Haven and Hook) essentially amounted to a re-invention of the technology here after some 25-30 years of reliance on direct supplies from the North Sea and other offshore gas fields. National Grid’s Grain LNG plant was now the largest terminal in the UK, Europe or the USA and was still expanding. It is the 8^th largest of its type in the World. The second, and largest, phase of expansion had been commissioned over Christmas and New Year on time and on budget and they had secured their PAS 55 approval for the business. Investment there had always been a sound proposition but the events of recent months in terms of energy prices had made the timing of the Phase 2 completion near perfect. Phase 3 was now well underway which would allow the terminal to take delivery of LNG 24/7 through dual jetties and Phase 4 was already under planning. When Phase 3 completes Grain will provide 20%+ of the UK’s total gas demand.

 

Howard Collins, Chief Operating Officer, London Underground. London’s was the first underground railway in the World with the first lines built from 1863. The challenges faced in its operation were well understood – very old infrastructure coupled with chronic under-investment over many years. But now was an exciting time for LUL as it finally had the funding it needed to transform and upgrade the network. LUL was seen as an enabler of the transformation of London itself and there had been huge growth in usage of the network over the last 10 years from 2 to 4 million passengers per day. While accepting that delivery and management of the capital programme was a vital element in this transformation Howard said that LUL had concluded that a more important element was the development of its own people. Through substantial customer research they had established that users greatly valued being able to interact with LUL staff around the network – unlike the automated sterile environments of say the New York and Paris metros. This had led LUL into two streams of investment:

• Much improved communications with customers - both through media and physical systems
• Much improved communications with staff. They have institutes the "valuing time" programme at a purpose built facility using state-of-the-art visual aids, holographic displays etc and through which some 100 LUL employees per day passed. LUL's own staff were used within the facility to deliver the training itself and it had proved a tremendous success in securing staff buy in to the LUL "mission"  

Finally Howard said LUL has improved their communications with the media - operating a moreopen and honest relationship which had helped greatly to reduce negative coverage.

Gaby Hinsliff, Political Editor of The Observer Newspaper. As the final speaker, Gaby delivered a pacey, witty and very interesting insight into what the media sees as its role in the current climate, the challenges even she and her colleagues have in grasping the gravity of the economic picture, where every day seems to bring more bad news and where the media itself was beginning to be seen as part of the problem. As with all of the speakers there was no shortage of questions for Gaby in the short time she was able to spend with us.

 

Further round table events are planned throughout the year but this undoubtedly set the bar high for what ought to be a successful series.