Review of the Schedule 4 possessions regime and Schedule 8 train performance regime

Date of publication
Body
Components

PR23 final determination

On 31 October 2023 we published our final decisions in our PR23 final determination policy position on Schedules 4 and 8 incentives, which concludes this review.

Consultation outcome and further consultation questions

On 20 October 2022 we published our conclusions on our review of the frameworks for Schedules 4 and 8 in control period 7 (CP7), as well as consultation questions on outstanding matters. 

The Schedules 4 and 8 regimes compensate train operators and provide financial incentives arising from planned and unplanned service disruption. We have been reviewing the frameworks as part of our periodic review 2023 (PR23) programme. 

  • On Schedule 4, we are going ahead with our plan to introduce an opt-out mechanism. 
  • On Schedule 8, we are proposing to insert new clauses into Schedule 8 for operators that will be contracted by Great British Railways. If triggered in the event of legislative change, these clauses could remove the majority of requirements for Schedule 8 payments for these operators. 
  • We are also proposing an approach to add flexibility to Schedule 8 in CP7. 

Our focus for the rest of PR23 is turning to recalibrating the Schedules 4 and 8 regimes for CP7.

April 2022 consultation

Collapse accordion Open accordion

In this consultation, we presented further proposals in respect of Network Rail’s Schedules 4 and 8 regimes. These proposals were informed by feedback from our initial consultations published in 2021. Overall, we said we were minded to proceed with a proportionate number of incremental changes to the regimes. 

Publishing your response

Collapse accordion Open accordion

We plan to publish all responses to this consultation on our website.

Should you wish for any information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that this may be subject to publication, or release to other parties or to disclosure, in accordance with the access to information regimes. These regimes are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

Under the FOIA, there is a statutory code of practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence. In view of this, if you are seeking confidentiality for information you are providing, please explain why. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information, we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on ORR.

If you are seeking to make a response in confidence, we would also be grateful if you would annex any confidential information, or provide a non-confidential summary, so that we can publish the non-confidential aspects of your response.

Any personal data you provide to us will be used for the purposes of this consultation and will be handled in accordance with our privacy notice which sets out how we comply with the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.

Consent

In responding to this consultation you consent to us:

  • handling your personal data for the purposes of this consultation;
  • publishing your response on our website (unless you have indicated to us that you wish for your response to be treated as confidential as set out above.)

Your consent to either of the above can be withdrawn at any time. Further information about how we handle your personal data and your rights is set out in our privacy notice.

Format of responses

So that we are able to apply web standards to content on our website, we would prefer that you email us your response either in Microsoft Word format or OpenDocument Text (.odt) format. ODT files have a fully open format and do not rely on any specific piece of software.

If you send us a PDF document, please:

  • create it directly from an electronic word-processed file using PDF creation software (rather than as a scanned image of a printout); and
  • ensure that the PDF's security method is set to no security in the document properties.