The Director of Passenger Rail Franchising was a statutory office in the United Kingdom created in 1993 by the

Railways Act 1993 The Railways Act 1993c 43 was introduced by John Major's Conservative Party (UK), Conservative government and passed on 5 November 1993. It provided for the restructuring of the British Railways Board (BRB), the public corporation that owned and ...

and usually called the Franchising Director. It lasted from 5 November 1993 until 31 January 2001 when it was superseded by the

Strategic Rail Authority The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom set up under the Transport Act 2000 to provide strategic direction for Rail transport in the United Kingdom, the railway industry. Its motto was 'Brita ...

Main function

The Franchising Director's main function was to sell passenger rail franchises to private sector companies participating in the privatisation of the British railway industry. On 1 February 2001 the position of Franchising Director was abolished by the

Transport Act 2000 The Transport Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided for a number of measures regarding transport in Great Britain; the first major change in the structure of the privatised railway system established under the ...

and the passenger rail franchising functions were transferred to the newly created Strategic Rail Authority. The SRA was in turn abolished in 2006 and the SRA's franchising functions were taken over by the

Secretary of State for Transport The Secretary of State for Transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Department for Transport. The incumbent i ...

Holders of office

The first Franchising Director was Roger Salmon, a former investment banker. Salmon presided over the design of the franchising regime, but he resigned before the franchising programme began in earnest. Salmon was succeeded by John O'Brien, who succeeded in selling 25 rail franchises in under two years (1995–97). The last franchise - ScotRail - was awarded only three weeks before the British general election of May 1997, in which the Labour government of

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

was elected. The Labour Party had promised to halt the privatisation programme if it had won power soon enough, but O'Brien beat them to it. At the Labour party conference in September 1998, the then

and

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, ...

John Prescott John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938) is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he w ...

MP announced that he intended to have a 'spring clean of the regulators', and O'Brien immediately offered his resignation. He had no need to do so, but gained great credit in the railway industry for an honourable offer, which was thought to surprise Prescott. O'Brien was asked to stay on until Prescott had made his decision on the new post-holder. Prescott intended to set up a new regulatory body for the passenger railway, the Strategic Rail Authority, but he needed legislation to do so. The post of Franchising Director therefore remained to be filled until that legislation could be passed and brought into force. After announcing that Sir

Alastair Morton Sir Robert Alastair Newton Morton (11 January 1938 – 1 September 2004) was Chief Executive of Eurotunnel and Chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, industrialist and the last chairman of the British Railways Board. Early life Morton was b ...

would become the chairman of the SRA, Prescott needed to find a replacement for O'Brien. Morton secured the appointment of Mike Grant, a former colleague of Morton's from his

Eurotunnel Getlink, formerly Groupe Eurotunnel, is a European public company based in Paris that manages and operates the infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel between England and France, operates the Eurotunnel Shuttle train service, and earns revenue on ...

days and then head of

Railtrack Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002. It was created as part of the privatisation of ...

's property division. Grant became Franchising Director in April 2000, and remaining in that post until 1 February 2001 when the Transport Act 2000 was brought into force, abolishing the position of Franchising Director and creating the SRA. Grant was appointed as the first chief executive of the SRA, under Morton's chairmanship. He remained in that role until shortly after Richard Bowker took over as SRA chairman and combined the roles of chairman and chief executive.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Director Of Passenger Rail Franchising History of rail transport in the United Kingdom Defunct public bodies of the United Kingdom Transport policy in the United Kingdom 1993 establishments in the United Kingdom 2001 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Privatisation of British Rail