Great British Railways (GBR) can make the railway a simpler, more rewarding sector in which to work, by breaking down organisational boundaries and instilling a new culture that fosters collaboration, empowerment, customer-centricity and innovation.

We’ve already started work to make sure that GBR fulfils its potential in these areas, and to realise benefits now where possible.

Our work in this area aims to boost innovation, create efficiencies, and make it easier for the public and private sector to drive customer focused improvements.

With partners from the supply chain, Network Rail, government departments, and industry representation groups we’re working to create a better system for both the client side and supply chain. We’re doing so by creating dialogue through forums such as the Commercial Partnerships Sounding Board.

Our work so far has influenced how GBR will work in the future, as well as encourage those working today to be simpler and better.

Right now, complex regulatory processes are getting in the way of colleagues from across Network Rail, operators, the Office of Rail and Road, and other partners.

Current complexity makes it harder to improve the rail experience for customers, takes up valuable time from industry experts, and drives extra cost.

With our partners we’re identifying opportunities ahead of legislation to cut through the complexity and create change today – with a view to trial these changes soon

Improving how partners across stations work together will support greater customer-focused interventions, help manage our assets even better, and enable stations to be better connected to the communities they serve.

We’re working with Network Rail, Northern, c2c, and others to test how stations will work in the future.

We’re currently working with our partners to run a number of pilots – testing our improvements ahead of GBR.

To ensure that rail can attract the widest range of talented people to work in the sector, and therefore passengers, it needs to be more reflective of the communities it serves.

Reducing silos, improving trust and building relationships across today’s organisational boundaries will help to improve efficiency, support innovation and, ultimately, improve the experience of customers.

So, we are working with partners across the sector to start improving collaboration across organisational boundaries ahead of GBR.

We are also leading the equity, equality, diversity and inclusion agenda across the industry, working with partners to create a network and coalition within the sector to attract and retain diverse talent.