Media centre

Wednesday 25 Feb 2015

Network Rail announces significant investment in its contingent labour workforce

Region & Route:

National

Network Rail will be awarding a series of contracts with contingent labour suppliers to provide workers across the network with a total minimum spend of £450m over five years.

The awards will see a strategic change in the number of suppliers from 57 to 20. Four core suppliers will provide 70% of the workforce supported by a number of smaller specialist suppliers.

Hand in hand with the new contracts comes a new code of conduct for labour that will require suppliers to:

• Pay as a minimum, the London living wage within Greater London
• Invest in training and development of their workforce
• Minimise travel time
• Adopt Network Rail’s lifesaving rules, and ‘speak-out’ systems
• Provide all equipment and protective clothing free-of-charge to workers
• Provide a competent and more professional contingent labour workforce

Nick Elliott, managing director national supply chain, said:

“These new contracts are all about transforming our contingent labour workforce into a more professional, fairly remunerated and appropriately trained body of people that we are able to call upon when the need arises.

"The new code of conduct for labour will drive better employer behaviours, improve the quality of the supply chain and help ensure that workers are treated fairly.

“We believe that investing in this important resource will deliver significant safety and performance benefits for the railway as a whole.”

The five year contracts will start on 1^st April 2015.