0
1
Introduction
Network Rail owns and looks after Britain’s railway infrastructure. We don’t operate trains, but
we do make sure they can run safely and reliably through our work in maintaining and
enhancing the railway infrastructure. We also manage 20 of Britain’s biggest and busiest
stations. A full list of the stations we manage is on page 7 of this document.
At Network Rail we care about the people who live alongside our tracks and infrastructure.
We know that our work can cause some disruption and noise so we do our best to limit this,
but the nature and scale of our work means that sometimes, disruption is unavoidable.
Railway stations are where people’s journeys begin and we want passengers to have the best
possible experience at our railway stations. This includes any passenger assistance that has
been booked with our staff at stations. If something isn’t quite right, we want to know about it.
With this in mind, we have developed this complaint handling procedure which describes what
to do if you ever want to make a complaint to Network Rail.
This procedure explains what to do if you want to report a problem, and how we will investigate
and respond to your concern. It has been designed with our passengers and lineside
neighbours in mind. A complaint is defined as any expression of dissatisfaction by a customer
or potential customer about a service delivery or company or industry policy.
In addition to the commitments made in this document, Network Rail will comply with the Data
Protection Act at all times.
Contacting us
You should contact Network Rail to report a problem, complain or provide feedback about:
• Work on the railway infrastructure, including track maintenance, work to electrify lines,
and for major projects on the railway
• How we maintain our land alongside the track
• Our infrastructure (e.g. level crossings)
• One of the 20 major stations that we manage (see page 7 of this document)
If you ever need to report a problem or complain to Network Rail, we want to provide a
response and, if possible, a resolution as soon as possible. Below, we have listed our various
contact details:
• Telephone – 03457 11 41 41
If you have a safety concern, please call us at this number.
This is the National Helpline number. You can call our National Helpline 24 hours a
day, seven days a week including bank holidays. You will be connected to a Network
Rail employee who will attempt to resolve your query over the phone. This is usually
2
the quickest way to find a solution. If the query can’t be resolved immediately, we will
log your complaint through our system.
• Online – www.networkrail.co.uk/contactus
You can access frequently asked questions or choose to make a complaint to Network
Rail from the above link, which is also where you will find our online contact form. We
provide access to this document from the link provided.
• Live chat – Our live chat is available between 07:00 and 19:00 Monday to Sunday at
www.networkrail.co.uk/contactus
• Social Media (Twitter) - @networkrail
For full details on how we manage contact through social media, please read our social
media terms of service. We respond to as many queries as we can on twitter or will
help and direct you to log a complaint if you would like to. We will always try to be as
helpful as possible and understand your frustrations, but please remember
@networkrail is managed by real people – abuse will not be tolerated under any
circumstances. Please note that we will not respond to complaints on social media that
name staff members. Our National Helpline number and website details are on our
twitter profile.
• Our managed stations
All of our employees are trained to help you resolve your query. Speak to any Network
Rail member of staff at one of our managed stations and they will attempt to resolve
the query there and then, or provide you with a station complaint form at your request.
All of our frontline staff are trained and encouraged to try and resolve your query and
provide assistance, or help you to submit your complaint if you wish to do so. Contact
details and facility information for individual stations can be found here.
• Post
We have eight regional community relations teams throughout the country. If action is
required, our central team will pass your query or complaint to the team that works in
your area.
Network Rail
Waterloo General Office
London
SE1 8SW
Our contact details are available at the sign posted information points on, or close to, the main
concourse of any Network Rail managed station. Alternatively our contact details are
published in our Annual Return from 2016 onwards, or on the ‘contact us’ page of our website.
To be able to respond to your complaint, there is some essential information that we will need
from you:
3
• What? A summary of your issue. If the issue relates to an injury or damage it will be
dealt with under our claims process reported to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).
• Where? Where the issue occurred
• Who? Your name and contact details so we can keep in touch about your complaint
• When? As much information as you can provide for times and dates of incidents
The structure of the rail industry can be difficult to understand. We will respond to all issues
relating to Network Rail, our contractors, or involving Network Rail and other railway
organisations. If required, we will collaborate with the relevant organisation to provide you with
a response. If you contact us about an issue which mainly relates to a Train Operating
Company (TOC), we will forward your complaint to them. This includes any enquiries about
claiming compensation as a result of a delayed train service. More detail about delay repay
can be found on the national rail website or from employees at our managed stations.
We will keep a digital record of your complaint and the action taken in our system. We archive
records after six years and delete them after eight years. Our privacy policy ensures that we
only use the information you provide to us for the intended purpose and explains how you can
request a copy of information we hold about you and your complaint. You can ask for your
details to be removed at any time.
Alternative Dispute Resolution
If you are not satisfied with our initial response, please let us know as soon as possible. You
can contact the Rail Ombudsman through its website www.railombudsman.org, by emailing
info@railombudsman.org or by telephoning 0330 094 0362.
For passenger complaints, you can also contact:
London TravelWatch
www.londontravelwatch.org.uk
For complaints about rail services within the
London area
E-mail: [email protected]
Telephone: 020 3176 2999
Twitter: @LonTravelWatch
Post: London TravelWatch
169 Union Street
London
SE1 0LL
Transport Focus
www.transportfocus.org.uk
For complaints about rail services outside
the London area
E-mail: [email protected]
Telephone: 030 0123 2350
Twitter: @TransportFocus
Post: Freepost RTEH-XAGE-BYKZ
PO Box 5594
Southend-On-Sea
SS1 9PZ
If you tell us that you are unhappy with our initial response, we will respond again and also
provide you with contact details of London TravelWatch and Transport Focus.
If you contact any of these organisations to launch an appeal on your behalf, they will request
4
a copy of your case file including all of your personal information from us. We may divulge
details of your complaint where it is necessary.
Adjustments for Passengers
However you contact us, you can authorise a carer, support worker, guardian or other third
party to act on your behalf. We train our employees to be reactive to customers’ needs so if
you need any adjustments or assistance to make a complaint we will be happy to help. If you
would like any information in a more accessible format, please call our National Helpline.
Service Standards
Our complaint handling procedure is owned by the head of contact and community. Controls
are in place to ensure that our procedures and people meet the commitments in this document
to fully, fairly and transparently respond to your concerns. This section tells you what you can
expect from us if you ever need to make a complaint.
1 – Acknowledgement
However you choose to contact us to make a complaint, we will send you an acknowledgment
within five working days. This lets you know that we have received your complaint and
provides three important pieces of information about how we will handle it:
• Your unique complaint reference number. When you first contact us about a query
or complaint, we log this on our customer portal and give you a unique reference
number. This number will be included in all communications you receive from us, and
quoting it is the easiest way to get an update on the progress of your complaint. You
can also use it to track your query or complaint at www.networkrail.co.uk/contactus
• Response time. If you report a problem relating to safety, we will give this absolute
priority. In other circumstances, we aim to respond to 95% of all station-related
complaints within 20 working days.. If there are any issues affecting our overall
response time we will provide you with adjusted timescales. We will also provide this
information to Transport Focus, London TravelWatch and ORR.
• The complaints process. The service standards provided here give you all the
information you are likely to need about the complaints process. We will also provide
you with a brief summary of the process in the acknowledgement.
2 – Progress
As well as the initial acknowledgement we send to you, you can also expect further
communication from us about the progress of your complaint. Each complaint we receive is
closely managed by a designated advisor who will do everything possible to respond to your
complaint within our committed timescale. However, if we are unable to respond to your query
within our target timescale of 20 working days, your advisor will notify you as soon as they are
5
aware of the delay. We will let you know what we have done to address your complaint so far,
the cause of the delay and when you should next expect to hear from us.
3 – Investigation
Every complaint that cannot be resolved at the first point of contact will be fully and fairly
investigated by our dedicated customer teams. We are committed to reaching fair conclusions.
In order to deliver this, our process follows these four principles:
4 – Response
We will always attempt to resolve your issue at the point of contact. If this isn’t possible, we
will respond fully, in writing. In the response, we will let you know the results of our investigation
and, if appropriate, advise you on the action we have taken. Our response will be in plain
English and jargon free.
If it is determined that there has been a fault in one of our processes, we are committing to
learning from complaints we receive. We will adapt and improve our processes. If a complaint
is made about a specific employee, a responsible manager will take appropriate action but the
details of the action that has been taken will not be provided to the complainant.
In our response, we may ask you to give us feedback on the service you have received. If you
choose to provide this feedback, you will have the option to opt-in to providing this information
which will be shared with ORR to allow them to monitor our performance as part of their role
as rail regulator. If you do not opt-in we will not provide your information to ORR.
5 – Escalation
If you are not happy with our initial response, please let us know as soon as possible. You can
do this by responding directly to the lead contact that provided the initial response. If you ask
us to escalate your complaint, or we believe it should be investigated at a senior level, we
follow a formal process. This ensures that passengers who are not satisfied with the initial
response have the opportunity to have their complaint investigated further. Our teams may
escalate an issue for senior review for any of the following reasons:
Evidence
We gather all the
available
evidence
including
information from
you, our
employees and
our records.
Analysis
We analyse the
evidence
available against
our policies and
procedures to
find out if
something went
wrong.
Response
We provide a
response
including a
summary of our
analysis,
conclusions for
each key issue,
and the relevant
forward action.
6
• Repetition – there have been several complaints received on the same issue and we
believe the cause of the problem requires senior management attention.
• Severity – there has been disruption or distress to the complainant as a result of
inherent bad practice within our operations.
If we escalate the initial complaint for senior review, we will honour the committed response
timescale for all complaints of 20 working days. If you have requested the escalation, each
further review will be subject to our 20 working day response commitment. This is because
each review of a complaint will be thorough and consider all the relevant details. Below, you
can see who will be reviewing your complaint at each stage of escalation when it is required:
If a complaint is escalated, it will be reviewed by someone who has not previously been
involved in the investigation. Each review will consider all of the information from the original
complaint, evidence gathered and analysis to determine if the correct process has been
followed to reach a fair conclusion. Escalation does not affect your right to appeal.
6 – Appeals
You may choose to appeal the result of our investigation with London TravelWatch, Transport
Focus or the Rail Ombudsman. The appeals process will involve the following steps:
• Contact – we will appoint a primary and secondary contact to every appeal we receive.
This helps us to meet our committed timescales for responding to appeals, and to make
communication as effective as possible.
Local
Manager
Senior
Manager
Regional or
National
Director
If you are not satisfied with our initial response, we will refer your complaint
to a manager – usually the local Community Relations Manager. The
manager will review your complaint, our investigation and response, and
contact you. In this response, you will also be given the contact details of
London TravelWatch, Transport Focus and the Rail Ombudsman
If you are not satisfied after receiving the senior manager’s response,
you can ask for one of our regional or national directors to consider
your complaint.
If you are unhappy with the director’s response, you can contact a
passenger watchdog (see page 3 of this document) or an Alternative
Dispute Resolution body (see page 8 of this document).
7
• Escalation – appeals will follow the same escalation process as above. Where
possible, each review will be handled by a different person.
• Acknowledgement – We will acknowledge receipt of an appeal as soon as possible,
and no later than two working days after we receive it.
• Providing case details – We will share relevant information within five working days
of receiving a request for case details. If the appeals organisation has additional
information since our initial review of the case, we will consider this in our review.
• Response times – When we receive an appeal, we will review the complexity of the
case and agree a timescale for response with the appealing body. Where possible, we
will respond to the appeal within ten working days. However, our timescale target for
appeals response is the same as that for every complaint, within a maximum of 20
working days. If there is a specific cause for delay, we will communicate this and agree
amended timescales. If there is any major disruption that is affecting our overall
response time we will provide the appeals organisation with adjusted timescales.
Stations managed by Network Rail (*London station)
Birmingham New Street
Bristol Temple Meads
Clapham Junction*
Edinburgh Waverley
Glasgow Central
Guildford
Leeds
Liverpool Lime Street
London Bridge*
London Cannon Street*
London Charing Cross*
London Euston*
London King’s Cross*
London Liverpool Street*
London Paddington*
London St Pancras International*
London Victoria*
London Waterloo*
Manchester Piccadilly
Reading
To report a problem with any other station, you should contact the train operating company
that manages the station. You can find the company’s name and contact details at the stations
page of the National Rail Enquiries website.
8
Freedom of Information
The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 gives you the right to ask for information that we
hold. We will always seek to respond to such requests, unless there are specific reasons that
we cannot (for example, if the information is commercially sensitive or if disclosure would
endanger health and safety of individuals). A request for information must be made in writing.
The FOI procedure is not intended to deal with standard work requests or complaints.
Requests can be sent by email to [email protected] or in writing to:
Network Rail, Freedom of Information
The Quadrant
Elder Gate
Milton Keynes
MK9 1EN
If you are unhappy with the way we have managed your information request or the way we
have limited the use or re-use of information, you can contact the Information Commissioner.
Telephone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate)
Post: Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Online: www.ico.org.uk
Alternative Dispute Resolution Bodies
You may choose to use Alternative Dispute Resolution if you are unhappy with our response
to your complaint.
Official name of ADR body: Rail Ombudsman
Address: FREEPOST – RAIL OMBUDSMAN
Tel: 0330 094 0362
E-mail: [email protected]
Web Address: www.railombudsman.org
Next Destination
You may also find the following documents useful:
Making Rail accessible – Guide to policies and practices
Making Rail accessible – Helping older and disabled passengers
National Rail Conditions of Travel