Avanti's staff speak out

“Avanti has been a shambles from day one”:

Avanti’s staff speak out

RMT Report December 2022

Executive summary

• RMT surveyed its members working for Avanti West Coast over 5 days at the beginning of December 2022. More than 1,000 members of staff at Avanti responded to the survey.

• 95% of respondents said they did not agree with Avanti bosses who told Parliament that they had no problems before July. Avanti staff told us the problems were far deeper rooted than this and started from the day Avanti took over the West Coast franchise.

• More than 90% agreed that working life has got harder in the past three years, that there are not enough staff working for Avanti West Coast and that Avanti West Coast have mismanaged their workforce. More than 80% strongly agreed with all three statements

• A recurrent view that comes up is that Avanti are particularly bad and that the real problems date from when FirstGroup and Trenitalia took over. From this point on, there was chronic understaffing, an attack on established Rest Day working pay rates and agreements, incompetent rostering and a hostile attitude toward staff from management.

• 95% of ticket office staff reported that they were aware ticket offices closing or failing to open dusring their advertised hours as a consequence of understaffing. 70% reported that this had happened more than 10 times in the last 6 months.

• 96% of staff said that their working life had been negatively affected by Avanti’s actions in reducing their timetable and in short term cancellations

• Asked to rate their levels of trust and confidence in management on a scale of 1 100 where 100 was no confidence at all, respondents’ average response was 90/100.

• Avanti staff have no confidence in the company’s claims that it will deliver improvements in December. 22% were not very confident and 70% had no confidence at all.

Recommendations

• Avanti West Coast have completely lost the trust and confidence of their staff. Problems began almost immediately they took over the franchise as they lost staff and failed or refused to replace them, presumably to manage down staff costs. Instead they attempted to force existing staff to work longer shifts and cover more work.

• Staff goodwill has completely collapsed and staff view Avanti’s management as being toxic. It will be impossible for Avanti’s managers to rebuild this trust.

• Avanti have misled Parliament about the problems on their lines in an attempt to extract taxpayers’ money to which by rights they should not be entitled through a shady contractual manoeuvre aimed getting their cancellations designated as a force majeure event. The signs are that the government may be complicit in this duplicity as it persistently repeats the line that Avanti’s problems are due to unprecedented, sudden actions by its staff. If this happens it will be little more than a grubby scam on the taxpayer.

• The West Coast mainline should join the East Coast mainline in public ownership, under the operator of last Resort. This is a vital precondition to rebuilding staff goodwill and trust and confidence in management.

1

Introduction

RMT surveyed members working for Avanti West Cost. The survey opened on 30 November and closed on 5th December and more than 1,000 members took part, an unusually high return rate which suggests a high level of motivation among Avanti’s staff.

The survey asked members a series of questions about their experience of working for Avanti since they took over the franchise and about their views of what lay behind Avanti’s problems. It also asked them what they thought about Avanti’s public statements about their problems.

“Lies, lies and more lies”

At the Transport Select Committee on 12th October, Richard Scott, Director of Corporate Affairs at the West Coast Partnership claimed that Avanti had no problems before July 2022:

“We had no problem at all before the end of July, when there was the sudden drop-off, with 90% of drivers suddenly saying they were not available for rest day working”.1

As we showed in a recent briefing, this statement is not supported by the ORR data which show that Avanti had significant problems before July.2

While cancellations peaked in absolute terms in the period beginning 26 June, Avanti were fully or partly cancelling more than 10% of their trains in the period before that and more than 7% of their trains in the period starting 1st May 2022.

As we showed in our briefing, Avanti are likely to be claiming this as part of their attempt to persuade the government to classify the cancellations as due to a ‘force majeure’ event beyond the government’s control. This would allow them to discount these cancellations against their performance data and maximise their dividend payments.

Not only does the data suggest that Avanti are not being straight, when we asked staff whether they agreed with Scott’s statement the response was absolutely unequivocal.

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/10943/pdf/ 2 https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/publications/rmt policy briefing avanti 281122/

Avanti bosses told Parliament that they had 'no problem at all before July'. Do you agree with this statement?

100%

80%

0% 60%

Yes No 40%

• “I fully disagree, Avanti have been disregarding agreed practices for over 2 years. Staff morale has been rock bottom for over 2 years. Most staff are awaiting the day they lose the franchise so they can celebrate. They have no regard for staff or customers. All they care about is the pay cheque from the government.”

• That’s an outright lie. Ever since Avanti came in, things have been getting worse.

• “Utter lies, been a shit show since avanti took over”

• “Lies and more lies”

•

“Deliberately misleading Parliament”

• “They have lied to the media, such as saying our drivers were on unofficial strikes, when in fact it was due to lack of employed drivers.”

• “Avanti Bosses are outright lying here. Before July staff were complaining about the lack of functional equipment, the new demand for a "restaurant quality service" in 1st class, without the staff numbers on each train to deliver it and staff have continuously complained about the lack of a pay rise whilst they are constantly piling more and more demands onto us.”

In their comments, some staff said that the problems had got worse steadily since COVID19 and a large number said that the problems had begun on the day that Avanti took over the franchise.

• “Avanti has been a shambles from day one blaming everyone but themselves for the situation we are currently in. “

us as they know none of these service failures, overcrowding, or cancellations are our fault, They know Avanti are a disgrace.”

• “These problems started when Avanti first took over and have gradually increased over the last couple of years up to the sorry state we are in now.”

• “This situation has been ongoing since avanti took over but was masked by the reduction of passenger numbers during and immediately after the pandemic lockdowns.”

• “The service has been in free fall since Avanti took over never listening to any problems with the service just railroading through anything the wanted never asking for advice and ignoring anything that they didn’t want to hear immediately saying staff were being negative.”

• Avanti have been having problems since the day they were given the franchise, it’s a First Group problem also, completely different mentality towards staff and passengers

•

“The day they took over the franchise was the problem. I have never seen staff morale so low. They have taken away a job I was so passionate about to a job that triggers anxiety and stress.”

Avanti: Understaffed and mismanaged

Avanti staff were scathing about their management. Massive majorities strongly agreed that working life had deteriorated since Avanti took over, that they are under staffed, and that Avanti’s managers have mismanaged the workforce.

As the survey results show, 85% of the staff working for Avanti now have worked there for more than 5 years and therefore were in place before Avanti took over in December 2019.

A recurrent view that comes up is that Avanti are particularly bad and that the real problems date from when FirstGroup and Trenitalia took over. From this point on, there was chronic understaffing, an attack on established Rest Day working pay rates and agreements, incompetent rostering and a hostile attitude toward staff from management.

To what extent do you agree with the below statements?

Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree

Working life has got harder in the past three years

There are not enough staff working for Avanti West Coast

Avanti West Coast have mismanaged their workforce

• “The staffing issues started way before July! Jobs haven’t been backfilled for a long time.”

• The company has been run into the ground by Avanti ever since they took over and front line are the ones taking the brunt of it. In my 15 years’ service I have never seen such a shambles and this started way before the beginning of this year.

• “They were totally reliant on RDW since the start of the franchise. Staff morale, and therefore loyalty and flexibility, has been shocking since the start of the pandemic.”

• “Staff shortages have been an issue for months before. Poor management of key contracts have made working for Avanti unpleasant and embarrassing. “

• “Staff levels are too low after many took voluntary severance and at least 8 more staff moving into new roles or leaving all together have left massive gaps in the roster. Vacancies aren’t allowed to be back filled currency. Sickness also adds to this shortage.”

• “The problems started as soon as they took over the West Coast Mainline. They 'overhauled' the rostering system to make it more 'efficient', which often led to staff shortages in times of disruption.”

• “This has been ongoing since Avanti took over the franchise, they are using Covid as an excuse! We have the same passengers and customers using our services, ticket offices etc as we had pre Covid.”

• “There has been a clear difference since Avanti took over, we are all the same crews as when Virgin held the franchise so it’s obvious it’s Avanti (FirstGroup) that are at fault.”

• “Not enough train managers in certain locations to cover their work load. the knock on effect is that the abuse of spare turns coverage from Preston to cover other depots’ work has become the norm.”

• “Diagrams (staffing rosters) have got worse over the years no balance with work and home. The breaks between shifts are not long enough, the higher management do not understand what is going on within the company’s lower levels, it’s just about the profits.”

• “There is no care at all for the welfare of their staff and their work life balance. The morale is unbelievably low and they have made no effort at all to try and restore it. They rely on the goodwill of staff to cover trains but at the same time have no respect for them.”

• “Having worked for both Virgin and Avanti you can clearly see a huge change in the way we have been treated. It feels like money is valued above and beyond anyone’s roles in the company. For example, not backfilling catering positions that clearly need filled leaving trains short staffed and the staff demotivated and stressed” .

• “The breakdown in working relationships between Avanti and staff are the key issue to the on going problems…Since Avanti has come in the approach from Management (The Exec) has been "It's this way or the highway!" Steve Montgomery told a Glasgow Train Manager "This is not a prison camp, you are free to leave if you don't like it". People expect common courtesy from the customer's, never mind Management. But this bullying regime that has swept onto the West Coast mainline since December 2019 has destroyed all good will, dragged people's mental health into the gutter. They instructed social media team workers to put out incendiary messages on social media channels-literally putting their frontline staff in danger w/tempers flaring, due to the incompetence of the Management not being able to put together a working timetable.”

Understaffing and ticket offices closing

The Ticket office staff who responded to the survey were also asked about reports that Avanti have been failing to open their ticket offices during advertised hours. 95% of ticket office staff reported that they were aware of this happening and 70% reported that this had happened more than 10 times in the last 6 months. The respondents were unanimous in attributing this to the understaffing on the franchise. Yes No 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

How often has this happened?

• “Staff levels are too low after many took voluntary severance and at least 8 more staff moving into new roles or leaving all together have left massive gaps in the roster. Vacancies aren’t allowed to be back filled currently. Sickness also adds to this shortage.”

• “Shortages of staff, no recruitment when a person leaves”.

• “Severely short staffed by not covering posts from voluntary redundancies and long term sickness.”

• “Unfilled vacancies and untrained General Purpose Reliefs with platform roles and gateline working being prioritised to the detriment of retail.”

• “Not filling vacancies, removing staff from ticket offices to cover barriers or platforms due to sickness and/or vacancies.”

• “Chronic understaffing and refusal to recruit for vacancies”.

• “Shortage of staff and staff taken to work on gateline”.

and passengers

96% of staff said that their working life had been negatively affected by Avanti’s actions in reducing their timetable and in short term cancellations.

120%

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

Yes No 0%

• “Every day has been harder with continuing cancellations. Overcrowded trains as a result of less services. Issues booking for customers because the reservation system can't cope. And less staff to deal with an increasingly disgruntled public. The service we are offering is an absolute disgrace and I am embarrassed by it. Add to that the lies and misinformation in the media and we are the front line to handle it all as best we can. Whilst senior management rake in their cash.”

• “Working in the booking office and the amount of cancellation and removed trains the customers are not happy at all. We get abuse so much more than the past.”

• “We have had roster change after roster change. So we have no way of planning our personal life. The last few months we have been spare every day, finding out sometimes two days beforehand what our shift is.”

• “Very busy trains, with some people not being able to board services due to there being no space, disgruntled and sometimes hostile customers due to lack of services and reduced services also mean longer waits for connections onto local services which makes the platforms much busier almost to the point of being dangerous.”

• “Customers screaming and shouting at us not know when trains will run”.

How Avanti’s reduced timetable and cancellations have affected staff

Has your work been affected by Avanti West Coast’s reduced timetable and cancellations of services?

• “

Chaos, less trains, overcrowded trains, rise in frustration from passengers which is directed at front line staff.”

• “The workload is hell of a lot heavier two train loads into one…means we have to work hell of a lot harder and that’s when mistake are made and your eye isn’t on the ball…the service given is certainly not a good customer experience in the long term it will ruin the railway people will travel other ways if they are faced with not being able to get a seat and have a comfortable journey.”

• “The abuse endured by staff because of Avanti’s incompetence is shocking and the level of service provided from the departments responsible for the smooth running of the services so that front line staff can deliver a customer service is a shambles.”

• “I turn up for work not knowing if my train will be running that day. I've spent many shifts just chasing my back workings. I’ve even had days when I’ve not worked at all but been train jumping due to cancellations. Recently on a sat the train from Holyhead got cancelled at Crewe, myself and passengers got on 0902 which then got cancelled at new street. Myself and all passengers tried to board 1050 which was full and standing (3 train loads). It’s embarrassing and has to stop.”

Asked to rate the service to passengers where 0 is the worst possible service and 100 is the best, the average score was 22. The fact that it was not lower appears to be because staff considered that they had done their best to mitigate the effects of management’s actions to the best of their ability.

• “Travel chaos, overcrowded trains, unsafe conditions on trains due to running trains with multiple defects, no maintenance and lack of functioning toilets for example. Reduced trains in operation but lots of 9 carriage trains, where are the 11 cars?”

• “Cancelling last trains and dumping passengers out on the street till the next day. People breaking down in tears because they have missed funerals. People having panic attacks from overcrowding, tourists missing trips. The toll of stress on colleagues is also unacceptable”

• “Overcrowded trains. Double and sometimes triple booked seats. Last minute cancellations.”

• “Customers are angry, they are not listened too. Seats double booked, trains that are overcrowded and poorly maintained. They are not getting the service they are paying for.”

• “The passengers’ wellbeing is of no interest to Avanti management. Simply their obligation is to their shareholders and friends in government. The management sought to drive a wedge between the staff and passengers via misinformation and the media but fortunately the overwhelming majority of our fare paying public can see the truth and recognise the lies they are being fed and side with us, the very people they have actually seen and spoken to for decades”.

• “Appalling, not enough staff on board, cancel trains last minute which leads to severe overcrowding. The 15 I scored this is only due to the staff who are trying their best under difficult circumstances.”

•

“Duplicate seat reservations, filthy trains. Train faults. Putting out 9 car sets on the busiest routes instead of 11. Shop unavailable or cash only due to card machine not working. Poor communication from customer services team and delay/repay.”

• “Cancelled trains, lack of seats due to overcrowding once trains are cancelled. Lack of food on trains and lack of staff to deliver the service.”

• “Cancellations with no warning, no seat reservations especially for vulnerable or disabled passengers. Awful customer complaints response times”.

No confidence in management and no confidence in the December improvements

Asked to rate their levels of trust and confidence in management on a scale of 1 100 where 100 was no confidence at all, respondents’ average response was 90/100.

Avanti staff have no confidence in the company’s claims that it will deliver improvements in December. 22% were not very confident and 70% had no confidence at all.

More than 90% were worried about the impact of Avanti’s plans for staff.

Avanti have been told they must deliver improvements to their service by December.

80.0%

70.0%

60.0%

50.0%

40.0%

30.0%

20.0%

10.0%

How confident are you that they will achieve this? Yes No 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Somewhat confident Not sure Not very confident Not confident at all 0.0%

Avanti have said they are ‘rebuilding their timetable’ and ‘training more staff’. Do you have any concerns about these plans as they impact staff?

Responses

• “They can't run the service now. There are still cancellations from shortage of staff. The new timetable starts in 1 week! This evening I will be the only member of my team in. There will be no team leader, probably no manager. I will have to cope with loads of cancellations.”

• “Nothing has really changed”

• “There’s a thin veneer of readiness. Arrangements in place are brittle and not robust. Short termism in many decisions that aren’t sustainable. Using draconian sickness policies to scare staff back into workplace.”

• “As staff we have been given no information to how they will achieve this. Media received info before the staff. Changes are taking place without being informed or agreed.”

• “I just don’t see how it is possible and how they will achieve it. Good will has gone. If they can do it by December why have they not done it already. It’s embarrassing and customers deserve better”

• “Still not enough trained staff to fulfil the timetable”

• “Part of the problem is the erosion of goodwill that existed between staff and the company. Even with new rosters… they have not really addressed concerns of work life balance. There is still too much over reliance on spare turns, and with two hour movement and the forced extra hour, staff can find themselves yet again not able to plan their life long term”.

• “We all know what's going to happen. Jt’s us workers who are been here for years who know how to run the railway and not management who refuse to listen to us.”

• “The management have no interest in rebuilding a stable and robust timetable, they seek only to smash the unions and keep pushing the frontline workers into working dangerously long shifts with minimal & inadequate rest which is a disaster waiting to happen.”

• “Staff have completely lost faith in the company”.

• “Avanti relies on staff doing overtime...employees feel at the moment enough is enough.”

• “Staff recruited will not be ready by the time it's needed.”

• “The staffing levels haven't improved.”

• “There’s talk of already reducing the new timetable. Not enough staff to operate it.”

• “Avanti are struggling to run 1 train an hour from Manchester to Euston, forget 3”.

• “Their recruitment drive is far too late to have an impact on services in time and I don't see a way they can get the staff to run the trains they want which in return means more abuse for gateline and platform staff.”

• “We’re struggling to run a full service at the moment without 3 trains an hour so my confidence is low.”

• “How will they facilitate a full timetable with not enough staff?”

• “The general attitude of the management I have spoken to is that they will increase pressure on the staff to "be more flexible " to the detriment of staff welfare and health and safety. Any issues with the increase in services will simply be ascribed to " unofficial industrial action", " outdated terms and conditions" or " too much staff sickness" hampering the improvements, ignoring the fact that a lot of the sickness is a direct result of the poisonous workplace atmosphere, excessive workload and the disregard for doctors "fit notes".”

• “I have no faith in management’s ability to deliver at all. They are incompetent.”

• “I've asked local management how we will provide this service with the lack of staff we have and they answered "We really don't know"”.

• “We keep being told they are improving the time table but we are not seeing any actions being implemented.”

• “There will not be enough newly trained staff to fill roles by then.”

• “Staff are being trained bit by bit so services can run. That doesn’t mean they are proficient in roles. Training times being reduced is a safety concern. Instead of allowing a new TM to train, they are signing off routes so they can work it and still train on other routes. That's extra pressure. Station teams are working to max at interchanges without support or security due to poor management of contract.”

•

“How can they train more staff? We’re that understaffed we can’t even get to complete simple things like safety briefs. We’re stretched so far thing that adding more trains will be the ultimate disaster! Who’s going to work them ? Mass cancellations constantly but they’re adding more services with much less staff?”

Recommendations

Avanti West Coast have completely lost the trust and confidence of their staff. Problems began almost immediately they took over the franchise as they lost staff and failed or refused to replace them, presumably to manage down staff costs. Instead they attempted to force existing staff to work longer shifts and cover more work.

Staff goodwill has completely collapsed and staff view Avanti’s management as being toxic. It will be impossible for Avanti’s managers to rebuild this trust.

Avanti have misled Parliament about the problems on their lines in an attempt to extract taxpayers’ money to which by rights they should not be entitled through a shady contractual manoeuvre aimed getting their cancellations designated as a force majeure event. The signs are that the government may be complicit in this duplicity as it persistently repeats the line that Avanti’s problems are due to unprecedented, sudden actions by its staff. If this happens it will be little more than a grubby scam on the taxpayer.

This is a fundamentally rotten company that should be stripped of its franchise. The West Coast mainline should join the East Coast mainline in public ownership, under the operator of last Resort. This is a vital precondition to rebuilding staff goodwill and trust and confidence in management.

Appendix: Who responded?

These tables indicate the roles of the respondents to RMT’s survey of Avanti members and the duration of time they have worked on the West Coast franchise.

What is your role?

Ticket office 8% 83 Dispatch 12% 128 Gateline 7% 73 Other Station Grade 2% 24

Train manager 23% 236

Catering Grade 44% 450 Driver 1% 6 Other (please specify) 3% 33 Answered 1033

How long have you worked on West Coast?

Less than 1 year 3% 31 1-2 years 1% 11 2 3 years 2% 22 3-4 years 4% 39 4 5 years 5% 54 More than 5 years 85% 885 Answered 1042