According to an investigation by the Consumers’ Association, the cheques making their way through the clearing system at any one time are used by banks and building societies to invest in the international money markets.
The CA investigation also found that one in four cheques paid into a bank or building society account takes longer to clear than the time advertised.CA money editor, Graeme Jacobs, commenting on the report’s findings, said: “Customers are being seriously short-changed. As a consequence, some of Freightliner’s trains were left on vulnerable parts of the railway system in north London which resulted in the thefts.Meanwhile, it was revealed that small investors scrambled to register for the Railtrack flotation with 500,000 putting their names down to receive application forms and special discounts over the past week.Rush for Railtrack, page 18. A memo on the condition of the track said much of the foundation was “mud” and that components such as clips were “breaking daily”.The maintenance work caused a total of 88 hours delay to Freightliner’s trains – one was delayed for 18 hours.The completion of the work was put back by Railtrack on several days after Freightliner had been promised that it would be finished. Railtrack has already been criticised by the Health and Safety Executive for the deterioration in the condition of the track on lines out of Euston which have resulted in a 10mph speed limit being imposed causing severe delays.The chaotic series of events at Primrose Hill, just north of Euston, is described in a letter leaked to Channel 4’s Dispatches programme last night from Freightliner, one of BR’s two remaining railfreight companies, in which the company’s managing director, James Mackay, warns that Railtrack’s “very unsatisfactory” performance puts in danger “revenue amounting to several millions of pounds”.The delays also threatened the prestigious Ford contract for taking cars through the Channel tunnel operated by the other BR company, Railfreight Distribution.Mr Mackay said that Cosco, its sixth largest customer, “withdrew all business from us until we can provide assurance that deliveries can be made to schedule”.A Freightliner official would not give details of the value of the goods stolen or what the dangerous goods comprised “for security reasons”.

As 1.9 million people registered for the shares, Opposition parties and anti-rail privatisation groups labelled the sale “a rip off” and “an act of vandalism”.
The latest Great Train Robbery in February happened as the track work disrupted service over six days. More than 100 bottles of Australian and South African wine were found on the track near Primrose Hill, north London, and another container with “dangerous goods” was also broken into.Several freight operators have transferred goods from rail to road as a result of the disruption. Three freight trains, including one carrying wine, were looted in north London after they were delayed by emergency repairs by Railtrack – an embarrassing revelation on the day that its share price was set at between 350p and 390p for the forthcoming flotation, valuing the company at less than pounds 2bn. More likely, it was because there has been greater scope of savings and efficiency improvements in central government, which, the survey recognised, has often been less well run than local government.Evidence that ministers and senior civil servants were keener to overhaul local authorities than to sort out their own ministries, will come as no surprise to people in local government It is what they have been saying for years.. It also confirmed research that significant savings could be achieved, varying from 5 to 50 per cent, according to Cipfa.None the less, the survey did find that savings and improvements were generally greater within government departments than in local authorities.

This might be explained, said the report, by opposition to CCT by councils, limiting the benefits of competition. The rest were lost within the private sector, as large companies drove out the smaller ones.But it is clear that CCT has made public services more efficiently delivered. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) last week published a survey of the effects of CCT, and its equivalent within government departments, market testing.Contrary to received wisdom, the survey found that service quality was improved by competitive bidding. The tendering process for housing management contracts cost Bradford pounds 1m, yet failed to attract a single outside bidder.

Meanwhile, small and medium-sized local contractors have been squeezed out by bigger outsiders, particularly French corporations. Andy Mudd, chair of Bradford’s CCT committee, said: “It is a Trojan horse for Europe-based multinationals.”This view is supported by research conducted for the Equal Opportunities Commission’s report on CCT, which found that the policy had lost 74,000 jobs, of which only 12,500 were within councils. Colin Meech, of the trade unions’ Privatisation Research Unit, described the process as the Tories’ “scorched earth” policy.Bradford council has found that, in practice, the CCT policy has often had the opposite effect to that intended. “We say they should be able to ask contractors for their method systems, to explain how they would do certain types of work.” But this will be more difficult under the new rules, she believes.The trade unions go further, accusing the Government of recklessly forcing the public sector to contract-out more work in the run up to a general election they expect to lose, as a farewell favour to business. It will make it more difficult for authorities to win contracts in-house,” said Lesley Courcouf, public services assistant secretary at the Association of Metropolitan Authorities.Ms Courcouf is equally worried that councils will now have less say in the way contracts are carried out, and she expects performance standards to fall. Contractors want more freedom to choose which IT systems they use, rather than be bound by those already adopted by authorities.But what pleases the contractors seldom pleases councils “The changes are completely unnecessary. We are not convinced that authorities have been behaving anti-competitively.