Written evidence from the Freight Transport Association (CTR 01)
The Freight Transport Association is one of Britain’s largest trade associations, and uniquely provides a voice for the whole of the UK’s logistics sector. Its role, on behalf of over 14,000 members, is to enhance the safety, efficiency and sustainability of freight movement across the supply chain, regardless of transport mode. FTA members operate over 200,000 goods vehicles - almost half the UK fleet - and some 1,000,000 liveried vans. In addition, they consign over 90 per cent of the freight moved by rail and over 70 per cent of sea and air freight. FTA works with its members to influence transport policy and decisions taken at local, national, European and global level to ensure they recognise the needs of industry’s supply chains.
1. For logistics operators, cable theft is a live issue and a costly one. Aside of the impact that these thefts have on passenger services, the impact on freight is considerable. This submission will look at the scale of the problem, how the logistics industry is having to move to counter the problem, and the impact on services of cable theft.
2. The delay caused to our member rail freight operators because of cable theft over the last year is approximately 114,000 delay minutes. That is 10.2% of delays which are attributable to Network Rail (excluding delays caused by other operators but including suicides). There has been an increase in cable thefts as the price of scrap copper has gone up. Most importantly this means a huge impact of delay and disruption to services used by our shipper members – the onward economic cost of that is harder to calculate. If rail freight is to play its full part in the supply chain, then those moving goods require confidence in their chosen method of moving goods. Delays caused by thefts make that certainty much more difficult for rail freight operators seeking to take goods off our congested roads.
3. Network Rail reports that cable theft has cost the railway as a whole £43 million in the last three years. This is at a time of economic austerity when investment is being made in the network to improve it for rail freight and make a rail a viable and economically sustainable mode in logistics supply chains. Therefore this haemorrhaging of cash due to cable theft (as well as the damage to rail’s reliability and service offering and image) is particularly galling.
4. Network Rail figures show the breakdown of cable theft incidents by route in 2010 / 2011 to be as follows:
Route Incidents Delay Minutes Compensation Cost Anglia 74 21,055 £1,089,809 Channel Tunnel Rail Link 1 31 £7,251 East Midlands 33 11,234 £282,473 Kent 17 12,681 £417,950 London North Eastern 526 137,801 £3,531,416 London North Western 196 105,842 £2,795,811 Scotland 34 7,265 £254,825 Sussex 3 764 £30,081 Wessex 8 3,536 £140,423 Western 103 65,026 £3,587,181
5. British Transport Police’s breakdown of cable theft and arrests by force area is as follows:
Area Cable Crimes Arrests London North 321 112 London South 391 94 London Underground 123 77
North Eastern 1,184 273 North Western 273 109 Wales and Western 632 218 Scottish 192 31 Total 3116 914
6. While railway signalling is designed to “fail to safety” in the event of damaged cables and lost power supplies, cable thieves are putting their own lives at risk (and there have been recent examples of fatality by thieves) and tampering with railway signalling is still a fundamental interference with safety of the line that could potentially have disastrous fatal results.
7. The railway industry, as with other industries that have suffered metal and theft issues such as construction plant, has invested in traceability technologies to protect its assets, such as the “smart water” forensic detection system first pioneered in the Cash - in -Transit sector. Better CCTV and lighting and fencing at rail infrastructure upgrade sites can be deployed but it is difficult to protect hundreds of miles of railway line. What is needed is a levelling of the playing field to make it harder for the metal thieves to trade.
8. One further issue is the cashless Scrap Metal Trade. FTA is supporting calls for amendment to the Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964. Due to a significant rise in value, metal has become a much sought after commodity. This increased demand has resulted in a sharp rise in metal theft nationally. Theft of signalling cable on the railway causes delays to train services, including freight services with the number of delays having grown considerably over the last two years as the price of copper has increased.
9. Historically, the scrap metal trade has been a ‘cash in hand’ industry. This creates difficulties as there is no audit trail, making identification of individuals who may be trading stolen metal or who may be committing tax or benefits fraud, a difficult proposition for criminal investigators. A petition on the Government’s ePetition website http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/406 is calling for an amendment to the Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964 to prohibit cash transactions which would make payment by cheque or directly into a bank account mandatory; the author of the petition asserts that the creation of such an audit trail would be a significant component in reducing metal theft.
27 October 2011 Written Evidence from First Great Western (CTR 02)
The impact of cable theft on First Great Western’s business over the last three years shows a significant increase in incidents, with the length of delays and cancellations also worsening.
Number of Delay Minutes Number of Incidents Cancellations 2009 61 4416 13 2010 88 18864 168 2011 (to date) 117 26871 381
The number of incidents this year looks set to double the level incurred in 2009. In the same period delay minutes have increased six fold, and cancellations are twenty nine times greater than they were just two years ago.
This is despite successful prosecutions and covert operations.
The affect of individual incidents can vary considerably. In March a cable theft at Moreton-in-Marsh caused a total of 81 minutes of delay, affecting 20 trains. A few days earlier a cable theft at Gloucester caused a total of 1443 minutes of delay with 22 trains cancelled and 130 delayed.
Nationally cable theft has cost the rail industry £43 million and 16,000 hours of passenger delays in the past three years.
The industry and BTP have done a great deal to tackle the problem, but with copper prices at an historic high the problem is likely to worsen.
We are therefore very supportive of suggestions made by Government for new or amended legislation and support the following measures:
• A robust licensing regime (rather than the present registration) with clear requirements upon the dealer to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received.
• Scrap metal dealers to pay a licence fee in order to give local authorities greater funds to facilitate the regulation of the licence.
• Property obtained by virtue of breaches of the legislation should be regarded as criminal assets allowing Proceeds of Crime provisions to apply.
• Police powers to close scrap metal dealers in line with alcohol licensing and police authority to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer.
1 • Restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduce a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed.
• Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it (e.g. through photo ID and CCTV).
• Magistrate powers to add restrictions on to licences and to prevent re-opening of closed yards until conditions have been met.
27 October 2011
2
Written Evidence from Virgin Trains (CTR 03) About Virgin Trains
1 Virgin Trains has been running services on the InterCity West Coast route since 1997. Our fleets of 125 mph tilting trains now carry around 30 million passengers a year.
The impact of cable theft on our services
2 Cable theft affects key infrastructure on which we depend to run our trains: signalling and points. The disruption it causes is often significant. From January 2011 to 10 October 2011 cable theft caused 200 hours of delay to our trains. (To set this is context, 200 hours of delays represents around 4% of all delays to our trains.) In addition, 18 trains were cancelled and 40 could not operate over the entire journey planned for them.
3 We support Network Rail’s efforts to reduce levels of theft, for example by burying cables, use of covert CCTV, invisible marking of cables and use of trembler alarms. We are also fully behind the Association of Train Operating Companies and the British Transport Police in pressing for tougher sentences for offenders and tackling illegal practices among some scrap metal dealers.
The impact of cable theft on our customers
Case study: Bushey, Hertfordshire, Friday 15 July
4 Damage to cables in the Bushey area first impacted on train services around 0600. Services resumed a normal timetable from 13:50.
5 The railway in the Bushey area consists of four tracks – two slow lines in each direction and two fast lines in each direction. The fast lines are generally used by Virgin Trains and the slow lines used by London Midland, Southern and freight services. The nature of this particular incident caused the closure of both slow lines leading to very limited capacity on the two fast lines.
Summary
6 Almost 1 in 5 of our trains were cancelled, part cancelled or delayed. 984 delay minutes were incurred by Virgin trains services. An estimated 50,000 ‐ 55,000 passengers were affected either by delay or overcrowding.
Business trains
From a customer complaint: ‘I accept that you cannot be held responsible for the mindless pilferage of overhead cables in Hertfordshire which necessitated the termination of my journey at Rugby and consequently for my delayed arrival at an important meeting in London…..I would like to receive compensation for my delay.’
7 29 trains with Euston as their destination are classed as business trains. Three‐quarters of these trains arrived over ten minutes late.
Minutes late Number of trains 10‐14 10 15‐19 7 20‐24 3 25‐29 2
8 On a Friday morning, these delayed trains would typically carry over 8,500 people.
Other trains
From twitter: ‘Heading to London for a West End weekend @VirginTrains letting me down today’
9 20 ‘non‐business’ trains arrived over 10 minutes late.
Minutes late Number of trains 10‐14 11 15‐19 5 20‐24 3 25‐29 ‐ Over 1 hour 1
10 The worst‐affected train was the 1300 from Euston to Manchester, which arrived at Piccadilly 63 minutes late.
11 In addition to delays, one train was completely cancelled and 17 trains could not run for their full planned journey. (To minimise passenger waiting times our approach was to start and finish selected journeys on the London ‐ Manchester and London ‐ Birmingham routes north of Bushey, as we run three trains an hour in each direction on these routes.)
Planned journey Actual journey Number of trains Euston ‐ Birmingham New St Rugby ‐ Birmingham New St 4 Birmingham New St ‐ Euston Birmingham New St ‐ Rugby 4 Manchester Piccadilly‐ Euston Manchester Piccadilly‐ Milton Keynes 4 Euston ‐ Manchester Piccadilly Milton Keynes ‐ Manchester Piccadilly 5
Quality of on‐board experience
From twitter: ‘@VirginTrains I booked ticket online and the trains was cancelled, then the next train was full, so I had to stand in a corridor.’
From twitter: ‘Come on @virgintrains, I do like you, but having people standing everywhere at 3pm is pathetic’
From a customer complaint: I am currently sat in 1st class joining the train at Milton Keynes at 14.50 hours, it is now 15.46 and I haven't been offered a drink or anything to eat. Is this the sort of service I should expect in 1st class?’
12 Naturally, with 1 in 8 of our trains cancelled or not fully completing their timetabled journey, overcrowding occurred on our services. We know that the ability to sit for the duration of their journey is one of the key factors affecting customer satisfaction. Conversely, having to stand on long‐distance services is a factor likely to discourage repeat business.
13 It is important to note that our ability to offer our normal quality of service is adversely affected beyond the immediate period of the incident in question. All Drivers, Train Managers and catering staff work on the basis of pre‐planned rosters so we know all required jobs are adequately covered. Sustained periods of disruption lead to significant changes to the plan, on a minute by minute basis, as train crew quickly become displaced when their trains are delayed, cancelled or part cancelled. Train crew disruption continues for several hours afterwards while crews are realigned to jobs. This was the case on the day in question, leading to some trains having no catering staff.
31 October 2011
Further written evidence from Virgin Trains (CTR 03A)
During the evidence session with ATOC and the BTP, you asked specific question about taxis during disruption:
Q56 Paul Maynard: I am sorry I was late. I was stuck on a train outside Waterloo, not because of cable theft, as far as I am aware. I did not want to go into anecdotal evidence, but I have been inspired to by Ms Hilling’s questions. I was stuck for an hour and a half at the Weaver junction three Thursdays ago on a Virgin intercity train because of cable theft, and, when we eventually pulled into Preston shortly before 2 am, Virgin Trains had to lay on a fleet of taxis to transport passengers to every relevant destination to which there were no more connections. They also had to lay on, I think, a minibus. Can you confirm whether that expenditure by Virgin would have been covered by the payments that they would have been able to claim for the fact of the cable theft?
Michael Roberts: I am not aware of how much compensation they would have got and how much they would have spent on the items that you indicated, but the compensation does help pay for those sorts of measures to ensure that customers get to where they need to get to in a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable degree of comfort.
Q57 Paul Maynard: I genuinely do not know the answer to this, but is that level of service part of their franchise agreement, or are they doing that over and above what they have to do in order to protect their reputation, as you pointed out?
Michael Roberts: The details of each agreement are different, but my instinct would be that that is not something that would have been specified in their franchise agreement with the Department. The decision to lay on taxis and minibuses would have been something that Virgin decided was the right thing to do for their customers.
Under Office of Rail Regulation‐approved contract clauses payments flow from Network Rail (NR) to TOCs (Train Operating Companies) for all delays, including those arising as a result of cable theft, and from TOCs to NR for such things as a broken down train delaying other operators services. Payments to TOCs are based on the forecast loss of farebox revenue to the TOC resulting from poor performance, and are determined by a periodic calibration exercise carried out by an independent party appointed by the Office of Rail Regulation. This gives a series of values to calculate compensation based on such elements as the location of the incident and its duration. Costs to us such as taxis to allow passengers to complete their journey are not recoverable under these arrangements. However, we know that reliability is a key determinant in people’s future propensity to travel with us and so will always use our best endeavours to enable them to complete their journey – we want them to travel with us again.
24 November 2011
Written Evidence from the Freightliner Group Ltd (CTR 04)
I am writing on behalf of Freightliner Group Limited (‘Freightliner’) in response to your request for evidence for your inquiry into the issue of cable theft on the railway. Freightliner is a logistics operator specialising in rail, moving some 700,000 containers and over 20 million tonnes of bulk goods by rail each year.
Cable theft continues to be a major cause of disruption to both passenger and freight users of the rail network. As an example, an incident on the West Coast Main Line at Winsford this month generated nearly 24,843 delay minutes and 74 cancellations for all passenger and freight operators.
Disruption to rail freight operators has been considerable, with 36,876 delay minutes incurred in the last 6 months alone. This equates to 14% of all delays that Network Rail is responsible for.
Rail freight is vital to the efficient transport of goods around the UK. 25% of all electricity is generated by coal moved by rail; 1 in every 4 deep-sea containers arriving or departing from the UK ports is transport by rail. Many of the commodities transported by Freightliner are time sensitive requiring a ‘Just in Time’ or next day delivery, in order to minimise stock levels and react to changes in demand. Any disruption to the efficiency of this supply chain therefore affects the efficiency of UK businesses and the overall competitiveness of the UK in the global economy.
Rail freight has been successful in achieving growth of 60% since privatisation. However, the impacts of cable theft to Freightliner and other operators are considerable as it affects the reputation of rail freight and undermines the confidence of businesses that their product can be moved reliably by rail.
We would be happy to discuss any of the issues raised further should you require any clarification.
31 October 2011 Written Evidence from Network Rail, ATOC and Rail Freight Group (CTR 05)
Summary
1. Cable theft is a growing and spreading problem facing the rail network. It causes substantial delays to our passengers, undermines rail freight’s competitiveness, and costs Network Rail and Train and Freight Operating Companies substantial sums. We are working together as an industry to tackle the problem, and welcome the Transport Committee’s interest in this inquiry.
2. Network Rail faced direct costs of over £43 million for three years between 2008/09 and 2010/11. The impact on the wider economy is substantial, if harder to quantify, but we estimate it to be a similar amount.
3. The first seven (out of 13) periods of 2011/12 have seen nearly as many incidents of cable theft (625) as all of 2009/10 (656).
4. More broadly, metal theft is a growing problem across the economy, with energy, telecoms, churches, local government and even war memorials and graveyards being victims.
5. The common factor to all of these is the ease with which stolen metal can be disposed of. Regulation of scrap metal dealers is the weak link in our efforts to combat the problem. Network Rail, ATOC, Rail Freight Group and companies from other affected industries have developed a set of proposals to cut down on metal theft.
The scale of the problem
6. The incidence of cable theft has accelerated sharply in the last two years. Strikingly, so far in 2011/12 there have been 625 incidents, causing over 240,000 delay minutes by 15th October – more in just over half the year than in all of 2009/10.
7. The table shows the growth in incidents and cost over the last three full years. The total cost includes replacement cable, labour costs and other direct costs to Network Rail.
Financial No. of Delay Compensation Total Direct Cost Year incidents minutes cost (Schedule 8) to NR (estimate) 2008/09 742 283,167 £7,858,516 £12,264,682 2009/10 656 321,570 £10,931,350 £13,961,998 2010/11 995 365,265 £12,137,220 £16,510,663 Total 2,393 970,002 £30,927,086 £42,737,343
8. Last year 35,629 National Rail services were delayed or cancelled as a result of cable theft. To put this in context, train operators run just over 20,000 services on an average weekday. ATOC estimate that approximately 3.8 million passenger journeys were delayed or cancelled last year as a result of cable theft, and operators forecast a further 500,000 passenger journeys were not taken, as the disruption caused by cable theft suppressed demand
9. Cable theft used to be a smaller problem confined largely to a few hotspots. Regionally, these tended to be in the North of England, which is still where the most incidents occur. However, this is changing. The top ten incidents of the last year were spread throughout the country, from Woking to Doncaster. Major incidents included:
• In Woking on 9th June 2011, 56 trains were cancelled, 43 were part cancelled and 9,928 delay minutes were caused by cable theft. Passengers on one train left the train onto the tracks, causing extra delay and taking a huge risk with their lives.
• East Coast reported a theft during the Friday evening peak in April near Newark, causing 63 trains to be cancelled and a further 238 delayed, causing 10,275 delay minutes, and causing major congestion and disruption at Peterborough and London Kings Cross, as passengers were forced to find alternative routes.
• In Bermondsey on 6th September 2011, theft of 65m of cable caused massive delay to services out of London Bridge. 146 trains were cancelled, 129 trains started or ended their journeys early, and 840 trains were delayed, causing around 11,000 minutes of delays. Two people have been arrested.
• The knock-on impact of a recent theft near Stansted Airport were a large number of holidaymakers and business travellers missing their flights.
Impact on Passengers
10. The misery and frustration for disrupted passengers is very real, and is damaging the reputation of the railway which is otherwise enjoying high levels of performance and passenger satisfaction. While other external events affecting performance, such as bad weather, can be forecast and are self-evident, it necessarily takes a time for cable theft to be identified and repaired, and to get the system moving once more. Operators will inform passengers that disruption is as a result of cable theft, as soon as it is confirmed, before which they can likely only refer to it as a signalling problem.
11. Operators, Network Rail and the British Transport Police (BTP) have well- established and constantly improving ways of giving information to passengers and finding alternative ways for them to reach their destination. While the majority of passengers understand the fault lies clearly with the thieves, incidents reported by train companies show increased verbal and even physical abuse of rail staff during cable theft disruption.
Impact on our staff
12. One recent incident demonstrates the nature of the risks to our staff from cable theft. On 26th October 2011 at Crossgates (just east of Leeds Station) on the Trans Pennine route from York to Manchester we had multiple signalling failures caused by a cable cut in three separate places and 70m of 48 core cable stolen. While teams from Wakefield and Leeds were attending the failure they were receiving threats from locals, who were allegedly throwing items at the teams working. BTP were requested to attend. During the incident the vans were also broken into and tools stolen.
13. This incident also affected other parts of our network as we had a point failure at Bradford and more cable theft at Dinnington Junction with no teams available to attend. All of Leeds teams were dealing with the above incident so these were attended during the night. The constant drain on resources and morale of the teams dealing with these incidents is difficult to measure. However, for the last two years teams on nights across Yorkshire have spent considerable time undertaking repairs on cabling and location cases.
Impact on the Economy
14. The impact on the economy is very hard to measure accurately, but based on government’s own appraisal methodology, we estimate that the cost to the economy based on time lost is of a similar order magnitude to the direct costs to the railway.
15. Delays from cable theft also have long term impacts, for example discouraging freight businesses and passengers from using the railway. Each freight train takes around 60 lorries off the road, depending on the cargo. Where businesses use road or air transport instead, carbon emissions are substantially higher. Switching to roads also increases congestion, which presents a cost to all road users and the wider economy.
16. As an industry in receipt of substantial sums of public money, costs caused by cable theft are ultimately borne by taxpayers as well as fare paying passengers.
17. Delays to train services have both immediate effects on passenger demand and revenue, with people unable to travel at the time of the disruption, and longer term impacts as people are dissuaded from use rail for future journeys. Short term impacts are highly dependent on the specific circumstances of individual incidents, and therefore difficult to quantify in general terms.
18. Although not specific to cable theft, industry evidence suggests that train delays reduce demand and revenue in the longer term. Guidance in the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook (PDFH), a cross-industry document used by train companies, Network Rail and the Department for Transport, enables this to be estimated. If cable theft incidents had the same effect as other types of delay, PDFH would suggest an annual loss to the industry of around £3m to £4m, with over 0.5 million trips being lost to rail.
19. Where people divert from rail to road, there will be further economic costs due to increased congestion, as well as environmental and safety impacts from the additional road traffic. The longer term loss of demand will exacerbate all these effects.
20. Unlike previous recessions, the price of copper has actually increased, surging fourfold from its low point in January 2009 to its high point in February 2011. This reflects changes in the global commodities market now shaped by emerging economies such as China and Brazil. As the graph shows, the incidence of cable theft closely tracks the price of copper, allowing for drops in winter months.
Figure: Copper Prices and Cable Theft
5000 140 4500 120 4000 3500 100 3000 80 2500 2000 60 £/tonne 1500 40
1000 Incidents/month 20 500 0 0 Jan July Jan July Jan July Jan July Jan July 2007 2007 2008 2008 2009 2009 2010 2010 2011 2011
No 2 Copper Wire Incidence of cable theft
Price is No 2 Copper wire at British scrap dealers; source: www.letsrecycle.com
Impact on Freight
21. Cable theft incidents are also having a significant impact on the performance of rail freight services. Although freight performance does not have such a high profile as passenger performance, there is still a significant impact on rail freight operators and their customers. Freight services tend to be treated as lower priority than passenger services when there are incidents on the network; this is not unreasonable but compounds the impact on the freight operators.
22. For rail freight operators, delay leads to additional costs, for example in staff costs, fuel costs and performance penalties to customers. Customers also incur costs for example, if they need to keep terminals open to receive late running trains, or in inventory management. Forward distribution may also be delayed, impacting on road hauliers and throughout the supply chain.
23. Delay also has reputational impact on rail freight. Although rail freight generally performs well compared to road distribution, there is a lack of familiarity and understanding which can make rail seem risky. A delayed freight train also impacts on a greater number of loads than a delayed lorry.
Impact on high profile events and public holidays
24. Disruption caused by cable theft at times of very high demand, such as major sports fixtures, Christmas or bank holiday getaways present enormous operational, financial and reputational risk to the railways. This puts extra pressure on the police and other public authorities, and onto other transport modes.
25. The potential for significant, high-profile disruption during next year’s Olympic Games is a particular concern. There will be 100 extra services running every day during the London 2012 Olympics to meet the additional expected demand, with a forecast 350% increase in passenger numbers using Stratford Station. Operators are working to increase services, and provide special deals for Olympic visitors to support the organisers’ wish for the greenest games ever. ATOC, Network Rail and British Transport Police are working on contingency plans to limit the occurrence and impact of cable theft during the games, but the threat is real. Tackling cable theft – our strategy
26. We are working, in partnership with BTP and other industry partners, to make cable theft harder to do and to get away with. The strategy includes measures to:
• Make cable/metal increasingly difficult to steal • Increase the risk of being caught and jailed to offenders • Reduce the value of the commodity to offenders • Reduce the attractiveness of stolen metal to scrap metal dealers • Seek legislative change to take away the illegal market in stolen metal
Prevention
27. Prevention is one part of the solution to cable theft, and we are working hard on making it harder to steal from our network. The worst hit part of the network is our London Northeastern Route, which is centred on the East Coast Main Line. Here, a mix of technology, enforcement and intelligence measures have been taken.
28. Technology: • Deployment of Red Web, a grease or gel containing a molecular tag applied to cables, which transfers onto the thief during handling. This is similar to Smart water which is used elsewhere on the network to fulfil a similar function • Deployment of covert cameras which also act as an alarm • Use of Spanish cable, a harder to cut alloy and which is only used in the railway in this country, making it impossible to sell on at a legitimate dealer
29. Enforcement: • Utilisation of Mobile Operations Managers to provide a visible deterrent • Joint operations with BTP. There is a weekly conference to review what has occurred in the previous week and plan ahead • Security teams taken on a 12 week contract to be deployed in hot spot areas • In liaison with BTP use of the Network Rail helicopter to patrol areas • Multi-agency visits to scrap yards • Three police teams of a sergeant and eight constables based at Darlington, Leeds and Doncaster funded by Network Rail.
30. Intelligence: • Network Rail has funded intelligence officers • Three cable hardening teams based at Newcastle, Leeds and Sheffield working at vulnerable or critical locations • Cable theft hotspots mapping
Displacement
31. One of the major challenges with enforcement is that our efforts can move rather than prevent crime. Essex is an area which experienced significant incidents of cable theft at night, leading to police dedicating five double crewed police cars to tackling it overnight. This resulted in the incidence in Essex decreasing, but a simultaneous increase in Hertfordshire, moving the problem.
32. One particularly prolific cable thief was arrested several times, and has now reportedly transferred from cable theft to house burglary. While this reduces the chaos and disruption faced by the rail network and its passengers and customers, it is hardly the ideal outcome.
33. The other form of potential displacement is between different networks and other sources of metal. The railway is one of the key sectors affected, but others include telecoms and energy, while churches, local government and even war memorials have been targeted. The common factor in all of these different thefts is the ease with which stolen metal can be sold on, with no questions asked.
Legislation
34. The rail industry is confident that the BTP is using the existing outdated legislation to the fullest extent possible and that there is a resulting legislative gap. The BTP’s engagement with a number of major scrap metal dealers makes it clear that voluntary measures are very unlikely to be implemented, and would in any case not be effective.
35. The cross industry lobbying group on cable theft was formed from various companies (Network Rail, BT, Arqiva, ATOC, Rail Freight Group, E.On, Energy Networks Association, Western Power Distribution) to tackle the crime we all face.
36. We have developed a set of proposals for legislation. While we agree that regulation is a last resort, the level of resources now being put into prevention and the level of displacement that occurs suggests that the ease with which stolen metal can be sold on must be tackled. We believe that the Scrap Metal Dealers Act (1964) is woefully out of date and does not constrain unscrupulous dealers. We therefore propose a new approach:
• A robust licensing regime (rather than the present registration) with clear requirements upon the dealer to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received. • Scrap metal dealers to pay a licence fee in order to give local authorities greater funds to facilitate the regulation of the licence. • Property obtained by virtue of breaches of the legislation should be regarded as criminal assets allowing Proceeds of Crime provisions to apply. • Police powers to close scrap metal dealers in line with alcohol licensing and police authority to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer. • Restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduce a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed. • Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it (eg through photo id and CCTV). • Magistrate powers to add restrictions on to licences and to prevent re-opening of closed yards until conditions have been met.
37. We appreciate that the vast majority of the metal recycling industry does not handle stolen metal, and we do not propose regulation lightly. But the impact of cable theft on the railways and other industries is so great that it has become necessary.
38. Unscrupulous scrap metal dealers are the weak link in our efforts to combat metal theft. We will continue to work hard on enforcement and making it harder to steal cable, but we must tackle the illegal market in stolen metal as part of our efforts to combat cable theft.
31 October 2011
Supplementary written evidence from Network Rail (CTR 05A)
Route LIVE Cable Theft Impact - Delays and Cancellations
2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 Cancelled Part Cancelled Part Cancelled Part Incidents Trains Delays Cost Incidents Trains Delays Cost Incidents Trains Delays Cost Trains Cancelled Trains Cancelled Trains Cancelled Anglia 1 290 4 21 2,706 £86,966
East Midlands 1 2 10 £299 3 50 1 390 £11,183
Kent 8 398 3 3 2,093 £124,355
London North Eastern 9 141 4 2 1,986 £28,888 31 1,048 11 49 12,204 £199,360 455 14,116 551 412 196,018 £4,428,936
London North Western 7 1,703 40 88 36,652 £932,135 14 854 31 33 15,728 £258,548 59 3,367 116 108 32,168 £907,687
Scotland 1 6 84 £1,215 1 13 105 £4,314
Sussex 1 6 15 £458
Wales 2 81 3 1,328 £28,095 4 375 7 48 2,866 £121,456
Wessex 1 398 40 53 5,556 £386,126 1 9 92 £589
Western 5 418 10 31 4,582 £124,796
Totals 17 1,846 44 90 38,648 £961,322 49 2,387 82 138 34,900 £873,344 538 19,042 691 624 241,035 £5,810,740 Route LIVE Cable Theft Impact - Delays and Cancellations
2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 Cancelled Part Cancelled Part Cancelled Part Incidents Trains Delays Cost Incidents Trains Delays Cost Incidents Trains Delays Cost Trains Cancelled Trains Cancelled Trains Cancelled Anglia 30 1,343 264 73 8,768 £984,042 26 949 83 47 12,253 £720,251 79 2,850 294 190 40,632 £2,643,979
East Midlands 30 2,216 116 202 32,169 £1,048,780 22 563 10 43 6,532 £215,439 27 657 1 10 6,386 £155,750
Kent 8 174 17 2 739 £50,281 23 794 27 5 5,570 £148,591 10 547 18 8 3,331 £82,849
London North Eastern 439 10,882 473 324 119,499 £3,061,711 489 15,611 405 589 167,509 £4,725,454 327 10,463 382 270 102,680 £2,630,249
London North Western 127 7,622 496 342 65,294 £1,387,611 136 8,107 294 249 71,548 £1,361,966 166 11,316 512 350 125,089 £3,085,507
Scotland 4 74 2 793 £17,024 10 373 52 33 4,396 £212,450 2 62 15 142 £13,974
Sussex 2 17 58 £2,154 1 231 17 12 748 £41,876
Wales 32 769 21 37 8,752 £543,903 31 1,048 9 46 9,763 £278,965 28 1,803 57 112 28,829 £1,255,370
Wessex 4 710 54 51 6,612 £418,459 1 2 12 £163 3 6 71 £1,738
Western 11 430 16 92 1,390 £152,636 4 262 5 10 5,584 £195,238 13 951 64 67 13,662 £1,020,060
Totals 687 24,237 1,457 1,125 244,074 £7,666,600 742 27,709 885 1,022 283,167 £7,858,516 656 28,886 1,345 1,034 321,570 £10,931,350 Route LIVE Cable Theft Impact - Delays and Cancellations
2010/11 2011/12 Cancelled Part Cancelled Part Incidents Trains Delays Cost Incidents Trains Delays Cost Trains Cancelled Trains Cancelled Anglia 74 2,394 226 141 21,055 £1,089,809 83 2,677 276 110 23,968 £1,182,417
East Midlands 33 1,071 54 35 11,234 £282,473 22 341 7 10 3,524 £92,439
Kent 17 1,750 56 64 12,681 £417,950 9 1,740 107 66 13,440 £669,002
London North Eastern 527 13,474 408 455 137,991 £3,534,219 344 10,275 382 310 112,530 £3,589,067
London North Western 196 10,372 321 446 105,848 £2,795,899 124 7,598 268 266 82,011 £3,019,120
Scotland 34 1,067 63 36 7,295 £254,825 33 885 43 18 5,363 £143,923
Sussex 3 143 764 £30,081 2 227 24 18 1,331 £86,694
Wales 84 2,426 77 156 35,395 £1,209,668 42 2,194 92 143 21,587 £398,487
Wessex 8 262 27 19 3,536 £140,423 7 838 96 55 13,656 £587,411
Western 19 2,670 198 88 29,631 £2,377,513 22 1,526 5 34 14,036 £511,105
Totals 995 35,629 1,430 1,440 365,430 £12,132,860 688 28,301 1,300 1,030 291,446 £10,279,666
Further written evidence from the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) (CTR 05B)
Letter to the Chair of the Transport Committee from Michael Roberts, Chief Executive, ATOC
Thank you again for inviting me to give evidence to the Transport Committee inquiry into cable theft on the railways on 8 November. It was an important opportunity for me to set out the concerns train operators have about the scale of damage caused by cable thieves to the rail network, which disrupts millions of passenger journeys every year.
I said I would follow up issues raised by Graham Stringer MP during the session on the payments made by Network Rail (NR) to train companies following disruption, the system for passengers to receive compensation from train companies following disruption, and on the average delay experienced by passengers.
Every train operator has a track access agreement (TAA) with NR as the infrastructure operator. Train companies are the customers of NR, with a contractual relationship that sets out the rights and obligations of both parties as well as defining the charges paid by train operators. As such, for every pound of train company revenue, we estimate that an average of 48p goes to NR.
Track access agreements incorporate a performance regime, popularly referred to as “Schedule 8”, introduced by government at the time of privatisation. If train delays attributable to NR fall below specified benchmarks, in a process monitored by the Office of Rail Regulation, NR is required to make a payment to train operators reflecting the loss of revenue to the franchise. Similarly, if NR performs better than the benchmarks, train companies pay amounts reflecting the extra revenue they might earn from this.
Information on payments made under Schedule 8 is made available at an aggregate national level in Network Rail’s published accounts. In our joint written evidence with NR and the Rail Freight Group, we were able to provide overall Schedule 8 costs to NR attributable to cable theft in each of the last three years, but information on payments to individual operators is not publicly available, either in general, or specifically attributable to cable theft.
The system was designed by the Department for Transport to help enable franchise bidders to continue offering the best deal to DfT (in terms of premia paid or subsidy received for running the franchise). Conceptually, its purpose was to provide a mechanism to overcome the difficulties faced by bidders in assessing the commercial risk of NR failing to meet its obligations on performance, rather than to provide a system of compensating passengers for delays (which is dealt with in other ways, set out further below in this letter).
Schedule 8 payments are calculated using a complex formula set out in the TAA which is intended to reflect the long run impact of NR’s record on performance on passenger revenues. It is designed to leave an operator – whose franchise agreement with DfT commits it to a premium or subsidy payment line for the duration of the franchise - neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by NR either under- or out-performing its obligations in the TAA. Attempting to make a link between payments made by NR to TOCs, and compensation paid to passengers, as suggested by one line of inquiry by the Committee, misconstrues the original intention of Schedule 8 as designed by the DfT.
Ultimately, train companies are driven by the need to provide high quality, reliable services. Service reliability is key to operating a successful franchise and in growing passenger demand. As we submitted to the committee, we estimate that half a million journeys were not taken last year due to suppressed demand resulting from the disruption caused by cable theft. This is in the interests neither of passengers nor of train companies, and it underlines our members’ commitment to ensure that all reasonable action is taken to tackle cable theft.
Separate to the Schedule 8 arrangements, franchise agreements require train operators to provide passengers with compensation in the event of severe disruption, and often train companies provide more generous compensation during delay than the strict letter of the rules requires them to. In making bids, train operators typically assess the likelihood of having to make these payments and budget accordingly. Figures for compensation paid to passengers by train operating companies are not publicly available.
The National Rail Conditions of Carriage, jointly agreed by the Department for Transport and train operators, requires compensation to be available to passengers if services are cancelled or delayed for a certain amount of time. Compensation regimes within franchise agreements vary according to the individual franchise. As a general rule, all passengers are entitled to some refund, either in cash or in National Rail vouchers after one hour of delay caused by disruption. I have attached the relevant section of the National Rail Conditions of Carriage for information, and the full text can be found at: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/system/galleries/download/misc/NRCOC.pdf.
The strict interpretation of the NRCOC is that operators are not required to provide compensation where disruption is caused by circumstances that are outside of the train company’s control. This includes cable theft, as an act of deliberate vandalism. However, as a general principle, train operators will provide compensation for any passenger who has bought a ticket for a journey that is cancelled or substantially delayed. It is in the best interests of the reputation and future business of train companies that customers are dealt with fairly in this way.
Passengers must apply for compensation within 28 days of the relevant journey, providing a ticket as proof. Clear instructions of how passengers can contact train companies are displayed in train carriages, in stations, on the literature and websites of individual train companies and on the National Rail Enquiries website.
More recently awarded franchises tend to operate the Delay Repay scheme, which allows passengers to apply for a fixed proportion of the price of their ticket depending on the amount of time they have been delayed on a specific journey. For example, they may get 50% off the ticket price back for delays of between 30 and 59 minutes, and 100% of the ticket price back for delays over an hour.
Other operators, normally operating under older franchises, offer compensation under the Passenger Charter scheme. Compensation is available where there has been a serious episode of disruption during a morning or evening peak period, called a ‘void period’, and passengers will receive a refund for a proportion of the fare paid. Passenger Charters also allow for discounts to passengers renewing season tickets when the train company’s performance falls below an agreed target over a sustained period.
Finally, Mr Stringer asked about the average delay figures. Taking the full year of 2010-11, 32,759 trains were delayed as a result of cable theft (a further 2,870 were cancelled in full or in part). With 365,430 delay minutes recorded, that equates to an average of 11.16 minutes of delay per train. Delay minutes are calculated for trains rather than passengers, but based on average loadings, we would estimate around 3.8million passenger journeys were delayed or cancelled as a result of cable theft in 2010-11.
I hope this information is useful to the committee.
24 November 2011
[Extract from pages 15-16, National Rail Conditions of Carriage]
H. TRAIN SERVICE DISRUPTION
42. Compensation for delays (a) Where delays, cancellations or poor service arise for reasons within the control of a Train Company or Rail Service Company, you are entitled to compensation in accordance with the arrangements set out in that Train Company’s Passenger’s Charter. This can be obtained from the relevant Train Company’s ticket offices, customer relations office or internet site.
(b) The amount of compensation offered by each Train Company in its Passenger’s Charter varies from Train Company to Train Company. However, if you are more than one hour late at your destination station you will, as a minimum, be entitled to compensation in the form of travel vouchers in accordance with the table below:
The table above does not apply if you are entitled to a refund in accordance with Condition 26. [Condition 26 applies to tickets purchased but not used, for reasons other than disruption]
(c) This Condition 42 sets out the entire liability of the relevant Train Companies in relation to delays, cancellations and poor service. Except as shown in this Condition 42, the Train Companies do not accept liability for any loss (including consequential loss) caused by the delay and or cancellation of any train. However, they will consider additional claims in exceptional circumstances.
(d) Rail travel vouchers may be exchanged or used in part payment for tickets for any rail journey on the services of the Train Companies.
(e) To qualify for this compensation you must make a claim to one of the Train Companies’ ticket offices or customer relations offices within 28 days of completing the relevant journey, stating the timetabled departure time of the train or trains you intended to use for the journey. When you make your claim you must provide a ticket or other authority to travel which was valid for that journey. A Train Company will allow you to retain a ticket for this purpose.
43. Help from Train Companies if you are stranded If disruption caused by circumstances within the control of a Train Company or a Rail Service Company leaves you stranded before you have reached your destination and the Train Company whose trains you are entitled to use is unable to get you to that destination by other means, any Train Company which is in a position to help will, if it reasonably can, either arrange to get you to that destination, or provide overnight accommodation for you.
44. Circumstances that are within a Train Company’s control For the purposes of Conditions 42 and 43, circumstances that are within a Train Company’s control include the negligent or wilful acts or omission of its, or a Rail Service Company’s, staff or agents.
45. Circumstances that are not within a Train Company’s control For the purposes of Conditions 42 and 43, circumstances that are not within a Train Company’s control include: (a) acts or threats of vandalism or terrorism; (b) suicides or accidents involving trespassers; (c) gas leaks or fires in lineside buildings not caused by a Train Company or a Rail Service Company or any of their employees or agents; (d) line closures at the request of the police or emergency services; (e) exceptionally severe weather conditions; (f) industrial action by a Train Company’s, or Rail Service Company’s, staff or agents or by any other person; (g) riots or civil commotion; and (h) fire, mechanical or electrical failure or a defect (except where this is caused by a Train Company or Rail Service Company or their employees or agents, or as a result of the condition of a Train Company’s trains).
Further written evidence from Network Rail (CTR 05C)
The cost of replacing traditional cable with alternative technologies (Q9 &10).
There are a number of lineside cables installed along the railway mainly signalling, power and telecoms. A failure of any of the assets due to cable theft or vandalism will undermine both the safe running and performance of the railway operation, while replacing the all the cable infrastructure would be economically impracticable.
The ultimate answer is to replace the lineside cables with a wireless solution. This would effectively remove a vast amount of lineside cables associated with signalling control leaving only those cables required to feed lineside infrastructure i.e. power (although with the reduced requirements it should be possible to design more localised feed arrangements).
Wireless signalling, known as ERTMS, will have some effect on cable theft in the very long term, but is certainly not a quick win. While there is a trial rollout of it at present, the full implementation is a very long-term project, on a timescale of decades.
At the moment the most effective option to bury cables in areas that have a history of theft and vandalism – but this is not cheap and adds an additional cost into the renewal scheme at a rate of £75/Metre.
The cost of burying cable and using Spanish cable in comparison to copper cable (Q34).
The two strategies – burying cable, and using Spanish cable – both increase costs over a standard approach.
• Mid-sized standard 50mm single cable installed in surface trough the all in costs are £48/m
• mid-sized Spanish 50mm single cable installed in surface trough the all in costs are £52/m
• mid-sized standard 50mm single cable installed in buried route the all in costs is £80/m
• mid-sized Spanish 50mm single cable installed in buried route the all in costs is £94/m
Based upon these costs the cost of burial of cable is almost twice as much as a renewal in ‘conventional’ surface cable route, while Spanish cable increases costs further.
24 November 2011 Written Evidence from Nexus (CTR 06)
1. Introduction
1.1 Nexus is the Passenger Transport Executive for Tyne and Wear. A core part of the Nexus business is ownership of the Tyne and Wear Metro system which is operated on our behalf, through a concession agreement, by DB Regio Tyne & Wear Ltd (DBTW). The Tyne and Wear Metro is a light rail system operating throughout Tyneside on segregated track with a link to Sunderland by way of a track sharing agreement with Network Rail. The Metro system has 60 stations and has approximately 40 million passenger journeys per year. The Metro system is currently undergoing a £380 million modernisation programme.
2. Background
2.1 Metal theft is a widespread problem in the North East of England which has grown significantly as a crime in recent years, driven by a rise in metal prices on world markets. Power supply, telecoms and railway companies are all high profile victims, but churches, schools, ware memorials and local council services and amenities have also been affected.
2.2 Attacks on railway infrastructure used by Metro have increased in line with this, as thieves target power and signalling/communications cables, putting themselves at real danger of serious injury or death. This summer a 17 year old was killed during an attempted theft from an electricity substation in the Leeds area.
3. Impact on Nexus and our customers
3.1 During June 2011 alone Nexus suffered six separate attacks in a 30 day period, resulting in several days of disruption on parts of the network in the Newcastle and North Tyneside areas. Up to the end of August there had been 11 attacks in total on Nexus infrastructure and seven on Network Rail infrastructure, 38% more than the whole of the previous year.
3.2 The overall costs of incidents on Nexus infrastructure is estimated to be £293,000. The value of metal stolen is often negligible, and in some cases it has been found abandoned or the thieves have caused damage but taken nothing. The major costs arise from providing replacement bus services and deploying staff to assist passengers, the staff resources and equipment required to make repairs, deferring other important maintenance and renewal jobs and the loss of revenue and good will among passengers. The wider economic costs to the region from people missing appointments, being later for work or being put of travelling has not been estimated – neither has reputational damage of which there is inevitably some as customers become increasingly frustrated.
3.3 The extent of incidents and rising costs reflects the national situation, which saw the UK railway industry suffer £16.5 million in costs in 2010/11 compared to £12.5 million in the previous financial year. The North East and Yorkshire are identified as areas where the problem is most severe, however.
3.4 The number and frequency of attacks has reduced since June, but it is reasonable to expect that there will be continued incidents and disruption to passengers.
4. Steps Nexus are taking
4.1 Nexus has set up a high level task group to look at all aspects of the problem with four strands to it:
4.1.1 Enforcement: working with police forces in new ways to improve the protection of our assts, supported by technology such as CCTV and Security marking. 4.1.2 Engineering: Identifying innovations across the European rail industry which could be exploited to protect fixed assets or replacing them through our Asset renewal Plan in a form less attractive to thieves. 4.1.3 Enabling: Reviewing operational practices for Metro to identify ways it can assist the passenger by recovering services faster or limiting the extent of disruption after attacks. 4.1.4 Education: Warn people of the risks associated with metal theft and passengers of the steps Nexus and its partners are taking to combat the problem, highlighting the impact of metal theft on the community.
5. Legislative change
5.1 Nexus has been working with the national working group on metal theft led by Network Rail. This unites railway companies, utilities and police forces in seeking definite solutions to this problem. From this we have identified a series of asks which would press for changes to laws and regulations with the following aims:
5.1.1 A robust licensing regime (rather than the present registration) with clear requirements upon the dealers to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received. 5.1.2 Scrap metal dealers to pay a licence fee in order to give local authorities greater funds to facilitate the regulation of the licence. 5.1.3 Property obtained by virtue of breeches of the legislation should be regarded as criminal assets allowing Proceeds of Crime provisions to apply. 5.1.4 Police powers to close scrap metal dealers in line with alcohol licensing and police authority powers to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer. 5.1.5 Restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduce a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed. 5.1.6 Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it (eg through photo id and CCTV) 5.1.7 Magistrate powers to add restrictions onto licenses and to prevent reopening of closed yards until conditions have been met.
5.2 It is important to note that there are many entirely legitimate businesses operating in the arena. There is no desire to penalise these businesses; indeed it is hoped that improved legislation to remove dealers who deliberately seek to profit from crimes will actually increase business for the remaining, legitimate metal recycling companies.
31 October 2011 Written Evidence from Northern Rail (CTR 07)
1. Northern Rail is the largest train operator in the country, connecting people with jobs, families and leisure activities across the north of England. We provide 2,500 local and regional train services every day, with over 88 million journeys being made on our services each year.
2. The theft of copper cable is a serious and growing problem for the railway in the north of England. Driven largely by the increasing price of copper on world markets, levels of this crime have increased over the last six years and this is now one of our main challenges to delivering robust and reliable services for our customers.
3. This year, we have already suffered 425 incidents of cable theft or vandalism which have affected our services. This is a 10% increase on the same period last year and has resulted in 1,346 trains being cancelled and 5,307 trains being delayed. Clearly, this is a substantial number of incidents but given the nature of this crime, even a single incident can have devastating consequences for our customers. One such example was an attempted theft at Rose Grove, Lancashire, on 22 April which resulted in the cancellation of 80 trains and 1,135 delay minutes for our customers.
4. These crimes are causing a great deal of inconvenience for our customers, often resulting in people being late for work, missing appointments and even missing flights. In total, they reduce our Public Performance Measure by 0.5% and unless we can find an effective way to tackle this issue, there is a genuine risk that our customers will move away from our rail services onto what they perceive to be a more ‘reliable’ mode of transport such as a car.
5. From a safety perspective, procedures are in place to ensure the safe running of our trains in the event of cable theft or vandalism. However, these incidents do create an increased safety risk as our employees are working under degraded conditions.
6. Network Rail has introduced a number of ‘target hardening’ measures to make the cable more difficult to steal. This has included the use of ‘Spanish cable’ which can still be identified when stripped, forensic marking of cable with products such as SmartWater and the use of covert cameras at high risk sites. However, the vast scale of our network (over 1040 miles of track) makes this crime difficult to prevent.
7. We have also worked with our industry colleagues to help raise the profile of this issue with the media, politicians and our customers. This has included placing posters at our stations and onboard our trains to highlight the inconvenience that this crime causes to our customers and also the cost to the general taxpayer, estimated to be £43 million over the last three years.
8. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, levels of this crime continue to grow and we believe that the only way to tackle this problem in the longer term is to address the demand side of the market. The legislation which governs the scrap metal yards, the Scrap Metal Dealers Act1964, is now 47 years old and we would welcome a review to ensure that it is relevant in today’s society. One specific example is the fact that under the current legislation, those selling metal to a scrap metal yard need to provide their name and address. However, there is no requirement for the dealer to verify this information via official documentation such as a passport, driver’s license or utility bill.
9. As a company, we strive to deliver consistently good local train services but the crime of cable theft is making this increasingly difficult. We will continue to work with our industry colleagues to combat this crime but without tackling the demand side of this market, it is likely that cable theft will continue to have a devastating impact on our customers, our business and the economy in the north of England.
31 October 2011
Written Evidence from Metro (West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority) (CTR 08)
1.0 Summary
1.1 Cable theft is a major problem for the rail industry and is having a substantial adverse impact in West Yorkshire. It is having a substantial impact on rail performance and Metro has been working with the industry to raise awareness of the wider impacts and seek to reduce them.
1.2 Statistical evidence demonstrates a continuing increase in the number of incidents and associated train cancellations despite proactive rail industry measures to combat the problem.
1.3 There is an inevitable direct correlation between the price of copper and cable theft. With soaring prices of copper on the world markets during the past few years there has been a sharp rise in the number of cable theft incidents causing delays to passengers and the freight businesses. As a consequence there are considerable social impacts for passengers and commercial impacts for the industry and the wider economy. The price of copper on the world market is expected to rise throughout 2011 and as a consequence we envisage a continuation of the escalating trend of cable theft in our region.
1.4 Whilst the rail industry will continue to adopt robust preventative measures, legislative control on the scrap metal industry to de-incentivise criminal activity is now required.
2.0 The recent increases in cable theft
2.1 Table to show the impact of cable theft in the West Yorkshire Area
Incidents Cancellations Delay minutes Industry Performance Costs* 2009/10 106 152 43,166 £980,849 2010/11 161 185 51,984 £954,294 2011/12 97 144 34,971 £934,632 YTDate
*Schedule 8 payment (incentive regime) - which is the compensation Network Rail pays for poor performance. This does not include the substantial wider costs to society.
2.2 The evidence shows a steady increase in the number of cable thefts across the West Yorkshire region as shown in the table above. This was particularly evident from 2009/10 to 2010/11 where a 52% increase in the overall number of incidents was experienced. The year to date data for 2011/12 is suggesting a potential further escalation of the number of incidents and is already on par with the total incidents occurring in the 2009/10 complete period.
2.3 This is consistent with the national situation in the rail industry which has seen incidences of cable theft grow by around a third between 2008/9 and 2010/11 despite a range of industry measures to combat the issue.
2.4 Despite the fluctuations in the world price of copper, conservative estimates suggest that the price of copper will continue to rise for the remainder of 2011 and consequently a significant change in criminal activity is not envisaged whilst the price incentive exists.
3.0 The impact of these thefts on passengers and services
3.1 The rise in incidents of cable theft has resulted in an increase in the number of cancelled services and delay minutes as shown in the table at 2.1. There was a 22% increase in the number of cancellations from cable theft between 2009/10 and 2010/11 and a large number of delay minutes. It is expected that cancellations and associated delay minutes will potentially further escalate in 2011/12 in line with the increase in thefts and current year to date evidence confirms 144 year to date cancellations compared to 185 cancellations during the whole of the proceeding period.
3.2 Network rail are obligated to pay financial penalties for poor performance which has amounted to almost £1 million as a direct result of cable theft incidents in 2009/10 and 2010/11 and is likely to reach similar levels for the 2011/12 period, shown under the costs column in the table at 2.1. In addition to the penalty costs significant cost is incurred to replace cable and repair infrastructure that is damaged as a result of the thefts. This is likely to detract from other maintenance activities and lead to additional performance issues.
3.3 Aside from the statistical evidence and financial cost to the industry, the human cost is considerable resulting in disruption to commuters (and therefore businesses), missed flights, family disruptions, and child care concerns not to mention the wider financial impact on the economy from associated business losses resulting from cancelled and delayed trains.
4.0 Safety Issues
4.1 Cable theft is generally not a safety issue for the railway as signals work to fail safe, turning red if interfered with and halting trains. Thieves however do indeed risk their own safety and could cause safety issues if equipment or vehicles were left on tracks or in close vicinity to the tracks.
5.0 Measures to Combat Cable Theft
5.1 The following are measures taken by the rail industry to try and combat cable theft on the railway;
• Cable Troughing Route Protection – by filling cable trough with insulation foam and gluing down the trough lid it acts as a deterrent to thieves. Maintenance does however become harder as a result but is a cheap and easy mitigation. • Cable burial – this is seen as the most effective counter to cable theft. Deeper burial usually includes renewing the cables, building in turning chambers and burying the cable in ducting between 3-5 feet. The turning tables enable maintenance. This method of protection is very expensive and time consuming. Scratch burial which is a shallow burial using ballast is less time consuming but is hard to maintain. • Installation of metal security fencing • Introduction of new cable with an identification tag (this is used to convict thieves when caught), the new cable is also fire proof, knife proof and armoured but is very expensive. • Covert CCTV cameras installed • Anti-Vandal Paint • Trembler Alarms, will trigger if the cable is disturbed. • Proactive enforcement using, covert and overt police action, including helicopter patrols. • Encouraging passengers to contact crime stoppers to report crimes. • The British Transport Police works closely with the British Metal Recycling Association to educate scrap metal dealers about stolen metal – highlighting what to look out for when metal and cable is brought into yards.
5.2 The follow are measures which are required to assist in regulating scrap metal merchants and in turn should help to combat cable theft;
• Measures to restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduction of a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed. • Police powers to close scrap metal dealers, in line with alcohol licensing, and police authority to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer. • Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it, for example, through photo ID and CCTV. • A robust licensing regime – rather than the present registration system – with clear requirements upon the dealer to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received. • Conditions under scrap metal dealers license – Suitability to trade, ability to impose conditions on Scrap Metal Dealers who break license, Scrap Metal Dealers transactions carried out outside of license to be classed as criminal activity
31 October 2011
Written Evidence from Merseytravel (CTR 09)
1 Introduction
1.1 Merseytravel welcomes the Transport Select Committee’s inquiry into ‘Cable Thefts on the Railway’. This is an issue of growing importance across the entire network.
1.2 However through a combination of careful planning and implementation of pro-active measures we have been able to minimise the number of incidents affecting the Merseyrail Electrics network.
2 Background
2.1 Merseytravel is the combined Passenger Transport Executive (PTE) and Integrated Transport Authority (ITA) for Merseyside, and is the public sector body responsible for the coordination of public transport across the Liverpool city region with the exception of Halton. Working with our partners across the Districts and with the business community, our objective is to produce a fully integrated transport system which is accessible to all.
2.2 Together with our private sector partners, Abellio/Serco, we operate the Merseyrail Electrics network. Merseyrail is an urban network of vital importance to the transport infrastructure of Liverpool and the city region. Merseyrail runs almost 800 trains per day and carries over 100,000 passengers on an average weekday. The Merseyrail system is the most intensively used commuter network outside of London.
2.3 Merseyrail is also one of the most punctual and reliable railway networks in the whole of the UK and also tops the passenger satisfaction levels league table. Merseyrail has approximately 1,200 staff and operates 66 stations including 4 city centre underground stations giving easy access to work, shopping and leisure.
2.4 Merseytravel is unique in awarding a 25 year franchise for the operation of the Merseyrail network. This has led to the establishment of a long-term relationship between the franchise holders, Abellio/Serco, and Merseytravel. This unique public/private relationship has resulted in higher levels of investment in the network directed by local needs.
2.5 It is this type of local control that has meant that Abellio/Serco and Merseytravel have taken pro-active steps to deal with the issue of cable thefts.
3 Cable thefts on Merseyrail
3.1 Over the past year, Merseyrail has experienced only four minor incidents related to cable theft. These were all related to people attempting to steal cables, copper etc.
3.2 However, in all four incidents, the actual theft was prevented and the thieves arrested. As a result, there have been no train service disruptions due to cable theft on the Merseyrail network.
4 Our experience
4.1 In the first instance, we do not believe that cable theft should be seen as a stand alone issue. Instead, it is part of the same overall concern of dealing with the safe and secure operation of the rail network.
4.2 We have been able to introduce a number of initiatives which involve Merseyrail’s staff in helping to deliver a safe network. In particular, there is an active programme for all drivers on the network and they are trained to identify subjects or vehicles who pose a potential issue.
4.3 Over a long period of time Merseytravel and Merseyrail have fostered and developed a relationship with the British Transport Police (BTP). The importance of the role that the BTP plays in the safe operation of the network should not be underestimated.
4.4 The BTP, for instance, undertake an extensive range of neighbourhood policing which includes elements of behaviour on the rail network. This community work has improved relations.
4.5 A good example of all stakeholders working together is provided by the last incident prevented on the network. One of the train drivers identified a van driver as acting suspiciously near the network. This was called in to the BTP who immediately despatched officers and this led to an arrest.
4.6 There has also been a policy of ‘zero tolerance’ of anti-social behaviour on the Merseyrail network for a number of years. A team of officers on the trains enforce bye-laws including travelling without tickets, ‘feet on seats’, the abuse of staff and so on. All trains have CCTV which is monitored and all stations on the network have Secure Station status. All stations, aside from just four, are also staffed from before the first train arrives until after the last train leaves. There are help points on all platforms and in some booking offices. These are linked to Merseyrail’s control centre where fully trained staff will be able to provide service information and help in any emergency situations.
4.7 In essence, a huge amount of time and effort has been spent by everyone at Merseyrail, Merseytravel and the BTP in tackling anti-social behaviour and working with communities across Merseyside. The effective operation of the system and its turn-around from being ‘Miseryrail’ to one of the best performing railways in the country has also engendered local pride. This too has been beneficial.
4.8 In terms of the infrastructure of the network, efforts have been made to fence large sections. This has undoubtedly increased security levels.
4.9 Finally, it has to be noted that the line is electrified using a third rail system. The personal safety issues associated with this, the chance of electrocution, forms a large part of the messages delivered to local communities by Merseytravel, Merseyrail and the BTP. These personal safety issues also appear to put people off of straying onto the network and have, therefore, been a contributing factor in the minimisation of thefts on the network.
4.10 All these actions together have set a level of expectation by users and have contributed towards the overall look and feel of the Merseyrail network. The approach has not been silo-based but is instead centred on working with all relevant stakeholders in developing a locally tailored approach.
31 October 2011
8137028.02 3 Written Evidence from Passenger Focus (CTR 10)
1. Introduction
1.1 Passenger Focus, the independent national rail consumer watchdog, welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Committee’s inquiry into cable theft on the railway
1.2 Our submission focuses on the impact of cable theft on passengers. Passenger Focus’s research shows that passengers want a punctual and reliable railway. Punctuality is one of the top priorities for improvement and is the main driver of overall passenger satisfaction. Delays through cable theft clearly have an impact on passengers. This impact is further compounded by the way that the industry manages delays – something that is the main cause/driver of dissatisfaction amongst passengers.
2. Context / scale of the problem
2.1 In May 2011 Network Rail published statics on cable theft for the period 2008-20111.
Financial year No. Incidents Delay minutes Hours delay 2010/11 995 365,265 6088 2009/10 656 321,570 5360 2008/9 742 283,167 4719 Total 2393 970,002 16167
2.2 It is clear that the incidence of cable theft is increasing – a 52% increase from 2009/10. It is equally clear that cable theft is causing an increasing level of delay to passenger services.
2.3 Network Rail estimates that this costs the industry around £15m a year. There are also consequential costs to consider – i.e. the fact that signalling maintenance staff are hauled off what they are actually supposed to be doing in order to ‘fight fires’.
2.4 It is also important that cable theft is not just seen as a problem for the railway – copper theft being something that affects society in general. Any solutions, therefore, need to be seen in a similar ‘global’ sense rather than being rail initiatives. For instance, we are aware of one proposal to implement a more robust licensing regime on scrap metal dealers. 3. Impact on Passengers
3.1 Passenger Priorities
1 http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/Press‐Releases/CABLE‐THEFT‐ON‐THE‐INCREASE‐AS‐MILLIONS‐ OF‐PASSENGERS‐SUFFER‐1756/SearchCategoryID‐2.aspx
3.1.1 In 2007 and 2009 we carried out stated preference research that asked passengers to rank a series of station and train based criteria in order of their priority for improvement.
3.1.2 The table below shows the top ten priorities in 2009 compared to 2007. It also shows the relative importance of each attribute ranking relative to punctuality - the higher the score, the greater priority passengers assign to that service aspect.
National Rail Priorities for improvement 2009 Score Service Improvement Preference 2007
Price of train tickets offer excellent value for 1 1.08 money 1
2 1 At least 19 out of 20 trains arrive on time 3
3 0.98 Sufficient train services at times I use the train 2
Passengers are always able to get a seat on the 4 0.86 train 4
Company keeps passengers informed if the train is 5 0.79 delayed 5
Information on train times/platforms accurate and 6 0.75 available 7
7 0.69 Maximum queue time no more than 2 mins 6
Trains consistently well maintained/ excellent 8 0.69 condition 8
9 0.67 Seating area on the train is very comfortable 9
10 0.67 Station staff are available whenever required 17
3.1.3 It is clear from this that passengers place a high priority on punctual services and in managing delay when things go wrong – both issues heavily affected by delay
3.2 Passenger Satisfaction
3.2.1 Passenger Focus consults over 50,000 passengers a year to produce the National Passenger Survey (NPS) - a network-wide picture of passengers’ satisfaction with rail travel. In the spring 2011 wave of research only 36% of passengers were satisfied with the way the industry handled delays.
3.2.2 Multivariate analysis of the NPS results reveals that punctuality is the single biggest driver of overall satisfaction. It also shows that how the industry handles delays is the biggest cause of dissatisfaction.
Main drivers of overall passenger dissatisfaction
National (GB) 56% 18% 4%6% 6% Total
London and 59% 17% 4%5%4% South East
Long Distance 43% 23% 5% 7% 9%
Regional 54% 13% 5% 7% 6%
How train company dealt with delays
Punctuality/reliability
Ease of being able to get on / off the train Length of time the journey was scheduled to take (Speed) Sufficient room to sit / stand
NPS: Autumn 2010 and Spring 2011 combined. Franchised operators only
3.2.3 How the industry handles delay is such a dominant factor that there is value in exploring passenger attitudes to disruption in more detail. NPS asks an additional series of questions to passengers who have indicated that they have been delayed. We can see from the table below that around one-third of those respondents rate the industry’s response to delay as poor across a number of criteria.
Responding to delay % rating very/fairly poorly London NPS Spring 2011 and Long Regional South Distance Base: all respondents who experienced a National East delay (franchised operators only GB total
Amount of information provided 36% 36% 25% 43%
Accuracy of information given 33% 34% 21% 36%
Usefulness of the information 30% 31% 18% 34%
Speed with which information was provided 34% 34% 26% 38%
Time taken to resolve the problem 33% 34% 18% 36%
Availability of alternative transport if service could not continue 49% 49% 34% 57%
3.2.4 To help understand why scores are so low and what practical steps could be taken to improve them, Passenger Focus established a ‘disruption panel’ to obtain accounts from passengers of how their train company handled disruption. The panel consisted of regular rail travellers who provided a short report of their experiences whenever disruption occurred, together with their thoughts about what might have been handled better. Over the 12-months that the panel was in operation Passenger Focus received around 2000 ‘disruption reports’.
3.2.5 The final report2 identified the importance of: • Providing accurate and consistent information • Enabling passengers to avoid disruption in the first place – e.g. by telling them early enough some can plan an alternative route or use a different station • Behaving ‘considerately’: when accurate information is shared in a proactive, timely way, passengers are often quite forgiving, even when the delay is lengthy.
3.3 Conclusions
3.3.1 It is clear that the incidence of cable theft is on the increase and now represents a significant source of delay to passengers in its own right. We know from our research that passengers value a punctual railway – to the extent that punctuality is the biggest single driver of overall passenger satisfaction. By contributing to delays cable theft not only adds costs to the industry, it also has a detrimental impact on passenger satisfaction.
3.3.2 By its very nature, cable theft causes unplanned disruption – something that can lead to added frustration for passengers. Our research indicates that there is still much room for improvement in the way that the industry manages such delays, particularly in the way it communicates with passengers. So, as well as focussing efforts on treating the cause of the problem (i.e. reduce the amount of thefts), it is also important that the industry maintains efforts on alleviating some of the ‘symptoms’ – i.e. the supply of accurate, consistent and up to date information.
31 October 2011
2 Delays and Disruption. Rail Passengers Have Their Say. Passenger Focus. December 2010.
Written Evidence from the British Transport Police (CTR 11)
1. Introduction
1.1 British Transport Police (BTP) is the national specialist police force for the railways (including the London Underground system, Docklands Light Railway, the Glasgow Subway, the Midland Metro tram system and Croydon Tramlink) providing a policing service to rail operators, their staff and passengers throughout England, Wales and Scotland. BTP has developed valuable expertise and the skills required to police a modern railway network. Fully integrated with local policing, BTP works closely with industry and community partners to provide a specialist, dedicated service protecting passengers, staff, and the network infrastructure from disruption.
1.2 BTP is committed to building a railway environment where there will be less crime and passengers and staff will suffer less disruption and inconvenience. BTP works in partnership with the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and Freight Operating Companies (FOCs) and other partners to tackle metal thefts on the railway.
1.3 BTP has seven policing areas; London North, London South, London Underground, North Eastern, North Western, Wales and Western and Scotland. All areas have staff dedicated to reducing the incidence of metal theft. These include proactive uniform officers, detective officers, intelligence researchers and analysts and specialist source handling staff. In addition there is a specialist proactive team of five officers and a Fusion Intelligence Cell based at BTP’s headquarters that consists of a mixture of police and industry staff, supported by Network Rail and BT Openreach. BTP has over 100 officers and staff working solely on metal related crime.
1.4 Essential for the success of a multi agency approach to policing metal theft is the interaction and joint working of key stakeholders involved in metal theft investigation and prevention across the country working together sharing information and good practise to ensure the security of power supply,
telephony and transport services to local communities, industry and commerce.
1.5 BTP has excellent relationships with all of its partners, and has driven activity, leading operations and developing technical and preventative tactics and is able to influence the national strategy through holding the chair of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Metal Theft Working Group and a similar position with the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS). BTP works closely with industry, Network Rail, Power Generators, Telephony providers and the British Metal Recyclers Association. This is key to ensuring that there is joined up strategic and operational planning to achieve the joint goals of preventing metal theft, securing vital services and reducing the cost to UK plc.
2. Metal Theft
2.1 There have been large increases reported in metal theft by police forces across the UK, with levels remaining high for each of the rail, telecom and power industry sectors. Metal theft is a priority for BTP, although not all other forces. Metal theft remains one of the highest priorities for power networks, telecoms companies and the railway due to the significant potential for thefts to result in disruption and adversely impact their customers.
2.2 BTP was probably first in law enforcement to identify, and quick to react to, the increasing trend in metal related thefts. New crime reporting codes were established that helped BTP clearly identify the scope and scale of this crime and the affect on the nation’s railway. A lack of national standards in data recording elsewhere results in difficulties in the collation and analysis of metal thefts across the country. BTP’s current detection rate for live cable thefts (those incidents that affect the running of train services) is 16.2% and for non- live (defined as all other metal whose theft does not disrupt the running of train services) is 25.3%.
2.3 The prevalence of metal theft is linked to dramatic changes in the price of metals on international exchanges. BTP has seen a rising trend of metal theft over the last three years experiencing 2,000 incidents in 2010/11 compared
with approximately 1,500 in 2009/10. So far in 2011/12, over 1,500 offences have been reported suggesting figures will be in excess of previous highs, a trend reflected by other police forces and industries. Metal theft is closely tied to market prices and predictions suggest rising metal prices until at least 2015.
Cable / Copper Theft Comparison with Trade Market Trends (01/01/07 - 10/10/11) (Source: London Metal Exchange (LME)) Copper p/tonne* 340 320 10000 300 280 260 8000 240 220 200 6000 180 160
No of Crimes of No 140 4000 120 100 80 60 2000 40 20 0 0 Jan-07 Feb-07 Mar-07 Apr-07 May-07 Jun-07 Jul-07 Aug-07 Sept 07 Oct-07 Nov-07 Dec-07 Jan-08 Feb-08 Mar-08 Apr-08 May-08 Jun-08 Jul-08 Aug-08 Sep-08 Oct-08 Nov-08 Dec-08 Jan-09 Feb-09 Mar-09 Apr-09 May-09 Jun-09 Jul-09 Aug-09 Sep-09 Oct-09 Nov-09 Dec-09 Jan-10 Feb-10 Mar-10 Apr-10 May-10 Jun-10 Jul-10 Aug-10 Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10 Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-11 Apr-11 May-11 Jun-11 Jul-11 Aug-11 Sep-11 Oct-11
No of Crimes Copper US $ p/tonne* £ equivilent*
Fig. 1 BTP Metal Theft Crimes and Copper Market Prices (01/01/2007 to 10/10/2011)
3. Markets
3.1 As of October 2011, the availability of scrap metal has reduced due to merchants retaining materials for which they paid more than they can currently sell them for.
3.2 Global copper demand remains relatively strong, however many consumers are becoming more cautious and the price has recently become much more volatile as a result of the recent Eurozone crisis.
3.3 There is expected to be an increased demand for copper into 2012 with an easing of temporary restrictions on housing construction in China. The low worldwide inventory of copper availability similarly squeezes the demand and
should cause an inflation of copper prices to exceed or at least stabilise at the £5,500 per tonne mark.
3.4 When coupled with increasing labour costs for miners, continuing miner disputes and disruptions caused from ore grade declines, metal commodity markets and in particular copper demand is expected to increase into 2012, driving a demand that will be met, to an extent, by the criminal engagement in theft of metals.
4. National Strategy
4.1 BTP works with ACPO on the national metal theft strategy. In addition BTP works in partnership with Network Rail to deliver their strategy on metal theft to reduce disruption and delay minutes caused by metal theft crimes affecting passenger journeys.
4.2 BTP is working closely with infrastructure operators to increase the effort required to steal metal by improving the security of metal used on replacement projects through better practice on the part of industry and by reducing its vulnerability. This is achieved by;
• Early engagement with crime reduction officers highlighting effective industry practice, for example around property marking and physical barriers. • Embed a crime prevention focus within the industry by supporting the involvement of police crime reduction design advisors in the planning stages of construction projects. • Encourage, through ACPO, local policing teams to take a proactive role in reducing the opportunities for metal theft by working closely with metal owners • Work with the Institute of Materials, exploring more sustainable ways of designing out this crime. This includes making metal harder to steal or easier to detect if stolen, as well as creating metal alternatives using cutting edge technologies.
4.3 BTP is working to increase the risk to offenders ensuring that the theft of metal is no longer seen as low risk to the criminal by supporting the use of targeted enforcement action.
• BTP is actively engaged with other police forces in joint activity including training and awareness days and enforcement action. • BTP is pioneering the coordination of national and regional intelligence, including from industry through the establishment of a police / industry joint Fusion Intelligence Cell. This improves intelligence-led, targeted, multi-agency enforcement response. Medium term. • Working with Crimestoppers and the media to raise public awareness of the consequences of metal theft to encourage the public to report suspicious activity. • Working with HMRC, Trading Standards and others to disrupt all avenues of criminal activity in relation to metal theft by utilising all available powers and encourage the wider use of the powers to confiscate criminal proceeds under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
4.4 BTP has been working with the Metal Recycling Industry to reduce the ease and rewards to offenders of selling stolen metal, by providing dealers with the tools to identify stolen metals and discourage the sellers from stealing metal by reducing the cash benefits and increasing the risk.
• Providing photographic guides on metals used on the railway including cross-sectional guides • Working with the industry to develop and broaden the voluntary code of practice. • Trial a process of giving Scrap Metal Dealers information on recent locally stolen metal. • Engaged with the industry of moving to a voluntary cashless business model, with any transaction either paid by cheque or by BACS with full customer details recorded.
4.5 Increasing the risk of the dealers handling stolen metals – place greater responsibility on scrap metal dealers to take all reasonable steps to ensure they are not unintentionally supporting criminal activity.
5. Target Hardening
5.1 BTP has worked in partnership with Network Rail to target harden those areas identified as repeat crime locations. This preventative measure can often mean the burying of cable or securing cable to line-side troughing / housing. It is impractical to implement this measure across the whole of the railway infrastructure (over 10,000 miles) and whilst effective it can displace the crime and for the most determined offenders cable can be ripped from the trackside using 4x4 vehicles.
5.2 In addition BTP has worked closely with Network Rail in trialling DNA technologies which when applied to the company’s metal assets transfer unique marks to those who attempt to steal it. The prevention element here comes from the associated signing that is installed to alert would be thieves of the deployment. Similar to 5.1 it is impracticable to apply this solution to all the metal used across the whole network.
6. Offender Management
6.1 BTP’s arrest rate has increased four-fold. BTP has worked with others to identify the culprits involved in this type of crime. Based on intelligence and profiling those who have been arrested, offenders split into two categories: low level opportunist thieves and organised criminals.
6.2 Low level opportunist thieves have migrated from other forms of acquisitive crime; break-ins, shoplifting and vehicle theft to metal theft as they perceive the risks to be lower and the sanctions less. At a time of economic hardship metal theft is very attractive because the thieves perceive the rewards to be high and the ease with which the metal can be disposed of and converted into cash simply adds to the attraction. In an industry where trading in cash is significant the thieves are aware that there is little opportunity for the police to identify who was paid for what transaction or how much was paid.
6.3 At the organised end the thieves split into two categories, those who are prepared to travel considerable distances to steal and have access to heavy lifting (HIAB) equipment and transportation available. There is evidence of the travelling community operating at this level and an emerging trend of Eastern European nationals. There is also a small element with internal or specialist
knowledge - some are employees or former employees / contractors and can provide knowledge around storage depots, sites where metal has been newly installed or provide access skills for there own personal gain or pass the information to others.
7. Enablers
7.1 This submission has stated the value of metal drives this crime and the ease of conversion into cash makes it attractive. However there are certain other areas that provide thieves and dealers with a marked advantage and allow the unscrupulous to benefit from the misery caused to communities and train passengers. Metal Dealers are lax in the record keeping required of them under the Scrap Metal Dealers Act. The Act stipulates that records should be maintained and details certain information that should be recorded for each sale. Poor record keeping with little corroboration of the information supplied provides a deliberate cloak of anonymity to those who sell stolen metal. It makes and police enquiry work almost impossible to identify suspects and differentiate those from legitimate trade. This leads into the real difficulty in tracing metals once they have entered the dealers premises and been processed. There are no records maintained that allows metals to be traced back to the seller and without this line of enquiry proving ownership very difficult.
7.2 The significant use of cash in the industry is a temptation to far and at levels leads to widespread scams and fraud. These are operated by employees against customers, against competitors and against employers. They generate significant amounts of money for personal gain and can also bankroll the operating costs of a trader’s business and the recycler’s business. It is why cash is such an important and contentious issue. The presence of cash transactions which facilitate anonymity and close down audit trails create the breeding ground for corruption.
7.3 If the outlets available to dispose of stolen metal were better regulated and controlled, then disposal would be made much more difficult and the operations of the illegal market that exists would be disrupted. Furthermore it
would help protect public safety, services and commerce by preventing the thefts.
8. Conclusion
8.1 BTP, like many other forces has worked tirelessly to prevent and disrupt metal theft and reduce the misery it can cause. So far in 2011 BTP have visited 2,150 Scrap Metal Dealers. From target hardening and crime prevention advice to intelligence led operations using the most recent technological DNA techniques to more traditional high profile patrols at hotspots. Cultivated and encouraged the public to report suspicions and worked in partnership with many agencies to bring many disparate powers to bear down on the thieves and the handlers who create and allow the market to flourish. We have more staff dedicated to the tackling the problem and are arresting more and more offenders. However against this backdrop we have a classic supply and demand situation that is driving the price of the commodity higher and a weak legislative framework (See Appendix A) that provides little in the way of deterrent to the thieves and handlers.
8.2 BTP will continue to bring to bear all the techniques and tactics detailed in this submission. However against a backdrop of increasing crime and high commodity prices BTP’s position is that the time has come to consider legislative change. If the outlets available to dispose of stolen metal were better regulated and controlled, then disposal would be made much more difficult and the operations of the illegal market that exists would be disrupted. Furthermore it would help protect public safety, services and commerce by preventing the thefts.
Legislative change is the only way to deal with an offence that is being market driven. (See Appendix A for current legislation).
It is the police position that significant impact could be made against the problem of metal theft if the following regulation were available:
• An effective and enforced licensing scheme for metal dealers with the opportunity for a licence to be revoked for non compliance with conditions or for criminal activity.
• The requirement within the licence conditions for metal dealers to collect and retain documentary proof of identity and address from all sellers.
• A general requirement to exercise due diligence in regard to what a metal dealers buys.
• Appropriate penalties available for non compliance with licence conditions or criminal activity that is sufficient to act as a deterrent against the considerable rewards that can be gained.
• Options for more stringent conditions to be applied to a licence in the event of non compliance, including:
1. Restrictions on cash transactions 2. Requirement to retrain metal in the form it is received for a specified period 3. Requirement to maintain CCTV at weighbridges and pay stations.
• The power for the police or other authorised persons to apply for a closure order for an illegally operating metal dealer. Closure would allow the revocation or application of additional conditions. Similar powers exist under the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003, part 1 in relation to premises where drugs are used and part 6 the environment specifically closure of noisy premises.
If SMDs and other outlets used to sell stolen metal to were better regulated it would make it more difficult to realise the cash value of the metal. The ‘market’ that exists and supports the current wave of criminality would be significantly reduced. If there is no opportunity to convert the goods to cash then the stolen metal becomes valueless and not worth stealing.
31 October 2011
British Transport Police Metal Theft Assessment
1. Crime Analysis
1.1 Law Enforcement Overview 1 There have been large increases currently being reported for metal theft by police forces across the UKi, with levels remaining high for each of the rail, telecom and power industries. Metal theft is not currently a priority for most police forces apart from British Transport Police (BTP), although a small number have recently raised its profileii. Metal theft remains one of the largest priorities for power networks, telecoms companies and the railway due to the huge potential for impact affecting their customers.
The average detection rate for police recorded metal theft (based on data from five Home Office forces and BTP) in the UK, remains relatively low at 10%iii. Under- reporting and a lack of national standards in data recording results in difficulties in the collation and analysis of thefts, in addition, as metal theft levels increase, fresh difficulties have arisen as many new offenders and issues affect parts of the country.
Metal theft is a relative emerging problem to UK policing, coinciding with dramatic changes to global markets and the rollout of modern technologies so reliant on conductive and highly valued metals. Local police force activity has often been found to displace offenders, rather than remove the problem. There is no current or historical regional police perspective on metal theft in the UK due to the lack of previous focus by the regional forcesiv. BTP has seen a rising trend of metal theft over the last three years experiencing 2,000 incidents in 2010/11 compared with approximately 1,500 in 2009/10. So far in 2011/12, over 1,400 offences have been
1 See appendix 3.1
reported, suggesting figures will be in excess of previous highs, a trend reflected by police forces and other industriesv.
The Metal theft is closely tied to market prices and is generally seasonally higher in the summer months. Predictions suggest rising metal prices until at least 2015vi.
1.2 Industry Overview2
1.2.1 Power Companies There has been an increasing trend in the number of metal theft incidents relating to UK power companies, with 5,288 metal theft incidents recorded in 2010 and 4,528 up to the end of September 2011vii suggesting last years figure will be exceeded. The level of incidents started to rise at the start of 2010 and has reached an average of 503 offences a month in 2011 to dateviii.
1.2.2 British Telecommunications (BT) There has been a significant increase in attacks on BT’s network across the UK having a direct impact on BT’s customers, and customers of other communications providers. Earlier in 2011 an attack affected emergency services, jeopardised the national air traffic control network, and damaged service to thousands of telephone and broadband customersix. Customer reported faults have risen by 129%, from 38,000 in 2009/10 to 87,000 in 2010/11x.
1.2.3 Water Companies Fluctuating levels of metal theft have been experienced over the last four years. The level of offences in 2011 has been higher than previously reported for comparative years. This is evidenced by 3 months of incident data which is higher than the previous 12 months combinedxi.
1.2.4 UK Wireless Industry (Covering Broadcasting and Wireless Telecommunications) The UK Wireless Industry suffers from thousands of metal theft offences a year. Alongside disruption to the mobile phone network, Airwave, which provides communication sites to the emergency services (along with TV and Radio Broadcasting services), can also be disrupted. Where mobile phone service is lost it takes an average of 17 days to restorexii. The impact of this is significant: • Threat to public broadcasting services • Disruption to mobile phone networks • Compromising the safety of sites where live circuits are left exposed, or unsecured
2 See appendix 3.2
• Resource impact, where staff are required to attend to carry out servicing and repairs • Threats towards staff who encounter criminals • The ongoing cost of targeting metal theft
1.2.5 Network Rail Financial Year No. of Delay minutes Network Rail delay minutes were incidents 365,265 in 2010/11, rising from 2008/09 742 283,167 283,167 in 2008/09. In total, there 2009/10 656 321,570 were 995 incidents reported to 2010/11 995 365,265 2011/12 YTD3 625 240,754 Network Rail in 2010/11, a rise from Total 3,018 1,211,061 742 in 2008/9xiii. The totals so far for 2011/12 suggest that previous peaks of delay minutes and incidents are likely to be surpassed.
1.2.6 Other Metal theft is not solely an issue targeting key infrastructure including the power, telecoms and rail networks. Metal theft has progressed in to many sections of society due to the use of high valued commodities commonly used within buildings and the public environment. Metal thieves are resourceful and knowledgeable in knowing what part to target, with anything from manhole covers, brass statues or bus shelters reported stolen. Other commodities have included targeting catalytic converters for the very small amounts of platinum contained within them. This issue has mainly reported in and around Londonxiv and highlights clear specialised knowledge, and the impact it can have with the disabling of a vehicle, for such a small amount of high valued metal. Other commodities also include lead flashing from roofs, which has specifically impacted upon historical buildings including many churches and places of worship. This metal theft has been reported across the country and is probably the best known due to the wide publicity it has received. In general, there has been an emergence of thefts targeting any metal that is deemed to be of value. Where there is lower value, a larger quantity of the commodity is often stolen to mark up the money received from selling to scrap.
1.3 Geographical Distribution
3 2011/12 Network Rail Data up until 02/11/2011
Geographical distribution of metal theft remains difficult to ascertain due to the lack of uniformity in recording of offences by Home Office police forces. However, there are clear geographic profiles for the type of commodity targeted, such as the rail industry, and power networks. These are often embedded in regions which have a long history around the metal industry, with the infrastructure such as mining and production in addition to individuals who have the accompanying knowledge.
The rail industry, for example, has disproportionately seen the North East area of England subject to cable thefts. A key driver to this is believed to be the established metal trade in the area and the prevalence of Scrap Metal Dealerships / Merchants. This issue is highly concentrated in Northumbria, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Cleveland and Durham, which have seen the largest amount of offences. An established hotspot identified over the last three years, shows a 20 miles square area, which covers Knottingley, Castleford and Doncaster, accounting for around 20% of total railway related metal theft in the UKxv.
The power industry has seen a slightly different geographical profile. Analysis of a years worth of SIRS data (the Energy Network Association Security industry Reporting System) has identified the South East as being largely affected. The targeted commodity in these regions, has predominantly been electric substations, which have affected energy supply. The counties most affected are Kent and Essex, along with Greater London, in addition to the large urban areas, such as the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and South Yorkshirexvi.
Data for general metal theft is difficult to compare and analyse. Based on a request for data in July/August 2011, two forces had the largest impact, reporting over 650 crimes in a year period. A number of other forces reported significant amounts of with over 350 crimes each. Anecdotal evidence obtained from investigators within Home Office forces suggest that specific metal theft issues can often be very localised, targeting specific commodities with a specific method, such as Iron cladding from roof tops or steel bus shelters. It appears to show that a distinct criminal profile is related to specific crime trends, where a particular offender is often responsible for targeting a commodity that requires specialised knowledge of what to target, and how to remove itxvii.
1.4 Suspect / Criminal Business Profile Metal theft can generally be split into two categories, individuals and groups. The latter group can be further split, into two distinct sub-groups ‘Internal’ and ‘External’. Individuals usually offend at a local level, whereas groups, or organised crime groups (OCGs) have been seen to offend across boundaries of many counties and police forces.
1.4.1 Offender Profile BTP data indicates that the majority of incidents involving this form of crime are perpetrated by local offenders. This correlates well with Home Office Force reporting which suggests that much of their metal theft problem is carried out by local Prolific & Priority Offenders (PPOs). These are often a small proportion of criminals who commit the largest amount of offences. Such offenders tend to be white males in their 20’s or 30’s, with a history of ‘traditional’ acquisitive crime from where they have progressed onto the targeting of metal. This may be as a result of seeing metal theft as a low-risk crime in terms of detection and punishment when compared to other acquisitive crime. The occupation of offenders varies depending on region from mainly unemployed, to employment within the building trade or construction industry, suggesting that they may have knowledge of metal and what to take. Dip sample analysis of offenders shows that 80% of persons linked to BTP cable theft, live within 6 miles of the crime locationxviii. This is believed to be due to the ease at which possible metal is available to steal, rather than a lack of commitment to travel.
Home Office forces report similar trends with the majority of their offences often being committed by small groups acting independently and often opportunistic in nature. However, when particular commodities are targeted, such as gold, catalytic converters, and other higher value metals, then there are indications of more coordinated offenders, sometimes involving crime groups.
1.4.2 Organised Crime Groups (Level 2) Metal theft on a grander scale tends to be as a result of the involvement of more organised groups, often referred to as Organised Crime Groups (OCG’s). These operate with cross-border links, often with access to specialist knowledge and equipment to enable them to deal with the technicalities of ‘live’ cable (conducting electricity)and/or the quantities involved. The age range of those within these groups is predominantly between 20 to 50 years oldxix. Such groups not only impact both the
rail and telecommunications networks, but will also attack other targets including the power industry. This type of offender is committed and willing to travel long distances to specifically target high value goods.
Internal (Industry based): Industry based groups tend to use their intimate knowledge of their respective networks to acquire and dispose of materials for their own personal gain. These groups are highly organised with involvement being largely dictated by the individual’s role and/or position within the organisation. They utilise their positions to access vulnerable material (i.e. at locations where engineering work is in progress), often using legitimate vehicles, such as those which would not look out of place. Such groups often utilise favoured scrap metal dealers and routinely ‘skim off the top’ from illegal sales of stolen material. For Instance, it is thought that a number of metal thefts are as a result of ‘internal theft’. The specialised knowledge of these groups built over many years , and the progression of criminals targeting increased valued metals, suggests that the risk of metal theft will only increase in the future due to more people gaining industry experience.
External: These type of offenders are known to travel considerable distances in order to commit crimes. Traditionally they have taken what would appear to be an opportunist approach to the crime, stealing metal if available whilst carrying out other criminal activity. If discovered or challenged, such individuals have been known to offer a distraction type excuse for their presence, or in some cases have used intimidation and/or physical violence to secure their escape. More recently there appears to be a more organised approach to such criminality by a number of these groups, brought on by the greater level of skill required to conduct such thefts and the greater rewards on offer due to the price that the commodity now commands.
Overall, analysis of data available shows that metal theft is emerging as a viable alternative to other forms of acquisitive crime to low level criminals. Police forces report more persons coming to notice for cable theft including those without criminal histories or with previous convictions for acquisitive crimexx. Those that are involved in the more high value thefts and crime series have previous convictions for other acquisitive crimes, or show progression from low level metal theft offences. Repeat offending does appear to be an issue, with some offenders often coming to notice for multiple offences after police activity. Offences that are opportunistic in nature, which are committed by low level criminals, can be of very small value, but of high
consequence. The more serious offences, including the removal or theft of vast amounts of metal, are the most significant monetary loss, and are committed by the more organised element. These groups have specialised knowledge and tools to carry out such offences. Some of the more organised sections have links within the metal industry, or the targeted industries, which aid the theft, removal and disposal of stolen goods. Analysis of the organised groups, shows that these are present through most parts of the country, but are also concentrated in areas which have strong residual links with the metal industry.
1.5 Organised Crime Group Assessment OCGs predominantly commit large scale thefts and target high value metal. The most valuable metals are often linked to key infrastructure, such as the rail network and power and telecoms industryxxi. Emerging items of property targeted are electricity substations, catalytic converters, bus shelters, manhole covers and shopping trolleys. Some crimes committed by these groups have required the use and knowledge of specialised equipment, such as winding materials or plant vehicles. There have been suggestions that foreign offenders are shipping material to be laundered through continental scrap dealers.
Metal theft OCGs are often responsible for the most high value thefts but any theft can result in considerable impact to the rail, telecoms or power industries. Disposal occurs predominantly through the UK scrap network, with movements oversees propelled by the global metal markets. Investigative options range from targeting basic substantive enquiries, to more complex conspiracy charges for the most prolific groups. The latter is mainly pursued by the forces which have the required knowledge and experience of successfully obtaining such results, such as BTP or those HO forces with dedicated units.
2. Market Analysis4
2.1 Commodity Prices and the World Market xxii As of October 2011, the availability of scrap has tightened due to merchants retaining materials for which they paid more than they can currently sell them for. The dearth of scrap in China could also see a reduction that will support cathode demand.
4 See appendix 3.3
Global copper demand remains relatively strong, however many consumers are becoming more cautious and the price has recently become much more volatile as a result of the continuing Eurozone debacle.
There is expected to be an increased demand for copper into 2012 with an easing of temporary restrictions on housing construction in China. The low worldwide inventory of copper availability similarly squeezes the demand and should cause an inflation of copper prices to exceed or at least stabilise at the $5,500 per tonne mark.
When coupled with increasing labour costs for miners, continuing miner strikes and disruptions caused from ore grade declines, metal commodity markets and in particular copper demand is expected to increase into 2012, driving a demand that will be met to an extent by the criminal engagement in theft of metals.
2.2 The Scrap Metal Industry There are 3,590 registered SMDs in the UK: 2,190 with full licences, 1,400 with paragraph 45 exemption and 180 illegal sites. It is further believed that there are equal numbers of itinerant scrap dealers bringing the total to over 4,000xxiii.
2.3 UK Ports of Leave There are a number of ports that could be used in the export of metal from the UK. Felixstowe is the major export port of leave in the UK and handled 700 export shipments of scrap metal over the last 12 months; Southampton has the second largest amount with 290 exports, followed by Belfast with 90. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) indicate there are just over 50 companies involved in the exportation of scrap metal from the UKxxiv. Once the metal is received overseas, very little is known about specific movements.
3. Appendix 3.1 National Law Enforcement Trends British Transport Police Metal Theft Crime Count and Copper Market Prices (01/01/2007 to 10/10/2011)
Cable / Copper Theft Comparison with Trade Market Trends (01/01/07 - 10/10/11) (Source: London Metal Exchange (LME)) Copper p/tonne* 340 320 10000 300 280 260 8000 240 220 200 6000 180 160
No of Crimes of No 140 4000 120 100 80 60 2000 40 20 0 0 Jan-07 Feb-07 Mar-07 Apr-07 May-07 Jun-07 Jul-07 Aug-07 Sept 07 Oct-07 Nov-07 Dec-07 Jan-08 Feb-08 Mar-08 Apr-08 May-08 Jun-08 Jul-08 Aug-08 Sep-08 Oct-08 Nov-08 Dec-08 Jan-09 Feb-09 Mar-09 Apr-09 May-09 Jun-09 Jul-09 Aug-09 Sep-09 Oct-09 Nov-09 Dec-09 Jan-10 Feb-10 Mar-10 Apr-10 May-10 Jun-10 Jul-10 Aug-10 Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10 Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-11 Apr-11 May-11 Jun-11 Jul-11 Aug-11 Sep-11 Oct-11
No of Crimes Copper US $ p/tonne* £ equivilent*
The Average Level of Metal Theft In UK Police Forces And The Price Of Copper (01/01/2007 to 30/06/2011)
Type of Metal Home Office forces report that copper and lead are the commodities targeted the most often. The former is specifically targeted through the targeting of infrastructure and industrial premises; the latter is a residential/domestic issue (shops, houses, flats, gardens, sheds or vacant premises) but is still significant in places.
Some forces report that almost all the thefts are lead whereas others report an equal balance of lead and copper theft. On average over 50% of metal stolen from Home Office forces is lead, although copper does figure highly amongst the other metal targeted (30%).
British Transport Police (BTP) and industries such as Telecommunications and Power companies see a much larger proportion of theft of copper. Other metals targeted within Home Office force areas (but to a much lesser extent) are steel, aluminium, iron and brass. Home office forces see three distinct types of metal theft; theft from industrial premises and sites, thefts from domestic premises and thefts targeting metals in open and public places (the latter often impacting on local services).
Copper theft is specifically stolen from industrial premises and infrastructure, which can often affect local services such as water, gas, telecommunications and power. The most significant impact, in terms of service delivery and cost has been to the telecommunications industry.
Item Targeted • The key property targeted varies somewhat by force and area although there are commonalities and trends. • In general, all forces identify new, unoccupied or derelict buildings as targeted. • Lead is targeted on roofs and windows of buildings. • Electricity substations are specifically targeted, particularly in the south of England. The removal of earthing cable has been noted in this. • The targeting of catalytic converters has been identified as an emerging issue in the East Midlands and the North East, while it has been identified as a long term issue by many other forces in the South East. This reflects trends seen by BTP with North and East London being the areas most affected. All have very low recovery rates and are targeted due to their small content of platinum which is an expensive precious metal.
Emerging Trends • Bus Shelters - affecting mostly North-Eastern boroughs of Greater London. Items stolen include timetable and poster frames (aluminium)xxv • Cabinet Doors made of steel or ironxxvi • Bulk theft of shopping trolleys (in a recent incident three supermarkets were targeted with a cost of £100,000 to replace the trolleys). • Business skips • The removal of manhole covers
3.2 National Industry Trends
Power Company Metal Theft Incident Count (Oct 2008 to Sep 2011)
600
500
400
300
Incident Count 200
100
0
8 9 9 0 0 1 t-08 -0 t-09 -1 t-10 -1 Oc Dec-0 Feb-09 Apr Jun-09Aug-09 Oc Dec-0 Feb-10 Apr Jun-10Aug-10 Oc Dec-1 Feb-11 Apr Jun-11Aug-11 Month/Year
SIRS • The Suspicious Incident Reporting System (SIRS) captures metal theft related incidents reported to power and telecommunications companies, along with some data from water companies.
Power Companies • 95% of metal stolen from the power industry is copper. • Electricity substations are a key target for power industry thefts, with a key MO of removal of earthing cable. This is particular high in the south of England, where in places it is reported to be a large scale, long term and growing problem.
Ecclesiastical Insurance The number of metal theft claims from churches in the UK was 1,700 in 2010; as of June 2011 there was 1,600 claims. Therefore figures for 2011 are predicted to be double those seen in 2010. The company report that every diocese in the country has been affected in some way by metal theft.
3.3 Original Collection Plan Contributor List ACPOS Strategic Development Department Essex Police Scottish Water Avon and Somerset Police Hertfordshire Police Serious Organised Crime Agency British Metals Recycling Association HMRC South Yorkshire Police British Telecom Kent Police South West Regional Intelligence Unit British Transport Police Lancashire Police Southern Water British Transport Police Authority Leicestershire Police Strathclyde Police Business and Retail Crime, Acquisitive Crime Lincolnshire Police Surrey Police Team, Organised and Financial Crime Unit, Crime Directorate, Home Office Central Scotland Police London Regional Intelligence Unit Sussex Police City of London Police Lothian and Borders Police Thames Valley Police Cleveland Police Merseyside Police Transport for London Copper Development Association Metropolitan Police Service UK Power Networks Cumbria Police National Policing Improvement Agency Western Power Cross Industry Metal Theft Lobbying Group Network Rail West Midlands Police CRU New Zealand Police West Yorkshire Police Durham Police North East Regional Intelligence Unit Yorkshire Water East Midlands Regional Intelligence Unit North Yorkshire Police Yorkshire and Humber Regional Intelligence Unit Eggborough Power North West Regional Intelligence Unit Energy Networks Association Polprimmet Environment Agency Rail Safety and Standards Board
4. References
i Home Office Force Collection Plan Responses, August 2011 ii Home Office Force Collection Plan Responses, August 2011 iii Home Office Force Collection Plan Responses, August 2011 - Avon and Somerset, Lancashire, North Yorkshire, Sussex, MPS and BTP iv RIU Collection Plan Responses v Metal Theft Analysis, October 2011, BTP Op Leopard FHQ vi Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). vii Business and Retail Crime, Acquisitive Crime Team, Organised and Financial Crime Unit, Crime Directorate, Home Office viii Energy Networks Association (ENA), Cross Industry Metal Theft Lobbying Groups paper on the impact of metal theft on represented industries ix Cross Industry Metal Theft Lobbying Groups paper on the impact of metal theft on represented industries x Business and Retail Crime, Acquisitive Crime Team, Organised and Financial Crime Unit, Crime Directorate, Home Office xi Water Companies Collection Plan Response, August 2011 xii ENA, Cross Industry Metal Theft Lobbying Groups paper on the impact of metal theft on represented industries xiii Network Rail, Cross Industry Metal Theft Lobbying Groups paper on the impact of metal theft on represented industries xiv Email Correspondence, , BTP London North, theft from catalytic converters xv Metal Theft Analysis, October 2011, BTP Op Leopard FHQ xvi BTP Op Leopard FHQ Analysis, October 2011 of Energy Networks Association – Suspicious Incident Reporting system xvii Home Office Force Collection Plan Responses, August 2011 xviii BTP, analysis of cable offences, August 2011. xix Offender profile information received form South Yorkshire Police, October 2011 xx Email Correspondence, Tony Foster, MPS. xxi BTP ACPO Metal Theft Problem Profile, December 2010 xxii CRU Monitor – Copper Overview, October 2011 xxiii Information from the Environment Agency given to the Home Office, August 2011 xxiv HMRC for 1st August 2010 to 31st July 2011 indicates the level of declared exports form the UK. xxv TfL, Crime and Disorder Assessment, email correspondence, August 2011. xxvi Virgin Media
British Transport Police Metal Theft Briefing (Legislative Review)
Introduction
This document provides an overview of the legislation used by law enforcement agencies in the UK to tackle metal theft. It details the main user or responsible enforcement agency and summarises the main aspects of the legislation and the penalties provided. There is a review which highlights some limitations of the existing legislation in supporting criminal investigation and prosecutions for metal theft related crime.
Context
There is a growing National problem caused by thefts of metals. These crimes are largely fuelled by increased global commodity prices. Metal theft affects all aspects of the community, industry and commerce. Local communities are reporting substantial increases in the theft of copper, aluminium and lead. The thefts particularly affect key UK infrastructure; telecommunications, transport, electricity, gas and water utilities, and have the potential to lead to the loss of services, create a danger to public safety, and pose a serious risk to the UK economy.
The perpetrators of metal related crimes place themselves and others in grave danger; they enter dangerous environments in order to steal metal motivated by the cash value of the metal. The value of the metal is driven by global supply and demand. The cost to industry and society is disproportionately high, often referred to as the ‘ripple effect’, compared to the value of the stolen metal.
Police are arresting increasing numbers of metal thieves. However, the scale of offending would suggest that for the offender the reward outweighs the risk and that the sanctions available and imposed by Courts do not act as a deterrent to the thief. It is entirely appropriate therefore that the industry into which the thief sells or disposes of the stolen metal should be scrutinised to ensure that there are no inherent vulnerabilities that act as enablers.
Metal recycling is a highly competitive industry. The presence of significant amounts of cash leads to widespread practice of scams. These are operated by employees against customers, against competitors and against employers. And can generate significant amounts of money for personal gain and can also bankroll the operating costs of a customer’s business and the recycler’s business. It is why cash is such an important and contentious issue.
Preventative or detection methods – not just by the police, but recycling companies trying to stamp out crime ‐ are often compromised by the presence of cash transactions which facilitate anonymity and close down audit trails and so offer the unscrupulous individual ample opportunity. Scams, whatever
character they adopt are better described as cheating and criminal behaviour, often consisting of the manipulation of a record of weight or quality to create a financial advantage.
If the outlets available to dispose of stolen metal were better regulated and controlled, then disposal would be made much more difficult and the operations of the illegal market that exists would be disrupted. Furthermore it would help protect public safety, services and commerce by preventing the thefts.
Current Legislation
The following summarises existing legislation and potential application.
From a crime reduction perspective, it is the police position that significant impact could be made against this problem if the following regulation was available;
• Requirement to secure and retain proof of identity of carriers or receivers of metal waste • CCTV at Scrap Metal Dealer (SMD) sites • Electronic record keeping by SMDs • A cashless business operating model for the Scrap Metal industry • Suspicious activity reporting by SMDs • Opportunity to rapidly close sites engaged in unlawful activity
There are benefits that increased regulation would bring;
• Greater transparency and traceability of business transactions through the use of more robust identification requirements from sellers would reduce the anonymity that cash transactions presently permit
• It would reduce the likelihood of SMDs receiving stolen metals and increase the likelihood of police or other law enforcement agencies being able to trace sellers, increase the intelligence picture and take proactive enforcement action
• The modernisation of record keeping and greater transparency of each transaction and a move away from cash would reduce the opportunities for cheating and result in increased tax revenue
• The power to temporarily close licensed SMDs, not unlike powers afforded to the police in relation to other licensed premises would be used proportionately and most likely rarely. Use of this power, taken at a senior level (Superintendent) would provide a remedy when self regulation has been unsuccessful
The review of legislation has sought to identify existing enforcement or regulatory options that could be utilised to deliver these requirements. There are many regulations applicable to this area of trade, but very few are of use in this context, and are therefore not listed.
Legislation Enforcement Body Requirement Penalties
Town & Country Local Authority Requires SMD’s to Planning Control S.215 Notice Untidy Planning Act apply to local planning Land. 1990 office to seek permission to use land Enforcement notice S.172 – where Planning and Planning Inspectorate to run a scrap metal planning permission not correctly Compensation (Independent business applied for, LA can serve enforcement Act 1991 Government Body) for notice on landowner to return land to appeals process previous state. (Landowner has right of appeal to Planning Inspectorate;10 wk- 12 month process)
Environmental Environment Agency Requires SMD’s to S.33 (1) (a), (6) & (8) Environmental Protection Act (E&W) have an environmental Protection Act 1990 – knowingly 1990 permit or a registered permitting the deposition of controlled Scottish exemption. EA may waste, or knowingly causing the Environmental Environmental only grant a permit deposition of controlled waste. Permitting (Eng & Protection Agency where relevant planning Wales) permission in place Summary conviction: 12 months Regulations 2007 imprisonment and or fine not exceeding £50,000 Indictment: 5 years imprisonment; and or unlimited fine.
S.34(c) details how an enforcement authority must deal with property seized under S.3 (b) Environmental Protection Act 1990. This Section came into force 03/2006 in Wales and as at May 2008 is still in force in Wales only
Control of Environment Agency Requires SMD’s to be a Summary conviction: maximum £5,000 Pollution registered carrier when fine. (Amended) Act transporting waste for 1989 profit or gain
Scrap Metal Local Authority Requires SMD’s to S1(7) Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 Dealers Act 1964 notify Local Authority S2(6) Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 that they are conducting the Summary non-imprisonable fine not business of a SMD exceeding level 3 (£1000) on legislative standard scale. Police Requires SMD’s to keep a bound book at Failing to maintain proper records – fine each SMD site with £1,000. details of description, weight, date and time of receipt; full name and address of person received from; price payable, if any, or estimated value; registration mark of any vehicle delivering scrap metal Theft Act 1968 Police Section 1 of 1968 Act Conviction on indictment liable to Common law provides that “A person imprisonment for a term not exceeding (Scotland Only) is guilty of theft if he seven years. dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it”
Section 22 of the 1968 Conviction on indictment liable to Act provides that “A imprisonment for a term not exceeding person handles stolen fourteen years. goods if (otherwise than in the course of the stealing) knowing or believing them to be stolen goods he dishonestly receives the goods, or dishonestly undertakes or assists in their retention, removal, disposal or realisation by or for the benefit of another person, or if he arranges to do so”
Town & Country Planning Act 1990
A Consolidation Act aimed at control in the context of building, planning and hazardous substances. Where it appears to a local planning authority that there may have been a breach of planning control in respect of any land then they may serve an enforcement notice to that effect.
Any such notice can be subject to an appeal process which can make the whole enforcement process protracted. There is little evidence to suggest that using the legislation against SMDs is a priority for overstretched planning departments, particularly at a time when the public sector is faced with making efficiency savings.
Environmental Protection Act 1990 & Permitting Regulations
This is an Act to make provision for improved control of pollution arising from certain industrial processes relating to waste on land. The powers are enforceable by officers of the Environment Agency (EA), Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and Northern Ireland equivalent.
The Regulations make it an offence to operate as a waste carrier without a permit or otherwise than in accordance with the provisions of the permit. This requires the completion of a waste transfer document for each transaction, which in turn requires the collection of identification information. These appear useful provisions and include penalties of 12 month imprisonment on summary conviction and 5 years on indictment. However, there remain several barriers to effective use by Police;
• A significant proportion of the SMD community is afforded an exemption from permit requirements because they fall below the criteria of tonnage through put • Enforcement is the responsibility of the EA and SEPA staff. • The legislation is intended to reduce environmental issues and that is where enforcement is focussed by the responsible agencies. It does not cover metal theft • The EA and SEPA have limited resources that are trained and equipped to deal with their priority of environmental investigations. • The collection of identity details for the completion of the waste transfer notices does not require documentary support and therefore it is relatively easy to side-step the provisions • While both agencies work in partnership with police their focus will not extend to criminal investigation of metal theft. Officers of these agencies see their role more as supporting and providing alternative prosecution routes to the outdated Scrap Metal Dealers Act or to overcome the difficulties faced in proving dishonesty required in other legislation
Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964
The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 provides that every local authority maintains a register of persons carrying on business in their area as scrap metal dealers. Anyone carrying out the business as a scrap metal dealer in the area of a local authority area has to have appropriate details relating to that person entered in the register.
The process of registration has no cost attached to it and provides no revenue generation for the local authority. As a consequence, there is a lack of financial incentive for the local authority to proactively address scrap dealers who do not register. Recent initiatives indicate local authority lists or registers of SMDs are inaccurate and incomplete. The Act itself is limited in scope, with no power to revoke registration and no power to close SMDs found trading in contravention of the Act. In particular it provides no police enforcement opportunity for those who choose not to register.
The Act provides a power for the police to enter and inspect registered SMD sites and inspect records held on those sites. It offers no specific power to search the premises. In order to do this the police must first obtain a warrant from a court. The Act also provides that every SMD shall keep a book and record details in respect of transactions made including the following:
1. The description and weight of the metal 2. The date and time of receipt of the metal 3. If the metal is received from another person the name and address of that person 4. The price of the metal if known at the time the entry is made 5. If no price has been ascertained, the estimated value 6. The registration mark of any vehicle used to deliver the scrap metal
However, there is no requirement on the SMD to check the accuracy of information recorded (at 3) or to seek any corroboration of that information. This can and does compromise the audit trail and can prevent the police from identifying the legitimacy of transactions and original ownership of the metal. In 2011 British Transport Police instigated proceedings for 62 breaches of the SMD Act.
There are a number of other weaknesses within the SMD Act which impact on its effectiveness;
• The level of fine for breaching the requirement to register is up to £1,000 • Failing to maintain proper records carries a fine of up to £1,000 • There is no power to close SMDs that do not comply with the Act • Registration can not be revoked.
The enduring high price of metal, increased turnover and margins in the scrap metal industry make the sentencing guidelines appear disproportionately low and outdated. In 2010 the average fine handed down as part of sentencing to a SMD was £379xxvi. This clearly does not serve as a deterrent.
Put simply the limitations of any sanction that can be imposed on a SMD for breaching the SMD Act is small in comparison to companies’ turnover. Working with the existing legislation and the perceived inherent weaknesses
in the SMD Act the police more and more often look to utilise other legislation that provides increased powers and sanctions.
It should be recognised that the SMD Act legislation is outdated, enacted almost half a century ago, before globalisation had the impact on local recycling markets that it now has.
Theft Act 1968
The Theft Act is the principal legislation used by police when SMDs are apprehended on suspicion of involvement in metal theft. Proffering charges under this legislation is not always straightforward, particularly in the context of the trade in scrap metal.
One of the main parts of the Theft Act used when dealing with SMDs suspected of criminality is section 22 - handling stolen goods. A person is said to ‘know’ that goods are stolen when he is told by someone with first hand knowledge, e.g. the thief or burglar. Belief is something short of knowledge where a person could not be certain that the goods are stolen but there could be no other reasonable conclusion, in light of all the circumstances, of what he had heard, seen and price paid.
Either of these two states is enough to satisfy knowing or believing. A mere suspicion is insufficient, e.g. the goods may or may not be stolen.
Identifying ownership in the case of theft is a key point and this also applies to a case of handling.
It is clear that in using the Theft Act 1968 there are a number of practical difficulties that the police face in relation to proving an original theft or that the SMD knew or believed that metal was stolen. They include;
• Metal that has been burnt by a thief to remove any ownership markings • Poor SMD records make identifying who sold the metal difficult • Metal that is identifiable but can not be proved to have been stolen because of poor record keeping • SMDs historic associations with small trades referred to as ‘walk ups’ which make identification of an owner difficult to establish • The industry’s significant cash-rich transaction environment make the identification of a seller challenging • SMDs can legitimately claim that they neither ‘knew nor believed’ an item to be stolen and let the prosecution prove otherwise
Confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) 2002
POCA provides a complete statutory framework for the making of confiscation orders against those convicted of all offences. Legal advice obtained by police
suggests that convictions of SMD and individuals of a section 1 offence under the SMD Act can permit an application at a Crown Court for confiscation under POCA. These are protracted investigations involving specialist financial investigators and detailed enquiry work to establish the benefit received from a criminal lifestyle.
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs
HMRC has criminal investigation powers and can consider commencing a criminal rather than civil investigation under certain circumstances including where there has been deliberate concealment, deception, conspiracy or corruption is suspected or where money laundering or forgery is suspected. HMRC will look to register SMDs and others as high-value dealers under the money laundering regulations however their main thrust is about educating and helping business with a lesser focus on enforcement and prosecution.
Any such investigations are likely to be protracted because of the complexity and availability of HMRC staff. If targeted at SMDs the scope for enforcement action would be limited due to the scale of the industry and number of SMDs operating.
Conclusion
There is a range of legislation that can be applied to metal theft and in particular to SMDs. There are a number of agencies who have statutory powers that can be brought to bear and impact on metal theft. Many of these powers and laws were never intended by legislators to be used in such a manner. This is partly the reason why there is a perception that regulation of the metal industry is a crowed place in terms of both legislation and enforcement bodies.
The reality however is that the key issues in combating metal theft; the traceability of metal and the accuracy of information recorded by those involved in the trade of metal is not sufficiently expressed and required in existing legislation and therefore does not ensure either of these two issues is addressed.
Different agencies (not all of whom have enforcement as their top priority) working together to bring disparate pieces of legislation and powers to bear on a cash-rich industry at the centre of a supply and demand-led price inflated commodity, is not an effective solution to combat metal theft. Particularly at a time of economic hardship a new solution is required to reduce the prevalence of metal theft and minimise the harm it is doing to industry and communities.
If SMDs and other outlets used to sell stolen metal to were better regulated it would make it more difficult to realise the cash value of the metal. The
‘market’ that exists and supports the current wave of criminality would be significantly reduced. If there is no opportunity to convert the goods to cash then the stolen metal becomes valueless and not worth stealing.
Further written evidence from the British Transport Police (CTR 11A)
Operation Tornado
In response to the increasing problem of metal theft that BTP and Home Office force are facing an Identification Measures Trial has been introduced by ACPO, BTP, British Metal Recyclers Association (BMRA), Northumbria, Durham and Cleveland police. The trial will support each of the forces in tackling metal theft and make it easier to trace sellers and dealers of stolen material. BTP is leading on the project and the trial will considerably strengthen the requirement outlined in the existing legislation in terms of identification from sellers. The exchange of metal for cash will require scrutiny of identification documents by dealers and discourage those wishing to avoid police attention from selling their metal. All documentation will be copied and retained for twelve months and be available for inspection by the police and supporting agencies.
The trial area was selected following consultation with BTP, BMRA, ACPO and the Home Office. Consideration was given to; levels of crime relating to metal theft within the region, interoperability of forces and the risk associated with displacement. BTP and the regional police forces visited every metal recycler within the region to encourage participation in the trial. The trial has also identified a weakness in terms of intelligence within the region which has now been addressed through the development of data sharing protocols, the formation of a regional task force and the work of BTP’s Fusion centre. The standardisation of dealer categorisation has been adopted within the region which enables enforcement activity to be directed, focused and efficient in terms of talking criminality.
The Identification Measures Trial commenced on 3rd January 2012 and will initially run for a period of 6 months within Northumbria, Durham and Cleveland police force areas. Metal recycling sites who participate in the trial will be required to adopt the following additional measures to identify sellers: 1. Evidence of identity will be required from all persons disposing of metals for cash payment. a. UK photocard driving licence (includes address) or, b. UK passport or original passport from any nationality, or official national identity card supported by a utility bill. (not more than three months old to the current date) showing the seller’s current address.
The yard will record each document presented by obtaining a copy which will be retained for inspection by the police and other agencies (e.g. passport, driving licence and utility bill). The photo ID will be required on each and every transaction. The ID will be copied and either physically or electronically stored with the record of transaction for a minimum period of 12 months. 2. Failure by the seller to produce identification (in line with the requirements in point 1) would result in no transaction taking place. 3. CCTV systems should cover entrances and weighbridges of recycling centres and the images should be of sufficient quality to enable identification of vehicle registrations numbers and secure facial recognition. The recorded images will be retained for a minimum of 28 days. 4. Posters describing the identification measures in force will be prominently displayed to sellers. 5. When buying from other merchants, participating companies will endeavour to promote participation in the trial and to deal wherever possible with others taking part. North Yorkshire, Humberside and Cumbria Police are adopting the identification measures in anticipation of a national roll out during 2012 which includes the standardisation of dealer categorisation in line with the regional trial. The BMRA acknowledges the impact of metal theft and fully support the introduction of the voluntary measures trial. They see Operation Tornado as an opportunity for the industry to demonstrate its commitment to tackling the growing problem of metal theft have indicated that they would support a national roll out of the trial once the initial success of the measures had been assessed. They also see their support and participation as an opportunity to retain an involvement in the proposed legislative review which is being considered.
The majority of dealers within the region support the trial, although there are a small number who refuse to operate outside existing legislation. These yards will be encouraged to participate and may find they are subject to increased police activity. The industry has indicated that a significant reduction in trade would result in a re assessment of their involvement Operation Tornado. However, this may be deployed as a tactic by certain sections of the industry as an exit strategy, whilst at the same time demonstrating an initial support for the aims of the trial.
The participation rates are as follows; Northumbria - 69 registered dealers with 80% signed up to the trial. Durham - 44 registered dealers with 86% signed up to the trial. Cleveland - 46 registered dealers with 83% signed up to the trial. It is anticipated this attrition rate will pass 90% by 15 January as increased enforcement activity within the region takes effect.
Enforcement and compliance activity will commence week commencing 9 January 2012 with the emphasis on supporting the industry in the first instance. The enforcement activity will be focused on ensuring that dealers who are participating in the trial are compiling with the terms and conditions, with enforcement focusing on those who sit outside Operation Tornado.
3 January 2012
Written Evidence from the Association of Chief Police Officers (CTR 12)
Introduction
Metal theft has emerged as a significant and growing problem throughout the UK. Many industries including the railways, telecommunications, the power industry and utility companies have been subjected to persistent and at times systematic metal theft.
The major targets of metal theft are copper, lead, aluminium, brass, zinc, nickel, platinum and bronze. These metals can be stolen in many forms including from extracting copper wiring from the ground to stealing statues from parks. These are then typically sold to a third party such as a scrap metal dealer who will melt them down or recycle them for their intrinsic value. Scrap metal is often exported to developing industrial markets such as China.
Essential for the success of a multi agency approach to policing metal theft is the interaction and joint working of key stakeholders involved in metal theft investigation and prevention. This has to be across the country working together sharing information and good practise to ensure the security of power supply, telephony and transport services to local communities, industry and commerce.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has implemented a joined up strategic approach to address metal theft with the objectives of reducing metal theft and bringing offenders to justice. The management of this approach has been co-ordinated by the ACPO Metal Theft Working Group.
ACPO works closely with industry, Network Rail, other major infrastructure companies, local authorities, heritage organisations, and education establishments. This is key to ensuring that there is joined up, strategic approach with operational planning to achieve the joint goals of preventing metal theft, securing vital services and reducing the cost to the UK economy.
Metal Theft
There have been large increases reported in metal theft by police forces across the UK, with levels remaining high for each of the rail, telecom and power industry sectors. Metal theft is a priority for BTP, although not all other forces. Metal theft remains one of the highest priorities for power networks, telecoms companies and the railway due to the significant potential for thefts to result in disruption and adversely impact their customers.
The below graph shows the average number of metal thefts recorded by police forces across England and Wales.
Average number of recorded Incidents by Force over period (Aug-10 - Jul-11) Incidents 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 Recorded Incidents 100
0 Mids West Met GMP S Yorks Northumbria Lancashire BTP Notts Durham Essex Kent Gwent Staffs Hampshire Cleveland Leicestershire Cambridgeshire TVP Surrey Wiltshire & Somerset Avon & Devon Herts Mercia West Gloucestshire Warwickshire Cumbria Sussex Cheshire Merseyside Dorset Derbyshire Norfolk Northants Beds Fife Suffolk Dyfed Tayside Scotland Ctrl Humberside Northern South Wales
Force
There are a significant number of offences that are being reported to police forces across the UK. This is having a serious impact on the UK economy with a report by Deloitte estimating the cost to the UK economy of metal theft to be £220-260 million per year.
The scale of the problem and the financial impact could be considerably larger. The Metropolitan Police suspect that the true figure for metal theft incidents in their Force area may be at least 30- 40% more than has currently been identified. At present most forces are recording metal theft under the crime code of ‘theft-other’. England and Wales has seen a 5% increase in recorded ‘theft other’ offences in the year to June 2011. That is 53,147 more offences. There is evidence to suggest that much of this increase could be down to metal theft.
There are also unquantifiable costs to society which could include the danger to patients at hospitals because of the loss of power caused by metal theft or the environmental costs of more freight returning to the roads because of metal theft on the railways.
Metal theft can have a significant impact on local communities who have been left without vital services. In July of this year 16,000 telephone customers and 26,000 broadband customers lost services in the Southampton area following an attempted cable theft in Salisbury. This also caused the disconnection of the 999 services, the National Air Traffic Service and parts of the Ministry of Defence’s communication. There are clear public safety issues caused by the theft of metal.
Just recently metal thieves have stolen the lead roof of the Bishop’s Palace in Lincoln which is one of the Britain’s most important medieval ruins leading English Heritage to warn that metal theft is threatening the country’s heritage.
A bronze statue of a Second World War soldier has been stolen from a memorial in Tidworth, Wiltshire. Whilst there is a financial cost to such incidents there are also great societal costs which can not be measured.
Metal theft is not without a physical cost to those who seek to steal metal often from dangerous locations such as on mainline railway lines and electrical sub-stations. At least 10 people have been killed over the last year whilst attempting to steal metal.
Markets
The prevalence of metal theft is linked to dramatic changes in the price of metals on international exchanges. BTP has seen a rising trend of metal theft over the last three years experiencing 2,000 incidents in 2010/11 compared with approximately 1,500 in 2009/10. So far in 2011/12, over 1,500 offences have been reported suggesting figures will be in excess of previous highs, a trend reflected by other police forces and industries. Metal theft is closely tied to market prices and predictions suggest rising metal prices until at least 2015.
Metal theft is a ‘market driven’ offence. The graph below shows how the number of copper related theft offences fluctuates in line with the price of copper.
.
This is more dramatically illustrated in the below graph which is specific to the BTP. The BTP records metal theft in a separate crime category and therefore presents a very accurate picture. The graph is also specific to copper.
Cable / Copper Theft Comparison with Trade Market Trends (01/01/07 - 10/10/11) (Source: London Metal Exchange (LME)) Copper p/tonne* 340 320 10000 300 280 260 8000 240 220 200 6000 180 160
No of Crimes of No 140 4000 120 100 80 60 2000 40 20 0 0 Jan-07 Feb-07 Mar-07 Apr-07 May-07 Jun-07 Jul-07 Aug-07 Sept 07 Oct-07 Nov-07 Dec-07 Jan-08 Feb-08 Mar-08 Apr-08 May-08 Jun-08 Jul-08 Aug-08 Sep-08 Oct-08 Nov-08 Dec-08 Jan-09 Feb-09 Mar-09 Apr-09 May-09 Jun-09 Jul-09 Aug-09 Sep-09 Oct-09 Nov-09 Dec-09 Jan-10 Feb-10 Mar-10 Apr-10 May-10 Jun-10 Jul-10 Aug-10 Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10 Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-11 Apr-11 May-11 Jun-11 Jul-11 Aug-11 Sep-11 Oct-11
No of Crimes Copper US $ p/tonne* £ equivilent*
As of October 2011, the availability of scrap metal has reduced due to merchants retaining materials for which they paid more than they can currently sell them for.
However, global copper demand remains relatively strong, despite some volatility caused by the Eurozone crisis. Recent manufacturing figures from China indicate an increase in activity. The price of metal responded accordingly.
There is expected to be an increased demand for copper into 2012 with an easing of temporary restrictions on housing construction in China. The low worldwide inventory of copper availability similarly squeezes the demand and should cause an inflation of copper prices to exceed or at least stabilise at the £5,500 per tonne mark.
When coupled with increasing labour costs for miners, continuing miner disputes and disruptions caused from ore grade declines, metal commodity markets and in particular copper demand is expected to increase into 2012, driving a demand that will be met, to an extent, by the criminal engagement in theft of metals.
National Strategy
The ACPO strategy for reducing metal theft first published in 2010 outlines short, medium and long term measures, which can be used to address metal theft. These measures come under four key headings. They can be summarised as follows:
1. Increase the effort required to steal metal by improving the security of metal through better practice on the part of industry by reducing vulnerability.
ACPO is working closely with infrastructure operators, religious institutions, heritage institutions and education establishments to increase the effort required to steal metal by improving the security of metal used, reduce vulnerability of locations and through the adoption of better practice. This is achieved by:
• Early engagement with crime reduction officers highlighting effective practice.
• Encouragement of local policing teams to take a proactive role in reducing the opportunities for metal theft by working closely with metal owners.
• In Sheffield, South Yorkshire police has implemented a Sheffield Metal Theft Strategy as part of the regional sub group work. This aims to create a joined up partnership of interested stakeholders to address enforcement, prevention and education issues.
• Work with the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining in exploring more sustainable ways of designing out this crime. This includes making metal harder to steal and easier to detect if stolen as well as creating metal alternatives using cutting edge technology.
2. To increase the risk to offenders by ensuring that the theft of metal is no longer seen to be low risk to the criminal by supporting the use of targeted enforcement action.
• Police Forces are actively engaged in joint activity including training and awareness days as well as enforcement action. The Wales Regional Intelligence Unit has created an Operation to train officers, raise awareness of metal theft issues and to rate scrap metal dealers.
• Working with HMRC and Trading Standards to disrupt all avenues of criminal activity in relation to metal theft by using all available powers. Nottinghamshire Police, as part of the East Midlands regional sub group, has targeted a specific dealer and carried out enforcement and disruption activity with partner agencies.
3. To reduce the ease and reward to offenders of selling stolen metal – To provide dealers with the tools to identify stolen metals and discourage the thieves from stealing metal by reducing the cash benefits and increasing risk.
• A scheme in Wales has led to 80 itinerant SMDs in the Caerphilly formally registering as scrap metal dealers and a letter has been sent to them outlining their responsibilities.
4. Increasing the risk to dealers handling stolen metals – place a greater responsibility on scrap metal dealers to take all reasonable steps to ensure they are not unintentionally supporting criminal activity.
• A BTP lead operation involving Durham, Cleveland and Northumbria Police as well as the British Metal Recycling Association (BMRA) to introduce more stringent controls to scrap metal dealers. This is a three to six month trail.
The ACPO strategy is implemented through the ACPO Metal Theft Working Group. A Plan of Work for Reducing Metal Theft has been produced. The Plan allocates lead agencies to the points 1-4 identified above and outlines the activity that they are responsible for and the product expected to be produced to assist with that activity.
The lead agencies and key points within the plan of work can be summarised as follows:
• Utilities – To increase the effort required to steal metal as identified in point 1 above.
• Institute of materials – To identify more sustainable ways of designing out metal theft with the production of a long term strategy document for outlining proposals to reduce metal theft through manufacturing processes.
• Wales Regional lead – To increase the risk to offenders by ensuring that the theft of metal is no longer seen as low risk to the criminal by supporting the use of targeted enforcement.
• The police to reduce the ease and rewards to offenders of selling stolen metal as outlined in point 3 above.
• The police to increase the risk for dealers handling stolen materials as in point 4 above.
• Home office – To review existing legislation affecting the scrap metal industry
The work is then further developed by Metal Theft Regional sub groups which consist of groupings of geographically close forces.
Regional sub groups have implemented the ACPO plan of work strategy using different styles and tactics. Often the level of activity and commitment will depend on what priorities the individual Forces have within each sub group. It is clear from some of the regional sub group updates that some Forces are unaware of the extent of their metal theft problem because of data collection issues.
The Regional sub groups face a major challenge. The value of metal to a thief far outweighs the risk of being successfully prosecuted when existing legislation is used. Likewise SMDs who choose to accept stolen metal or breach the Scrap Meta Dealers Act do so knowing that the financial reward makes the risks taken more than worthwhile
Target Hardening
ACPO has worked in partnership with a number of infrastructure owners to target harden vulnerable locations .However; this is often expensive and impractical to do so on a large scale. The cost to British Telecom of target hardening metal manhole covers is £500 per manhole. There are some 5 million manhole covers in the UK.
A number of companies have invested in DNA technologies which when applied to the company’s metal assets transfer unique marks to those who attempt to steal it. The prevention element here comes from the associated signing that is installed to alert would be thieves of the deployment. It is not practical to deploy this preventative measure on all metal assets due to the sheer quantity and geographic spread of the assets.
Offender Management .
The perpetrators of metal theft can generally be split into two groups, individuals and organised crime groups. This latter group can be further split into two distinct sub-groups being internal and external.
Individuals
British Transport Police (BTP) data indicates that the majority of incidents involving metal theft are perpetrated by local offenders. This data correlates with Home Office Force reporting which suggest that much of their metal theft problem is carried out by local Prolific and Priority offenders.
The profile of offenders is that they tend to be white, European males, in their 20’s and 30’s with a history of ‘traditional’ acquisitive crime. The Metropolitan Police Service report that 83% of offenders for metal theft have a previous conviction for acquisitive crime. This tends to indicate that the offence is seen as a low risk and high reward one by offenders.
Organised Crime Groups (OCGs)
Metal theft on a grander scale tends to be as a result of the involvement of OCGs. They operate with cross border links, often with access to specialist knowledge and equipment to enable them to deal with technicalities of ‘live cable’ and the large quantities involved.
The profile of offender is predominantly male, in their 20s-50s who are willing to travel long distances in order to specifically target high value goods in the rail, telecommunications and power industries.
Analysis of BTP Operation Landmark identified offenders travelling hundreds of miles daily, from their homes in Derbyshire to commit thefts in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, the West Midlands and beyond. The total cost of 67 offences that were committed by the group to Network Rail was £933,895.88.
OCGs can be broken down into two distinct sub groups internal and external.
Internal – These are industry based offenders who use intimate knowledge of their respective industry’s to acquire and dispose of metal for their own personal gain. These groups are highly organised and use their positions within an organisation to access vulnerable material at locations that would be unknown to others. For example at the site of engineering works on the railway.
Often they will make use of legitimate vehicles and will take metal to favoured Scrap Metal Dealers (SMDs) in order to convert the metal into cash.
External – Offenders in these particular groups tend to be from the travelling fraternity and are known to travel considerable distances in order to offend. There is evidence that recently these groups are taking a more organised approach to metal theft criminality.
There are 205 known OCGs involved in criminality related to metal theft. The MPS has recorded the most (128) and the BTP has recorded 24 nationwide.
Enablers
This submission has stated the value of metal drives this crime and the ease of conversion into cash makes it attractive. There are certain other areas that provide thieves and dealers with a marked advantage and allow the unscrupulous to benefit from the misery caused to communities and train passengers.
Some Metal Dealers fail to comply with the Scrap Metal Dealers Act within which there are a number of weaknesses. While Scrap Metal dealers are required to register with local authorities there is no power to reject applications.
There is also no effective licensing or supervisory regime for scrap metal dealers once they are registered. Some SMDs do not keep records as required of them under the Scrap Metal Dealers Act. The Act stipulates that records should be maintained and details certain information that should be recorded for each sale.
There is no requirement to corroborate the information with documentary evidence. This provides a deliberate cloak of anonymity to those who sell stolen metal. It makes and police enquiry work almost impossible to identify suspects and differentiate those from legitimate trade.
This leads into the real difficulty in tracing metals once they have entered the dealers premises and been processed. There are no records maintained that allows metals to be traced back to the seller and without this line of enquiry proving ownership very difficult.
The significant use of cash in the industry causes a number of problems for police. When cash is used to settle trades there is no audit trail. There is no way of identifying who paid for what, how much was paid, when it was paid and to whom it was paid. Therefore, making the identification of a suspect in unlawful transactions difficult if not impossible. For dishonest operators cash also allows the avoidance of tax and the opportunity to launder money.
Fines in relation to breaches of the Act are limited to a maximum of £1000 which is a level 3 fine. The average fine handed down to offenders charged by the BTP for SMD Act offences is £379. The rewards received by those SMDs who decide not to comply with the legislation significantly outweigh the risks and consequences that a court can impose. Particularly when the price of copper remains above £5000 per tonne mark.
If the outlets available to dispose of stolen metal were better regulated and controlled, then disposal would be made much more difficult and the operations of the illegal market that exists would be disrupted. Furthermore it would help protect public safety, services and commerce by preventing the thefts.
Conclusion
Despite the police activity metal theft has continued to increase. All avenues to reduce metal theft have been exhausted and it is strongly felt by the police that legislative change is the only way to deal with an offence that is being market driven (see Appendix A for review of current legislation).
It is the police position that significant impact could be made against the problem of metal theft if the following regulation were available:
• An effective and enforced licensing scheme for metal dealers with the opportunity for a licence to be revoked for non compliance with conditions or for criminal activity.
• The requirement within the licence conditions for metal dealers to collect and retain documentary proof of identity and address from all sellers.
• A general requirement to exercise due diligence in regard to what a metal dealers buys.
• Appropriate penalties available for non compliance with licence conditions or criminal activity that is sufficient to act as a deterrent against the considerable rewards that can be gained.
• Options for more stringent conditions to be applied to a licence in the event of non compliance, including:
1. Restrictions on cash transactions 2. Requirement to retain metal in the form it is received for a specified period 3. Requirement to maintain CCTV at weighbridges and pay stations.
• The power for the police or other authorised persons to apply for a closure order for an illegally operating metal dealer. Closure would allow the revocation or application of additional conditions. Similar powers exist under the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003, part 1 in relation to premises where drugs are used and part 6 the environment and specifically closure of noisy premises.
If SMDs and other outlets used to sell stolen metal to were better regulated it would make it more difficult to realise the cash value of the metal. The ‘market’ that exists and supports the current wave of criminality would be significantly reduced. If there is no opportunity to convert the goods to cash then the stolen metal becomes valueless and not worth stealing.
31 October 2011
Written Evidence from South West Trains (CTR 13)
1. Executive Summary
The organised theft of metals is having a huge impact on the rail industry and its passengers as well as on other critical aspects of the national infrastructure. It is a growing problem nationally with South West Trains having its first two major incidents in recent months.
2. South West Trains fully supports the work of the British Transport Police in tackling the issue of cable theft but believes that more needs to be done in the regulatory area by Government. This should include a robust licensing regime including a licence fee for scrap metal dealers, police powers to close scrap metal dealers and to search and investigate all scrap metal premises, restrict the trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and increased powers for magistrates to add restrictions to licences and to prevent the reopening of closed yards.
3. South West Trains
South West Trains runs a mixture of commuter routes into London and longer distance services to South West London, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Avon. We run some 1680 trains per weekday and carry around 500,000 passengers each day.
4. The problem – delays and safety
Cable theft on the rail industry has grown by around a third between 2008/9 and 2010/11 despite the industry spending a considerable amount of time and money combating this crime. This includes burying cables, use of covert CCTV, special identifiers on cables, invisible marking of cable, gluing cable in place and the use of trembler alarms. The industry is also seeking to educate people and is working with British Transport Police (BTP) to visit scrap dealers, using Crime Watch and other metal campaigns, but this activity is not delivering sufficient results. There is a limit to what can be achieved through detection and prevention alone given the resources that would be required to actively monitor the whole rail network in real time on a 24 hour 7 day a week basis. The amount of time and resource that BTP and Network Rail are already deploying to combat these crimes mean that they have less resource to deal with other types of crime and to make other performance improvements both of which would benefit passengers. The industry is playing its part but needs government action and support on this issue.
5. The seriousness of this type of crime was brought home to South West Trains by the events of 9th June where cable thieves disabled Network Rail’s signalling system in the Woking area at around 18.40 in the evening peak and caused huge delays to around 80,000 South West Trains customers in the evening and in some cases into the following morning.
6. On the evening in question, 17 of our longer distance trains were over 3 hours late with 8 of these over 4 hours late. A further 14 trains were over one and a half hours late and an additional 80 trains were between 20 minutes and 90 minutes late and in many cases after being severely delayed these trains had to be cancelled as train crews were unable to work longer hours due to safety regulations. This meant that many customers were heavily delayed and some could not get home until the early hours of the morning. Feedback suggests that many customers did not go back into work on what was by then the same day. The cable theft incident also caused some passengers to self-evacuate from trains and walk along the tracks which meant that Network Rail had to turn the power supply off to our trains which are powered from ground level “third” rails. One of these passengers was a heavily- pregnant woman. This in turn meant that the air-conditioning on our heavily-loaded trains could not work whilst the power was off.
7. South West Trains has experienced a further instance of cable theft since June, this time just south of Guildford early on a weekday morning. Again many thousands of passengers were delayed although this time not as badly as 9th June. Some of the customers that were impacted may well have decided to stay at home rather than go to work and this is not helpful for the economy. Both of these instances of cable theft gained media coverage and there is, of course, a risk that this sort of adverse publicity may eventually have an effect on demand and the attractiveness of the railway to passengers. Word of mouth from passengers stuck on a train that doesn’t move for up to four hours also deters rail travel. A further minor incident involved the recent theft of lead from the roof of Basingstoke station.
8. The safety implications from cable theft are really concerning not to mention the personal and economic dislocation that these events can cause. This problem is not confined to the rail industry and rail is a member of a pan-industry group representing the main industries affected including power and telecommunications. The British Transport Police estimate that the cost to the UK economy of this disruptive activity in 2010 was around £800m. The problem is also growing as these two incidents are the first that have really affected our network.
9. Current BTP proposals
Through this pan-industry group, Stagecoach fully supports the work of the BTP on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers in their aims to:
9.1 Make cable/metal increasingly difficult to steal (through target hardening/mitigation/sharing of best practise); 9.2 Increase the risk to offenders (though tougher sentencing/better chance of being caught); 9.3 Reduce the value of the commodity to offenders (possibly through technology to “contaminate” stolen metal); 9.4 Reduce the attractiveness of stolen metal to scrap metal dealers; 9.5 Seek legislative change to take away the illegal market in stolen metal.
10. Further recommendations for action
Criminal activity in this area is so damaging to our wider economy that we simply must act in this case. We understand that government is now minded to look at a range of options to tackle this problem including introducing new or amending legislation directed at the scrap metal industry and we strongly support this. Among the measures we wish to see are:
10.1 A robust licensing regime (rather than the present registration) with clear requirements upon the dealer to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received.
10.2 Scrap metal dealers to pay a licence fee in order to give local authorities greater funds to facilitate the regulation of the licence.
10.3 Property obtained by virtue of breaches of the legislation should be regarded as criminal assets allowing Proceeds of Crime provisions to apply.
10.4 Police powers to close scrap metal dealers in line with alcohol licensing and police authority to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer.
10.5 Restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduce a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed.
10.6 Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it (e.g. through photo id and CCTV).
10.7 Magistrate powers to add restrictions on to licences and to prevent re-opening of closed yards until conditions have been met.
11. Clearly there are many entirely legitimate businesses operating in this arena and there is no desire to penalise these businesses. Indeed, it is hoped that improved legislation to remove dealers who deliberately seek to profit from crimes will actually increase business for the remaining, legitimate metal recycling companies. We would also expect that these regulations, particularly in respect of cash payments, will increase the amount of tax payments to the Treasury. We believe that these regulations would have a very positive overall economic impact as well reducing the number of disruptive events for rail passengers.
12. We understand that the BTP are working with Home Office officials on preparations for potential legislative change. We strongly welcome this initiative and hope that we can count on government’s continuing commitment in securing the support needed across government to make very rapid progress on this important issue. In our view it is absolutely essential that new regulations are introduced as soon as possible.
1 November 2011 Written Evidence from the Department for Transport (CTR 14)
Issue/Impact 1 The national rail network is suffering substantial and growing damage from the theft of metal, particularly cable (as to varying degrees are other transport sectors and other parts of the economy, and indeed other economies globally). Given the wide geographical spread and exposure of the rail network, and its reliance on cabling for signalling and power, theft is both extremely difficult to prevent and has a disproportionately severe impact on the railway and its users. Ultimately there is a real concern that metal theft, by damaging this key national infrastructure and reducing its reliability, may result in an adverse impact on growth and the economy.
2 In 2010/11, Network Rail incurred costs of £16.5 million in repairing damage from cable theft and in compensating operators for the delays (of over 6,000 hours during the year) arising from thefts. This represented an increase from £14.0 million in 2009/10 and £12.3 million in 2008/09. In addition to the direct costs on Network Rail, the Department has estimated that there was an economic cost to passengers and freight users of some £10 million during 2010/11.
3 The industry is now suffering several theft or attempted theft incidents a day, and trains are currently being cancelled at levels in excess of 500 per month. Recent high-profile cases include ones at Woking on 9 June and at London Bridge on 6 September, each of which resulted in over 10,000 minutes of delay to trains. Even if cable is cut but not taken – for instance if the thieves discover it is not copper – the disruption and cost of repair can be just as severe.
4 Annex 1 provides further information about the scale of the cost and delay impacts on Network Rail.
Action in hand 5 With the strong support of Ministers, Network Rail (NR) and the British Transport Police (BTP) are in the forefront of efforts to tackle the metal theft problem, and working closely with other police forces and agencies. At national level, the approach is to look for measures to make metal more difficult to steal, to increase the risk of offenders being successfully prosecuted, to reduce the rewards from stealing metal, and to raise standards within the scrap metal industry.
6 The BTP has a lead role in preventing and detecting cable theft on the railway. Cable theft is its second highest priority, after counter-terrorism. In response to the issue, BTP: • has set up a dedicated task force, has increased patrols and has targeted irresponsible scrap dealers; • has raised the profile of the issue within the police service and leads on metal theft nationally for the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), working closely with other forces; • chairs ACPO’s metal theft working group, which provides a high- level national forum bringing together senior police forces, infrastructure providers and Government Departments and agencies to drive concerted action to tackle the problem; • is working closely with the British Metal Recycling Association (BMRA) to educate scrap metal dealers about stolen metal. BMRA has produced a code of conduct for their members; • undertakes pro-active enforcement, both covert and overt, and seizes stolen cable whenever it is found; • uses Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to track vehicles around suspect scrap yards; • encourages the rail industry to practise better housekeeping and security at depots and lineside; • uses environmental powers to arrest those found burning the sheathing off cable; and • helps train selected Network Rail staff to equip them with basic skills in preserving evidence at theft scenes.
7 Network Rail has responded by: • funding additional, dedicated BTP officers; • participating in a national intelligence cell with BTP and working with affected infrastructure providers in the energy and other sectors to share intelligence and good practice; • employing CCTV, forensic marking, trembler alarms and other devices to protect cable; • installing a new type of cable that is easier to identify and harder to steal; • using only approved scrap yards for disposals of used materials, thereby helping police identify stolen cable; • seeking to raise industry and public awareness of the problem and to publicise successes such as prosecution of offenders.
8 BTP also uses the media pro-actively to highlight action against metal thieves and dishonest scrap dealers, intending that the resulting coverage should act as a reassurance to the many and a deterrence to the few. It has for example organised “days of action” to highlight BTP activity aimed at metal theft.
Next steps 9 DfT Ministers are working closely with Ministers in the Home Office – who have the overall lead within Government on metal theft - and other key Departments, to examine options for further action to tackle the problem and to progress the objectives noted at paragraph 5 above.
10 In the first instance, this involves exploring the scope for greater use of existing machinery and existing legislative powers, for example by way of better sharing of intelligence and best practice among the many agencies and businesses involved. This could include the wider use of voluntary codes of practice within the scrap metal industry. There may also be scope for more intensive enforcement of existing environmental and waste legislation, and for encouraging tougher penalties for offenders, for instance.
11 In addition, Ministers are considering whether there is a case for updating the present legislation on the scrap metal industry, the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964, and integrating it more effectively with the environmental waste regime. Concerns have been expressed that the 1964 Act is out-dated and fails to provide adequate mechanisms to enforce proper record-keeping, to protect legitimate dealers or to take effective enforcement action against those who operate illegally. It has also been suggested that a move to a cashless system might help to deter this crime by making it more difficult to dispose of stolen material anonymously.
12 Against that, it would be necessary to consider carefully the additional burden which new regulation might put on legitimate businesses, and the extent to which the disposal of stolen metal might still continue on an illegal basis. Given the Government’s general aim to reduce and simplify regulation, there would need to be a strong case made to justify any new regulation.
13 No decisions on specific measures have yet been taken, but Ministerial discussions are continuing as a matter of urgency and priority.
31 November 2011
ANNEX 1 Network Rail cable theft statistics – national and route 2008/09 – date
National Financial No. of Delay Compensation Total Cost** Year incidents^ minutes1 cost* 2011/12# 464 166,353 £5,877,347 n/a 2010/11 995 365, 265 £12, 137, 220 £16,510,663 2009/10 656 321, 570 £10, 931, 350 £13,961,998 2008/09 742 283, 167 £7, 858, 516 £12,264,682 Total 2,393 970, 002 £30, 927, 086 £42,737,343
Hours Delay 2011/12# - 2,772 2010/11 – 6,088 2009/10 – 5,360 2008/09 – 4,719
Notes
# Year to date – to end of period 5
^Number of incidents which caused delay to the operational network. It does not include thefts from depots, engineering sites or redundant cable.
1 Delay minutes provide an indication of the scale of inconvenience experienced by passengers and vary with each incident. If the theft is on a busy mainline then they rack up much more quickly than on quieter suburban lines. * Compensation costs (known as schedule 8 costs) are paid to train and freight operators for the disruption caused by the delay. This is a substantial part of the cost to the industry of cable theft but does not include the cost of staff time to repair and replace the cable, replacement cable itself and the cost of mitigation measures such as security patrols and investment in new technology. The amount of compensation paid depends on the type of services delayed. ** Total Cost comprises schedule 8 (compensation to train operators), as well as the average cost of replacement cable; average maintenance cost of attending to the fault and average opportunity cost of diverting this labour from elsewhere. This figure is only available as a national figure as it is an estimation based on averages. British Transport Police 2010/11 (nb. the number of crimes is not recorded in a way which directly tallies with NR’s recording of the number of incidents)
Crime area name No. of crimes (live and Arrests redundant cable) London North 321 112 London South 391 94 London Underground 123 77 North Eastern 1,184 273 North Western 273 109 Wales and Western 632 218 Scottish 192 31 Total 3116 914 Network Rail breakdown by route 2010/11 Route No. of Delay minutes1 Compensation Incidents cost* Anglia 74 21,055 £1, 089, 809 CTRL 1 31 £7,251 East Midlands 33 11,234 £282, 473 Kent 17 12,681 £417, 950 LNE 526 137,801 £3,531, 416 (London North Eastern) LNW 196 105,842 £2, 795, 811 (London North Western) Scotland 34 7,265 £254, 825 Sussex 3 764 £30, 081 Wessex 8 3,536 £140, 423 Western 103 65,026 £3,587, 181
Breakdown by route 2009/10 Route No. of Delay minutes1 Compensation Incidents cost* Anglia 79 40, 632 £2,643,979 CTRL 0 0 £0 East Midlands 27 6, 386 £155,750 Kent 10 3,331 £82,849 LNE 327 102, 680 £2,630,249 (London North Eastern) LNW 166 125, 089 £3,085,507 (London North Western) Scotland 2 142 £13,974 Sussex 1 748 £41,876 Wessex 3 71 £1,738 Western 41 42, 491 £2,275,430
Breakdown by route 2008/09 Route No. of Delay minutes1 Compensation Incidents cost* Anglia 26 12,253 £720,251 CTRL 0 0 £0 East Midlands 22 6,532 £215,439 Kent 23 5,570 £148,591 LNE 489 167,509 £4,725,454 (London North Eastern) LNW 136 71,548 £1,361,966 (London North Western) Scotland 10 4,396 £212,450 Sussex 0 0 £0 Wessex 1 12 £163 Western 35 15,347 £474,203
Further written evidence from the Department for Transport (CTR 14A)
Letter from Norman Baker MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport
At the Committee's evidence session on 29 November, I promised to provide further information on two issues.
Firstly, at questions 110 and 125, you asked about compensation from Network Rail to Train Operating Companies (TOCs), and how this related to compensation from TOCs to passengers for delays.
The short answer is that there is no connection between the payments made by Network Rail to the TOCs under Schedule 8 of the Track Access Agreement, and the compensation paid by the TOCs to passengers under Passenger's Charters. The former is designed to compensate TOCs from the long-term adverse impact of poor performance, whereas the latter is designed to compensate the passenger for the impact of delay on a particular journey.
While Network Rail has provided to the Committee information on the Schedule 28 compensation arising from cable theft, we-do-not-holdinformation on the amount of compensation to passengers arising from such incidents. I attach an annex which explains the two regimes in a little more detail, and a table showing the amount of compensation paid by those TOCs which operate the Delay/Repay regime. However these figures are for total compensation, not just relating to incidents caused by cable theft.
Second, Graham Stringer asked at questions 123 and 124 about trains being permitted to pass red signals in an emergency.
I would emphasise that we are only here considering the sort of situation where a train has been held at a red signal for a considerable time, and where the controller has taken a decision that it would be more appropriate to allow the train to be driven slowly past the signal to the next station to allow passengers to disembark, rather than leave them stuck on the train for possibly a very long period.
The Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) is fitted to some signals at locations where passing the signal overlap (the track area immediately beyond the signal post short of the protected feature) would carry a risk of a collision or similar event. This is indeed designed to prevent trains passing red signals. However, there are industry procedures under which operators can be authorised to activate the "TPWS train stop override", as I indicated in my answer to Q124. Full details of the Rule Book instructions pertaining to such manoeuvres are available on the RSSB website: http://www.rssb.co.uk/RGS/Pages/RulebookModules.aspx
13 December 2011
ANNEX
The compensation arrangements between Network Rail and the Train Operating Companies (TOCs), and between TOCs and passengers are covered by two separate regimes: Schedule 8 of the Track Access Agreement for the payments between Network Rail and the TOCs; and the National Rail Conditions of Carriage (NRCoC)/Passenger's Charter for payments between TOCs and passengers.
Schedule 8
The purpose of the compensation regime in the Track Access Agreements is to incentivise Network Rail and the train operator to achieve an acceptable level of performance, and for Network Rail to compensate the operator if performance drops below an acceptable level. Payments under this regime are also designed to compensate for the effect of delays on an operator's future business which, if unaddressed, could ultimately have an impact on public finances. The specific arrangements for compensation for delays are set out in the Track Access Agreements, and are part of a standard industry process in place since privatisation.
This compensation regime uses a different measure of performance to that of Delay Repay as it relates to wider performance rather than that of an individual service. It looks at the average lateness of trains per day across groups of services at various locations on each train's journey. It then splits the responsibility for this average lateness between Network Rail and the train operator, depending on the percentage share of responsibility for delays suffered by the operator. External events such as cable theft are treated as Network Rail's responsibility. There is a benchmark level for average lateness for these groups of services for both Network Rail and the operator, and money can flow to or from the operator depending on actual performance compared with this benchmark over a four week period.
The benchmarks are set for a five-year period (most recently in 2009) by the Office for Rail Regulation, based on recent historic performance for the relevant services, and those for Network Rail are progressively tightened to encourage improved performance over time. The level of compensation to the train operator (or payment to Network Rail if their performance is better than benchmark) takes account of the economic value of the group of services concerned.
The Schedule 8 compensation figures regarding cable theft for the last three full years at an annual level have been provided to the committee as part of Network Rail's evidence. Passenger Compensation The minimum compensation entitlements for train passengers in Great Britain are set out in the National Rrail Conditions of Carriage (NRCoC), which have been approved by the Department for Transport (DfT). The NRCoC provide an entitlement to claim compensation of 20% of the fare paid for the journey in the event of a delay of 60 minutes ormore, payable in national rail travel vouchers for passengers with single, return and weekly season ticket for delays which are within the control of the rail industry. There is no entitlement to compensation for delays which are caused by events outside the control of the rail industry, which include those due to cable theft (as well as other "external" events such as suicides and exceptionally severe weather which also disrupts other forms of transport). For passengers with monthly and longer season tickets, delays
due to events outside the control of the rail industry are also excluded from the annual performance statistics used to determine whether a discount is due on renewal.
All franchised TOCs are required under their franchise agreement to have in place a Passenger's Charter which has been approved by the DfT, which will include arrangements for compensation for passengers. In their Passenger's Charters, most TOCs do offer more than the NRCoC minimum. TOCs can also, at their discretion, go beyond the commitments in their Passenger's Charter on an ex gratia basis including providing compensation for "external" events such as cable theft. For TOCs which have Delay/Repay in their Passenger's Charter, all passengers are entitled to claim compensation for each delay of more than 30 minutes which they experience, whatever the cause. There are no exclusions for delays due to "external" events outside the control of the rail industry such as cable theft. Delay/Repay is being introduced in place of the discount system as new franchises are let, and as opportunities arise within existing franchises, notably Southeastern from 1 July 2011. The DfT does not have details of the amount of Passenger's Charter compensation paid by TOCs broken down by cause e.g. compensation for delays due to cable theft. The DfT has figures, attached, for those TOCs which have Delay/Repay in their Passenger's Charters, aggregated with other Passenger's Charter compensation they paid, for the 2009/10 and 2010/2011 financial years. These figures are likely to include compensation paid by these TOCs for non delay related matters (e.g. the train heating was not working) under their Passenger's Charters and the associated administration costs, as well as Delay/Repay compensation itself.
Compensation paid by Train Companies operating Delay/Repay
Train Company Description of Information 2009/10 2010/11 (0,000s) (0,000s)
London Midland Passenger's Charter/Delay Repay 268 309 CrossCountry Other compensation 525 470 Delay Repay 465 849 Southern Passenger's Charter/Delay Repay 4* 525 East Midlands Trains Passenger's Charter/Delay Repay 324 220 National Express East Coast Passenger's Charter/Delay Repay 806** N/A East Coast Passenger's Charter/Delay Repay 499*** 883
Notes *Delay Repay introduced on Southern on 20/09/09 **From 1/4/09-17/10/09. No figure available for 18/10/09 -14/11/09 ***From 15/11/09-31/03/10 Further written evidence from the Department for Transport (CTR 14B)
Letter from Rt Hon. Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Transport
Thank you for your letter of 1 December 2011 about the national taskforce to tackle metal theft announced as part of the Chancellor's Autumn Statement.
My officials are discussing with the Home Office and British Transport Police how best to implement this initiative as quickly as possible. We will make an announcement as soon as the arrangements are settled. But in broad terms we are looking to the BTP to manage the task force, within a broad remit to be set by Government, and it will be for them to determine details of its membership and operational role. I understand that the BTP are currently thinking in terms of establishing a strengthened central command and co-ordination team, building on existing BTP structures, supported by regional teams to bolster intelligence gathering and enforcement action around the country.
We do not envisage that the task force will have any new powers, but the task force will be working closely with Home Office police forces and other agencies such as the Environment Agency and HM RC to ensure maximum benefit can be secured within the existing statutory frameworks.
The £5 million funding for the taskforce became available from my Department's underspend for the current year. The aim is to get a substantial amount of worthwhile activity under way in the current financial year, but we recognise that this initiative will take time to secure its full benefits, and so we expect it will continue well into the following year, at least.
As you know, not least from Norman Baker's evidence to your inquiry, the Government is also considering longer-term options, such as tightening up the legislative regime for scrap metal. Given that any new legislation — if taken forward — would take time to implement, we are keen to take early action to ramp up our efforts to tackle this serious problem. We believe the taskforce will make a substantial contribution to filling that gap.
16 December 2011
Written Evidence from the Greater London Authority (CTR 15)
1. Introduction
1.1 The Greater London Authority (GLA) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Committee’s inquiry into this topic.
1.2 The theft of cable and other equipment containing metal has become a major issue with the global price of metals having risen significantly. Several sectors and organisations have been targeted, notably energy distribution, telecoms and transport, including Transport for London (TfL), which is part of the GLA family, and Network Rail.
1.3 There is legislation in place that can address metal theft and the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 is one relevant piece of legislation. However, there are significant problems with the practicalities of the legislation particularly in relation to traceability of metal once it has arrived at a scrap metal dealer and the ease with which stolen metal can be converted to cash. Whilst current legislation ensures that scrap metal dealers have to make certain records upon receipt of metal there is no need for them to corroborate the information given to them. This makes identification of stolen metal and the original owner of the metal very difficult. The conversion of metal to cash prevents any audit trail and makes many transactions unaccountable. These two issues are the root cause of the difficulties faced and sensible change to current legislation would considerably improve the means by which this problem can be addressed. Further details and our other recommendations are below.
2. Cable theft on the railways
2.1 It is estimated that cable theft cost London Underground (LU) between £1.9m and £4m in 2010/11 compared with more than £16½m for Network Rail. Cable and metal theft, however, can cause severe disruption to services, not only in terms of the immediate impact, but also in terms of the time taken to repair or replace missing equipment. This is in addition to the considerable safety risks people expose themselves to when trespassing on the railway to steal materials and equipment, and the potential for wider consequences caused by disruption to power and telecoms, such as the reduced access to 999 system.
2.2 Two distinct types of theft appear to predominate: random small-scale theft of signalling and other trackside cable and the more organised major thefts of complete drums from work sites using heavy plant. The perpetrators of these two types of crime appear to be equally distinct. The theft of complete drums, potentially involving organised groups, raises more complex questions of how cable from such thefts is being disposed of.
2.3 TfL’s material losses of in service cable have been relatively small by comparison with National Rail in terms of direct monetary losses resulting from the need to replace stolen cable and associated infrastructure damage, network disruption and lost customer hours and reputational damage. However, it is still an issue that impacts on London’s economy and the ability of people to travel on its transport networks.
2.4 The number of incidents is significantly lower on TfL’s rail networks (LU, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway) when compared to other areas of the country. This is because much of LU’s track is underground; train frequencies are higher; the generally higher standards of fencing; and the natural surveillance provided by operating in populated areas. This is in addition to the measures that TfL takes, alongside the British Transport Police (BTP), to combat the threat of cable theft (see Section 3).
2.5 There have also been instances of metal being stolen from bus stops and shelters, although crime on and around London’s bus network remains low. The majority of incidents have involved small quantities of metal being stolen and TfL has recorded more than 500 thefts of this type since July 2010. TfL and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) are working closely to combat this issue and are pursuing the harshest penalties for those found responsible, including civil debt recovery.
2.6. Cable theft strategies are in place for both LU and for the bus network and these plans are being implemented by multi-agency Infrastructure Security Groups. These groups meet regularly to monitor trends and current issues; to review tactics and interventions, and to monitor the effectiveness of specific activities.
2.7 The LU strategy, for example, identifies four priority areas:
• Cable in service (service impacting) – essential to the running of services; • Project cable – un-energised cable in the process of being or having been laid as part of network upgrades, improvements or repairs; • Redundant cable – taken out of service and no longer in use but acts as an incentive for criminal activity such as trespass; and • Bulk storage sites.
3 Measures to combat cable theft
3.1 TfL is also working with both the BTP and the MPS to tackle cable and other metal theft on the railway and wider transport system. A programme of measures has been adopted including:
• An extensive network of 12,000 CCTV cameras across the network, meaning that suspicious behaviour can be detected and police deployed. These cameras are used extensively for investigation and detection purposes; • A strong TfL-funded visible police presence, with some 700 officers patrolling the LU/Docklands Light Railway networks and enhanced policing on London Overground. In addition, there are over 1,000 officers in borough Safer Transport Teams who guard against metal theft from the surface transport system as part of their duties; • A workforce of over 15,000 operational staff, who are trained to report any suspicious behaviour or signs of trespass; • A zero tolerance approach to graffiti and trespass with an approach that, always pushes for the strongest possible action to be taken on both issues; • TfL assists the work of the BTP, who use various tactics including covert operations and community based intelligence; and • Developing work on increasing the marking of cables, swiftly clearing unused cable from the network and increasingly tracking the disposal of cables.
4 Recommendations
4.1 Although London has seen less of an impact than some areas, the number of incidents has risen significantly over the past three years and we take the issue extremely seriously. We believe that a number of further measures would greatly assist in tackling this problem. These include:
• Tougher penalties for trespassers on the TfL network. Currently, those who trespass on the network are committing an offence under TfL bye-laws. We want the Government to reclassify trespass on the transport network to make it an offence that carries a higher penalty;
• Reduce the prevalence of cash in the scrap metal system. The use of cash as the main medium of trading has attracted the increase in criminal activity. If the industry moved to a ‘cashless’ system this would help protect scrap dealers and aid criminal investigation. We want the Government to introduce a cashless system for the scrap metal sector. This has been done with some success in certain US states;
• Tighten up regulation of scrap dealers. We support any legislative change that would enhance the police’s powers in relation to the detection and prosecution of perpetrators and their accomplices. We want the Government to look at: o A programme of licensing for the scrap industry that includes provision for charging; o Granting the police enhanced powers of entry/seizure for breach of licence; o Improved ability for the police to implement closure orders; o Impose conditions for non-compliance/criminal activity; o The introduction of ‘suitability to trade’ regulations – so that those operating scrap yards meet some standard criteria about their suitability to do so; o Requiring scrap yards to produce documentation to the Police or authorised personnel; and o Creating a statutory duty on local police forces to monitor the scrap metal sector.
• Tougher penalties for those found guilty of metal theft. The GLA wants the Government and courts to recognise the impact of cable theft on the transport system and wider communities and introduce tougher penalties for those that commit offences. The creation of ‘aggravated’ offences related to infrastructure damage and theft (in a similar way as staff assault offences are considered ‘aggravated’ within sentencing guidelines) would, in our opinion, increase the deterrence value. We believe this will assist in delivering more effective enforcement against perpetrators of cable and metal theft.
5. Conclusion
5.1 Cable and metal theft from London’s transport infrastructure, and more generally, is a growing concern and working with other agencies, TfL has implemented a range of measures to address the problem. Further action, however, is required and the GLA and TfL are discussing the next steps with central government, the police and transport industry partners. On 29 November 2011, the GLA will hold a conference on metal
theft to bring together all relevant stakeholders in order to debate the issues, share best practice and agree future action.
2 November 2011
Written evidence from the British Metals Recycling Association (CTR 16)
1. Introduction
1.1 The British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA) is the trade association for ferrous and non-ferrous metal recycling companies throughout the UK and represents some 300 businesses from multi-national companies to small family-owned enterprises, which between them handle over 95% of the metal recycled in the UK. This £4-5 billion industry processes over 15 million tonnes of metal annually into valuable secondary raw material for metals manufacturing both here in the UK and in a wide variety of export markets.
1.2 The BMRA welcomes the committee’s inquiry into cable theft on the railway and is pleased to respond to the call for evidence. We are extremely keen to continue working with the Government, the police and others to minimise the opportunities for thieves to dispose of stolen metal. Of the estimated 15,000 tonnes of metal stolen each year, the majority is stolen from BMRA members despite their vigorous and continuing efforts to improve security. The UK metal recycling industry also fully recognises the impact that metal theft is having on services provided to the public by utility companies, rail companies and churches.
1.3 We are pleased that the Government has begun to recognise the severity of the problem of metal theft. The BMRA welcomed the pledge given by Defra in its review of waste policy, published in June 2011, to ‘work with police, the Home Office and the Environment Agencies to help deliver a more strategic national intelligence-led approach to tackling metal theft, targeting illegal traders whilst ensuring that law abiding business can trade in safety.’
Measures to combat cable theft
2. Asset protection
2.1 The BMRA recognises that there must be a much greater focus on the part of asset owners, in collaboration with police, insurance companies and others, to invest in asset security and designing out crime. This includes owners of metal recycling facilities in addition to the railway, churches and the utilities.
3. Improved enforcement
3.1 The BMRA believes that an urgent national review of enforcement practice is needed. We believe that attention should, first and foremost, be focused on consistent and effective enforcement of existing legislation. Persistently high levels of theft and low rates of successful prosecution indicate that current approaches are not having the desired effect, with enforcement activity being incorrectly targeted and highly variable in scope across the regions.
3.2 Improved targeting and coordination by police and the Environment Agency must be a starting point for any review of enforcement practice. Environmental protection agencies are better resourced and more focussed on maintaining accurate records of UK metal recycling facilities than local authorities can ever be. Therefore greater use of intelligence and collaboration between environmental protection agencies and the police should be encouraged. Concrete measures would include:
3.2.1 Reform the current funding arrangements for the Environmental Agency, to re- focus resources provided by those paying permit/ licence fees. Currently, the Environment Agency is only able to use the money it receives from fees to inspect those paying those fees. It cannot use these resources to target those that do not. Not only would such a shift allow the Environmental Agencies to target enforcement activities on those operating outside the permitting regime, it would also represent a much more effective use of public funds.
3.2.2 Reforming the Acts to allow police to enter unlicensed premises without warrant. The Acts currently allow the police to inspect only licensed operators without warrant.
3.2.3 National coordination between the police and EA
3.3 BMRA would welcome greater consistency in police activity through a single, national approach. Currently, BMRA members must contend with each police force deploying its own set of initiatives to address metal theft. Not only are the burdens imposed on metals recyclers by these initiatives highly variable, so is their effectiveness.
4. Updating Legislation
4.1 BMRA would welcome any steps to rationalise existing legislation, principally the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 to create an integrated, bespoke regime for metal recyclers and would be pleased to work with officials in the development of such a system.
4.2 An integrated regime must provide for improved coordination between authorities. At present scrap metal dealers must register with local authorities, whilst permits/ licences are issued by the Environmental Agencies. However, the Agencies and local authorities do not consult each other in the process. This means operators could be registered without holding a permit/ licence, and vice-versa. The Environmental Protection Agencies should become the sole authorities in their respective jurisdictions responsible for licensing and permitting operators.
5. Cashless trading
5.1 BMRA understands that the elimination of cash transactions is one of the options being considered by the Government. Our research indicates that cash is used in over half of the transactions undertaken by its members. The majority of the businesses involved are micro businesses, for whom cash trade makes up the vast majority of transactions.
5.2 Any move to restrict the use of cash in the purchasing of metal for recycling by licensed and permitted businesses will be seriously undermined unless the large, current number of illegal (un-licenced and/or un-permitted) businesses is radically reduced. Any move towards cash restrictions must therefore be preceded by effective enforcement against unregulated operators. Without this legitimate metal recyclers stand to lose substantial volumes of legitimate trade to illegal operators.
5.3 Clearly this outcome would not only seriously damage the metal recycling industry during a particularly difficult economic period but it would also serve to drive much of the wholly legal “gate” trade into the hands illegal operators, and would be ineffective in restricting the outlet for stolen material.
November 2011
Written evidence from The Office of Rail Regulation (CTR 17)
Reflecting our role, this response will cover:
1. The impact of these thefts on passengers and rail services 2. Safety issues 3. Measures to combat cable theft
Role of ORR ORR is the independent safety and economic regulator of Britain's railways. It is a non-Ministerial Government Department which is independent and accountable to Parliament.
ORR promotes safety and value in railways in England, Wales and Scotland. ORR: • Determines Network Rail’s outputs and funding, reflecting government specifications and the money available • Monitors and enforce delivery of those outputs • Ensures compliance with health and safety legislation for all railways in Great Britain, by inspection, audit and enforcement • Approves or directs applications from train operators for access to Network Rail’s network • Monitors and enforces compliance with competition and consumer law in the rail sector
However it does not regulate train franchises or fares - this is done by government.
Headline response The high price of copper makes signalling and other cables on the railway infrastructure an attractive target for thieves and therefore cable theft is a consistent problem on the UK rail network as well as more generally, including other utilities (such as electricity distribution)
Cable theft causes considerable delay, disruption and inconvenience to passengers; it requires inefficient use of Network Rail resources to remedy, and it significantly dilutes the normal engineering controls on risk.
Although the effects are primarily performance-related, when modified operating procedures are introduced they have greater potential for human error.
And while maintenance staff are responding to and rectifying cable theft faults they are not carrying out their planned proactive work, so there is a further impact on the safe and efficient management of assets.
ORR monitors and enforces Network Rail performance against overall targets set by our periodic review, which themselves reflect specifications set by government. We expect Network Rail to take actions open to it , including in respect of cable theft, to meet these targets.
ORR does not directly act to prevent cable theft but strongly supports Network Rail in its work on prevention, detection and response with partners including British Transport Police.
Given the high cost of disruption and delay to customers ORR would strongly support Government measures to regulate the trade in scrap metal.
Detailed response 1. The impact of these thefts on passengers and rail services Cable theft causes significant disruption to the normal operation of railways. Over the last three years, incidents attributable to cable theft have caused over 16,000 hours of delay which equates to around £43 million of lost revenue applying normal conventions used in operational performance regimes. This is besides the cost of replacement and repair of the cables.
External vandalism and theft was second only to external fatalities as a cause of Network Rail delay in the first half of 2011-12, accounting for 8.7% of delays.
In 2010-11, incidents of cable theft increased by 55.3 % compared to 2009- 10, whilst the delay minutes caused by cable theft increased by 13.6 %. . These delay figures do not include cancellations and therefore the impact on passengers will be greater than this.
There has been a clear, significant rise in the number of incidents since the start of 2010/11. The figures are (for cable theft):
Delay Delay mins Year Incidents minutes per incident 2007-08 693 244,074 352 2008-09 745 283,167 380 2009-10 658 321,570 489 2010-11 1,022 365,430 358 2011-12 (to P7) 634 237,968 375 % change 2010-11 to 55.3% 13.6% -26.8% 2009-10
Disappointingly, despite a relatively ambitious target and an undoubted increase in efforts at prevention and detection and at response (the latter reflected in the reduction in delay per incident) , there has been a further worsening in the overall impact on the railway.
2. Safety issues When the signalling system is interrupted, the infrastructure “fails to safe” which means that all lights turn red.
Subsequently, however, in order to move stationary trains, modified operating procedures are introduced which have a greater potential for human error:
• Manual route setting: points changed individually by members of staff on the ground rather than from a signal box where they are fully integrated with the associated signals.
• Verbal instructions to train drivers to pass signals at danger (red lights)
• Temporary block working: this is a very basic method for moving trains, where the network is divided into ‘blocks’ that may only hold one train at a time to prevent collisions.
• Reliance on voice communications rather than signals which are engineered to ensure safety.
• Absence of all the usual controls in the signalling system which only allow trains to proceed when the route has been proved clear of other traffic and the points correctly set.
These procedures are inherently time consuming and drivers will often be instructed to proceed more cautiously than usual. They rely on accurate communications between signallers and staff on ground as to the locations concerned, and on drivers obeying written instructions from a handsignaller.
Besides increasing journey times these procedures greatly reduce capacity. In practical terms this will manifest itself in cancellations of some trains or closure of some lines to focus on key routes. There will often be overcrowding on the remaining trains and at stations.
Anecdotally, ORR has seen an increase in operating irregularities attributable to disruption from cable theft. This includes wrongly routed trains, two trains in a section, and mistaken authorisation of conflicting moves.
3. Measures to combat cable theft ORR has met with Network Rail (NR) and British Transport Police (BTP) on several occasions to discuss the measures being taken to combat cable theft.
NR and BTP have introduced a number of initiatives to tackle the problem, including: • Burying cables as part of renewals schemes • The use of covert CCTV cameras at known “hot spots” • The use of readily identifiable railway cables • Marking the cables with an invisible dye, such as Smartwater™ • “Hardening” the infrastructure through putting foam amongst the cables in the lineside troughing, encasing in concrete and glueing the troughing lids down • The use of trembler alarms to give early warning of attacks • Extensive media campaigns and use of Crimestopper rewards • BTP visits to scrap metal dealers to search for stolen cable
BTP has also reorganised the force to include extra resources and officers embedded in NR to ensure better liaison. Non-police security officers have begun patrols on the London-North East route, augmenting BTP efforts and allowing them to target priority areas.
BTP has fed back that when deterrents are successful in one area they tend to shift the problem along to another. The best 'hardening' of targets is achieved when they anticipate where the thieves will move to.
However they noted that there is a pilot scheme currently running in County Durham to require that identification is provided when deals are done with scrap metal merchants.
8 November 2011