HC Deb 07 November 2001 vol 374 cc290-1W
Mr. Lazarowicz

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what progress has been made in compiling a register of the assets of the railway system infrastructure. [12048]

Mr. Jamieson

The compilation of a robust asset register is a complicated task and Railtrack has agreed a two-year rolling plan with the rail regulator for the continued development of asset management and decision support systems. The new licence condition requiring Railtrack to establish and maintain a register of the condition, capacity and capability of its assets came into force on 18 April, and the first two reporting dates have been met On 10 June Railtrack produced its initial guidelines to the asset register, to document the current state of asset data held and used, and identify gaps in service-critical data with plans to remedy these; and its committed development plans (eg the roll-out of its computerised maintenance information management system database). On 1 October Railtrack produced the first two-year rolling plan for further development of the asset register up to April 2004.

Railtrack will continue to produce six-monthly progress reports, which will be used to monitor and review implementation of the asset register.