Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, following their decision to remove Southeastern’s railway franchise, what process was followed to ascertain the problems concerned; and what investigations they have conducted to ensure other rail franchises have not experienced similar financial irregularities.

An independent committee led by the chairs of Go-Ahead Group and Keolis appointed external lawyers and accountants to conduct an investigation. The Department had input into the scope of the investigation, which was developed on an iterative basis. In addition to taking account of the independent committee’s investigation, the Department raised questions of LSER and of key individuals at LSER, its owning groups and GTR - and also required the provision of documents and information. The Department has drawn its own conclusions from all these materials, in particular the contemporaneous underlying evidence and has set out its rationale for imposing a penalty in the publicly available penalty notice.

The Department commissioned an external financial adviser to undertake a review into payments between the Department and a sample of TOCs, and those TOCs and their affiliates. This review is considering inter alia whether money has flowed correctly and whether those payments have been correctly accounted for. This work continues to progress.