Institutional arrangements - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 162

have a narrower, shorter term, more business-oriented focus than the Assemblies and
are unencumbered by the latter's wider remit, statutory planning responsibilities and
democratic accountability (albeit indirect) within the region. Significantly, following
the Government's failure to extend formal devolution into the English regions, it has
concluded that the functions of the Regional Assemblies should be transferred to their
respective RDAs rather than the other way round (DTI et al. 2007).
10.4 Public and private ownerships
As a consequence of the privatisation programme pursued by Conservative
governments in the 1980s and 90s the extent of public ownership, and hence direct
control, of transport industries has returned to the levels of a century ago. With the
exception of the public highway network, most of the nation's transport assets are now
privately owned, including almost all the companies previously nationalised (London
Underground being the conspicuous exception).
The situation with public transport industries which were previously municipally
owned (i.e. by local authorities) is less straightforward. Central Government stopped
short of introducing legislation requiring the sale of these companies but most have
in fact been sold. The bulk of the bus industry in Britain is now owned by one of five
private companies - Arriva, First, Go-Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach. Their
operations are however divided around the country and include services operated
under franchise in London. The precise distribution reflects their pattern of acquisition
of formerly separate local companies by which they have grown to their present size.
All of them have also expanded into operating franchised rail services (15.5). In some
areas (e.g. First Group in much of South-West England) this has effectively given them
a monopoly of public transport which they can utilise to promote a form of 'company'
integration.
The ownership of the country's few urban metro and light rail systems generally
lies with Passenger Transport Authorities although in most cases responsibility for
infrastructure maintenance and service operation has been transferred to a private
operator for a prescribed period (Table 10.3). In some cases (e.g. Manchester
Metrolink) the system was designed and built as well as operated and maintained by a
private consortium for 25-30 years, funded by either an initial payment or an annual
leasing charge. At the end of the period the asset is transferred to the public authority.
The decline in public ownership over the last quarter of the 20th century was partly a
function of financial expediency during difficult economic periods - to rid governments
of the burden of borrowing for investment and to generate one-off capital receipts
(what the former Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan referred to as 'selling
the family silver'). It was also a function of ideological commitment to privatisation
by the Thatcher Government after 1979, pursued only slightly less stridently by New
Labour after 1997. As a result public ownership as an issue of principle has largely
disappeared from the political landscape.
The pursuit of privatisation as a matter of principle does not however exclude the
possibility of public ownership being adopted on pragmatic grounds, i.e. as the most
efficient - or least inefficient - option available for managing the nation's resources. (In
2008 for example the Government was forced into nationalising the Northern Rock
Building Society as the only way of saving the business and preventing further damage
to financial markets.) At the time of Railtrack's collapse many commentators called
for its renationalisation, or at least for the Government to take a controlling stake in