Brian Cooke was formerly Vice-Chair of RPC Eastern England. As Chairman of London Travelwatch he was a Board member of Passenger Focus. Eastern England is grossly over-represented on the Passenger Focus. Other PF^▸ (Penalty Fare) Board members with Eastern England connections are David Burton, Kate Gordon (former member of RPC Eastern England), Derek Langslow (former Chair of RPC Eastern England), Bill Samuel (former member of RPC Eastern England) and Barbara Saunders. They were appointed to the PF Board when Stuart Francis, former Chair of RPC Eastern England, was Chairman Designate of Passenger Focus. Francis, Burton and Samuel were all members of the Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority.

A new staff list was posted on the Passenger Focus website on 1st
November. The changes from the October list are as follows:

Ashwin Kumar has been appointed to the new post of "Passenger
Director"
Pete Thompson, "Passenger Research Manager" has gone and has been
replaced by Janet Cardell, "Interim Head of Research"
Jane Cobell, "Press Officer", has gone
The job titles of the 3 "Passenger Contact Advisers" AND the 2
"Passenger Advisers" has been changed to "Senior Passenger Adviser"
Shaun Rice and Greg Kyndt have been appointed as "Passenger Advisers"

Passenger Focus might consider trying to reduce the number of times their restructure and their rate of staff turnover and the consequent cost to the taxpayer: see http://groups.google.com/group/uk.railway/msg/e880a461480654bd and http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2007-10-11a.154465.h

http://www.dft.gov.uk/foi/responses/2007/foioct20071/foirailpassengercommittee/

Gives revealing information about the initiative to abolish the Rail Passengers Committees, which came from RPC management not from the Government. The proposal was first put forward by Stewart Francis, Chairman of the Rail Passengers Council, who had been called in to explain to Kim Howells, the rail minister, why the RPC had such a large budget.

The following link may be of interest

http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1121304351

What right have Passenger Focus to demand that people wishing to attend their "Board" meetings give them notice? Tne public have a statutory right to attend their meetings - see paragraph 16 of Schedule 5 of the Railways Act 2005 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2005/ukpga_20050014_en_15#sch5-pt6
Their 2007-08 Business Plan says that they will have monthly private meetings while having only four so-called "public" meetings at which the public are not allowed to speak. They had a "public" meeting at a hotel in Leeds on 15 May which was attended by only two outsiders.  Why are they discussing the review of their Passenger Advice Team, "Resources" and their Communications Strategy in private session at the meeting on Tuesday. They received ^5.1 million of taxpayers' funding last year and we have a right to hold them to account.

Alison will be giving a presentation at the Passenger Focus meeting in the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel on the afternoon of Tuesday, 11 September. See the agenda at http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk/news-and-publications/document-search/default.asp?keywords=&topic=&year=&type=592&sdocsearch.x=15&sdocsearch.y=4

Alison Forster, Managing Director  of First Great Western and  Robin Gisby of Network Rail will be making a joint presentation at the public meeting of the Passenger Focus Board to be held at 2pm on Tuesday,11 September, at the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, College Green, Bristol. The agenda for the meeting can be downloaded from the Passenger Focus website at www.passengerfocus.org.uk The direct link to the agenda is:

http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk/news-and-publications/document-search/default.asp?keywords=&topic=&year=&type=592&sdocsearch.x=15&sdocsearch.y=4

Regards