Fatigue and Drafts of the Sandilands Crash Investigation Report published 7 December 2017
Dear Rail Accident Investigation Branch,
The second RAIB interim report into the Sandilands crash (published February 2017) does not mention fatigue, but the final report first published 7 December 2017 highlighted substantial areas (cf. paragraphs 362-382) in which First Group TOL's fatigue management "was not always in line with published industry practice". Furthermore, Recommendation Number 11 in the final investigation report mandates First Group TOL to 'overhaul' its fatigue management systems (cf. https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2018...). For the period February 2017 to 7 December 2017, please provide copies of the last draft of the final Investigation Report published on 7 December 2017 which does not mention fatigue, and the first draft which did, as well as copies of any internal communications which mention the issue of fatigue and resulted in its eventual inclusion in the final Investigation report published on 7 December 2017.
Yours faithfully,
Tom Kearney
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your request for information which
has been allocated reference number F0017577.
A response will be issued to you in due course.
Regards,
Department for Transport
FOI Advice Team
Governance Division
Zone D/04
Ashdown House
Sedlescombe Road North
St Leonards on Sea
East Sussex
TN37 7GA
Mr Kearney
Thank you for your e-mail and your interest in the work of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch.
Please see attached response.
Regards
Dear Enquiries,
Re your 22 July 2019 response to FOI F0017577 the letter states "that is because every draft of the investigation report discussed fatigue". Is that a correct statement? Please note that a simple word search of "Interim report 01/2017: Second interim report into a fatal tram accident, Croydon" published on 20 February 2017 (found at https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/second-i...) does not reveal the word "fatigue" occurring even once. A simple word search of RAIB's final report issued on 7 December 2017 reveals the word "fatigue" occurring on 25 pages of the 175 page report (cf. https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/overturn...). Accordingly, at some point between when the RAIB issued Interim report 01/2017 on 20 February (where the word "fatigue" does not occur even once in the 12-page report ) and the RAIB's final report issued on 7 December 2017, the word "fatigue" must have entered into a draft of the investigation report. So, my question still stands: "Please provide copies of the last draft of the final Investigation Report published on 7 December 2017 which does not mention fatigue, and the first draft which did."
Yours sincerely,
Tom Kearney
Dear Mr Kearney,
Thank you for your email of 22 July regarding our response to your FOI enquiry F0017577.
Your FOI request asked us to "…provide copies of the last draft of the final Investigation Report published on 7 December 2017 which does not mention fatigue, and the first draft which did, as well as copies of any internal communications which mention the issue of fatigue and resulted in its eventual inclusion in the final Investigation report published on 7 December 2017".
Our response to you is entirely accurate. Interim reports are not drafts of final investigation reports; they are simply updates on progress. A simple comparison of our final report with our interim reports will show that the former has significantly more content than the latter. The non-inclusion of the word fatigue in our two interim reports was a deliberate decision of the Branch given that our investigations into these matters were still ongoing. The drafting of our final report did not start until the early summer of 2017.
I should also remind you that all of our draft reports are working documents of the Branch and we would not disclose them in response to a FOI request (they fall within Regulation 10(3)(e) which we have referred to in our response to your other four FOI requests).
I hope this clarifies matters. As we stated in our original response, Chris Ford would be happy to talk to you about the RAIB’s investigation into the accident at Sandilands in a little more detail, and RAIB’s investigation processes generally, should you wish.
Regards
Colin Ryan
Head of Corporate Governance
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