Channel Tunnel Safety Authority Annual Reports
Dear Office of Rail Regulation,
Please could you provide the five most-recently published Annual Reports of the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority (CTSA), ideally in electronic format. Note that the CTSA transferred from the Health and Safety Executive to the ORR on 1 April 2006; and that prior to this date the CTSA Annual Reports were available as PDFs from:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/railways/ctsa.htm
The ORR may, at its option, fulfil this request by making a full-set of PDF copies directly available via the ORR or IGC websites.
Please let me know if this request may benefit from additional clarification,
Paul Sladen
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Dear Mr Sladen,
Thank you for your email dated 14^th July requesting a copy of the five
most recently published Annual Reports of the Channel Tunnel Safety
Authority.
I am handling your request under the terms of the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 (FoIA 2000).
We aim to respond to all such requests within 20 working days of receipt
and a full response will be provided no later than 12^th August.
Should you have any queries about your request, please contact me.
Yours Sincerely,
Juliet Hyatt
Office of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London WC2B 4AN
Tel: 0207 282 2057
Dear Office of Rail Regulation,
Please could you provide the five most-recently published Annual Reports
of the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority (CTSA), ideally in electronic
format. Note that the CTSA transferred from the Health and Safety
Executive to the ORR on 1 April 2006; and that prior to this date the CTSA
Annual Reports were available as PDFs from:
[1]http://www.hse.gov.uk/railways/ctsa.htm
The ORR may, at its option, fulfil this request by making a full-set of
PDF copies directly available via the ORR or IGC websites.
Please let me know if this request may benefit from additional
clarification,
Paul Sladen
Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.hse.gov.uk/railways/ctsa.htm
Dear Mr Sladen,
Thank you for your email of 14th July requesting copies of the published Annual Reports of the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority. I apologise for the slight delay in responding to you.
We have considered your request under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000(FoIA 2000).
We have assumed that your request relates to the annual safety reports in respect of the Channel Tunnel produced pursuant to EC Directive 2004/49 on railway safety in the EU.
The Channel Tunnel Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) is the 'national safety authority' in accordance with the above Directive, advised by the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority (CTSA) as its statutory safety advisory body. As such it should be noted that IGC is responsible for publishing the annual safety report in respect of the Channel Tunnel. Reports covering each calendar year from 2007 to 2011 can be found on the IGC's website at http://www.channeltunneligc.co.uk/IGC-re... (English version) or http://www.cigtunnelmanche.fr/Rapports-d... (French version).
The report covering 2012 is due to be provided to the European Railway Agency on 30th September 2013 and will be similarly published on (or as soon as is practicable after) that date.
For the avoidance of doubt, no other reports that could be characterised as 'Annual Reports of the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority (CTSA)' are in existence for the years in question.
If you are unhappy in any way in which your request has been handled, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of this email and should be addressed to the Board Secretariat, at:
Office of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London WC2B 4AN
Tel: 0207 282 2044
Email: [email address]
If you are not content with the outcome of the review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner (IC) for a decision. Generally the IC cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by ORR. The IC can be contacted at:
The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
Web: www.ico.gov.uk
Yours Sincerely,
Juliet Hyatt
Office of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London WC2B 4AN
Tel: 0207 282 2057
Dear Julia Hyatt,
Thank you very much for the reply. It could be that the 2004/49/EC safety returns to the ERA (running 1 January–31 December) are the successors to the CTSA Annual reports to the IGC (running 1 April–31 March) if so I'm happy to accept them, though these don't look quite what I was expecting.
To give you an idea of what I was hoping to locate, here is the most recent copy of the earlier-style CTSA annual reports in electronic format:
"Sixteenth Annual Report of the Safety Authority to the Intergovernmental Commission, for the period of 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004."
http://web.archive.org/web/2005052011025...
I have a partial list of ISBNs for some of the series, though I do not yet have a full-set:
978-0115523144 - 24 September 2001
978-0117023895 - August 1999 (p.65)
978-0117026995 - 1999? (p.21)
978-0117022393 - March 1998
978-0115518515 - covering 1 April 1995 to 31 March 1996 (62 Pages) 8th report
978-0115510601 - 1993 (or 0115510605)
978-0115516891 - 1993-1994
978-0115518150 - 1994-1995
Based on the issue numbering, the first one in the series would have been 1 April 1988 to 31 March 1989.
It is possible that with both the 2004/49/EC requirements, and then the latter move from the HSE to ORR the reporting and format of the reports may have been adjusted. This should give you a better idea of the format and purpose of the earlier "Annual Reports of the CTSA", and so hopefully the equivalent successors produced under the ORR.
Many appreciations in advance for the time spent investigating this,
-Paul Sladen
Dear Mr Sladen,
I refer to your email below, which I forwarded to our Channel Tunnel Intergovermental Commission Unit (IGC).
They confirm that you are correct. The IGC now only publishes the annual reports that you were directed to in our response of 13th August. They are the successors to the CTSA Annual Reports and are in line with the requirements of Directive 2004/49.
I trust this explains the situation.
Yours Sincerely
Juliet Hyatt
Office of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London WC2B 4AN
Tel; 0207 282 2057
Dear Juliet Hyatt,
Thank you for the confirmation. Since the "last five" IGC-SA returns are those already published, I will close the formal part of this request.
To save anyone else asking the same in the future, do you have a list of exactly what was published during the gap period (so c.2004–2007). This would help to clarify where the accounting period changeover occurred, and help with compiling a contiguous set.
None-the-less, thank you for your assistance so far,
-Paul Sladen
Dear Mr Sladen,
I refer to your email below.
The reports that you mention are attached and my colleagues in the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority have further advised that "the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority (CTSA) historically published annual reports for a period from April to March. The last of these reports were published for the periods April 2003 to March 2004, April 2004 to March 2005, and finally, April-December 2005 (these were previously made public on the HSE website but have most likely now been archived). In 2007, the IGC began publishing annual reports in accordance with its duty under Article 18 of Directive 2004/49 for the preceding calendar year, therefore all reports for annual periods from January 2006 onwards can be found at the following page on the IGC website:
http://www.channeltunneligc.co.uk/IGC-re...
I hope this information is useful.
Yours Sincerely
Juliet Hyatt
Office Of Rail Regulation
One Kemble Street
London WC2B 4AN
Tel: 0207 282 2057
Dear Julia Hyatt,
This is an absolutely superb answer. Thank you for digging these up, and both your own summary and introductory preface letter now cover the change-over precisely. (For the benefit of future readers the preface letter reads):
"I attach the Annual Report of the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority for the period from 1 April 2005 to 31 December 2005. … This will be the last in the series of Annual Reports published by the Safety Authority. … These arrangements will commence in 2007 with a report covering the 2006 calendar year. … In order to make the transition from financial year to calendar year reporting, the attached report covers the nine-month period from April to December 2005"
Once again, thank you very much for your time spent tracking down these last three of the old-style reports which CTSA produced during the change-over. Be sure to enjoy the rest of the day, knowing that this is exactly what was desired.
With really grateful appreciations,
-Paul Sladen
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