A decade on and little appears to have changed; In fact, since New Labour took office, violent crime on the network has increased at an alarming rate. Ivan Agenda investigates why the so-called ‘Secure Stations Scheme’ has failed to keep our stations safe.

In order to understand why station security remains such a problem today, we need to return to the latter stages of Conservative Party rule, when faced with the possibility of losing the 1997 election, they hurried through the last of a long-line of privatisations that took place during their time in power. The speed with which they conducted the free market handover inevitably led to major oversights. In the case of station security, a complete lack of legislation allowed the system to crumble. The responsibility for station security should actually have fallen on the newly formed Train Operating Companies (TOCs), but with no governmental enforcement of guidelines, they were free to shunt their obligations into the sidings and instead chose to focus their energies on cutting costs: In the first three years following the privatisation of the UK rail system the TOCs reduced their workforce by over a thousand employees. Many were station-based staff.

In came a new government, which had promised to return the railways to government control when in opposition but decided to work with the new system once in power.

One of the Department of Transport's (DoT) first stated priorities was to tackle a sharp increase in violent crime, which had been witnessed across the rail network. Glenda Jackson, then New Labour’s Transport Minister, announced within the echoing concourse of Liverpool Street station in April 1998: "The Secure Stations Scheme is the first step in cracking the fear of crime which puts people off using public transport … and will prove to the travelling public that their security must come first."

New regulation now required the TOCs to implement four security directives: Trained staff and close-circuit surveillance; Rapid response in emergencies; Regular inspection and maintenance; Better lighting and secure fencing. This was to ensure that crime and, most importantly, the fear of crime was seen to be under control. However, in a moment of contentious wisdom, the government decided all these security measures could be achieved by allowing the scheme to remain voluntary. This decision was not without reason. Research conducted in 1996 and 2002 for the DoT and which was undertaken by the independent charity Crime Concern, showed, new measures to improve personal safety would result in "11% more journeys by public transport, including 15% more by train and Underground". Much of the increase, it noted, would occur "outside of peak hours" when passengers felt most vulnerable.

The opportunity to substantially increase revenue by improving security would have been the 'financial carrot' the TOCs needed, it is logical to imagine. Yet the opposite occurred. By January 2005 statistics released from a National Audit Office (NAO) report showed a paltry 118 out of 2,507 British train stations had achieved ‘Secure Station Status’. The TOCs seemed to be content to take what money was available without the burden of having to spend money on new security measures.

This lack of co-operation by the TOCs was confirmed when statistics, released by the British Transport Police (BTP), showed a year-on-year increase in ‘violence against the person’. The government decided to take further action, but rather than make the scheme compulsory, they instead chose to 'tweak' the terms of the original scheme before re-launching it with much fanfare in early 2005. The 'tweaks' involved transferring the scheme’s administration costs from the TOCs to the government, in effect the taxpayer. Additionally, TOCs, which were unable to control crime in their stations' environments, would no longer fail accreditation as before. Instead they would be placed in a ‘Working Towards Accreditation’ category, allowing the TOCs an extended timescale of a year and a half in which to reduce crime. Of course, if they failed this deadline too, then the only people truly affected were the continued victims of crime, because no penalty for failure was set - financial or otherwise. Unsurprising then, that in the three years following the re-launch, the number of stations gaining accreditation leaped to just over 600 - still less than a quarter of all stations on the network.

A lack of confidence in the scheme became clear when a BTP memorandum provided to the Transport Select Committee inquiry on station security in May 2006, stated: "The Secure Stations Scheme does not appear to reduce crime…the Secure Stations Scheme has few specific security standards as it is mainly designed around safety standards. The scheme could benefit from some specific standards, which would ensure that materials such as fencing, lighting, CCTV…were fit for purpose". Making these improvements would, in some way, improve passengers' sense of security. However there are still many questions that remain about how effective CCTV is in preventing crime. According to the government's own recently-released 'National CCTV Strategy' over 80% of all CCTV footage supplied to the police is considered to be ‘far from ideal’ and by the TOCs' own admission, most stations do not have live CCTV monitoring. Little wonder then, passengers prefer a staff presence to a faceless camera, especially at night. As a spokesperson for the women’s advocacy organisation Soroptomist International said in their memorandum to the select committee: "It is little comfort to a passenger who is attacked or hassled, to know it is recorded for court use if meanwhile nobody actively intervenes".

These basic security needs - which have often failed to materialise - have left passengers feeling vulnerable, and with good reason. According to the BTP approximately half of all crimes committed on the network occur in the station area although, as they admit, crime at stations is not recorded separately. This latest point is significant because in the last six years 150 rapes have taken place on the network. Though what we do not yet know, despite repeated requests utilising the Freedom of Information Act is whether these incidents predominantly took place in station areas or on trains and if having staff in the stations could have prevented these crimes. Furthermore, BTP statistics revealed that violent crime against the person on the UK's rail network has reached a new peak of 10,000 incidents per year for the last two years running - an almost 25 per cent increase since 2002/3 when 7,657 incidents were recorded. The latest survey by the national rail watchdog Passenger Focus showed that nationally only 62 per cent of rail-users felt safe at stations and that only 57 per cent of passengers were satisfied with the staff availability. Worse still, both the DoT and the TOCs admit they have no idea what is being spent annually on station security. A spokesperson for the TOC umbrella organisation the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) said: “ATOC does not have any indication as to how much is spent by TOCs on station security.”

Although acknowledging an increase in staffing levels would help to reassure passengers, a DoT spokesperson stated: “The staffing levels at stations is a matter for the station operator to determine”. The DoT, it would seem, are content to wash its hands of the issue.

Improvements to station security remains a long way off and the violence that exists on our stations, it would appear, is not set to reduce soon. All this despite an increase in BTP officers from an overstretched 2,280 in 2003/04 to 2,818 in 2007/08. Perhaps train passengers can find some reassurance in the fact that the four main operators, Stagecoach, First Group, National Express and Go-Ahead reported collective operating profits in 2007 of 297.1 million pounds. Passengers waiting for a late night train may argue that those profits, largely assisted by generous taxpayer subsidies, should be ploughed back into station security.