£1m spent on botched West Coast franchise

The UK government spent nearly £1 million outsourcing parts of the botched West Coast Mainline franchise to private contractors, it has emerged.

Transport minister Simon Burns revealed that the government spent £490,810 employing engineering and design consultantcy WS Atkins to write the 
advert for bidders, as well as 
advising the department’s officials on bids.

Civil servants then spent another £439,000 employing the lawyers Eversheds to draw up the advert and advising which company should win the franchise for the line, Mr Burns said in a written ministerial statement yesterday.

He said that a third firm, project consultancy outfit Faithful & Gould, was used in the process.

Mr Burns added: “No other external firms of consultants were contracted or retained and used by the department in relation to this work.”

His comments came after a written parliamentary question from shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle.

Labour previously claimed that taxpayers could be left with an even bigger multimillion-pound bill than first feared for the fiasco surrounding the franchise.

The collapse of the decision to award the contract to FirstGroup, ahead of Virgin, which currently operates the West Coast Mainline, has already sparked two inquiries.

It is estimated it will cost taxpayers at least £40m in refunding firms that bid for the contract, and has led to the suspension of three Department for Transport officials.

Virgin will continue to run the line while an interim franchise is drawn up.

The decision to give FirstGroup the route from December was withdrawn after “technical flaws” in the bid process were discovered.

Ms Eagle said train firms might sue for losses suffered when the government scrapped its decision to award the franchise to FirstGroup.