Network Rail sets wagon rolling on redundancy programme

Network
Rail, the national railways infrastructure company, dismissed 700 senior and
middle-ranking managers yesterday.

The
move came on the eve of the company’s first birthday and is part of a programme
of 2,000 redundancies to be made over the next two years.

Network
Rail, which employs 14,000 people, hopes the jobs cuts will help it to reduce
£13bn from costs over the next 10 years.

Iain
Croucher, deputy chief executive, said the redundancies would affect all parts
of the company except signalmen and were necessary to save ‘a business in
crisis’.

Unions
have condemned the company’s use of compulsory redundancies.

By Michael Millar