Government-owned train company has been failing on disability awareness training for more than four years

A government-owned train company has had to promise to make significant improvements to the disability awareness training of its station staff after a regulator discovered it had been failing to fulfil its legal obligations for more than four years.

An investigation by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) found that Northern had only been providing induction training for new station staff on disability awareness since late 2023 and that most station staff probably did not have access to refresher training until last year.

Northern’s Accessible Travel Policy – approved by ORR in February 2021 – committed to deliver disability awareness training to existing passenger-facing staff by 31 December 2021, but an ORR report said that “the evidence indicates that most station staff appear not to have had access to disability awareness refresher training until 2025”.

There were still some gaps in training, ORR said this week.

The measures agreed by government-owned Northern will cost the company about £550,000 and should all be completed within 12 months.

They include extra mystery shopping, strengthening training provided to staff, an internal awareness campaign, and an audit by an outside organisation of the outcome of the training.

ORR launched the investigation after Northern admitted last August that about 800 of its staff had not received the disability awareness training they should have been given.

The regulator later found “significant historic gaps” in training for the company’s passenger-facing station staff.

In a letter to Northern, ORR’s Stephanie Tobyn, the regulator’s director of strategy, policy and reform, said this week that Northern had been breaching the terms of its licence since 2021.

But she said it had failed to make ORR aware of the gaps in its provision until last August.

She said in the letter that ORR believed the measures Northern was taking would “lead to better experiences for disabled passengers when travelling with Northern”.

In December, an ORR report placed Northern at the bottom of a league table of train companies for passenger assistance.

That report found that 16 per cent of disabled passengers received none of the assistance they had booked in advance with Northern, although there was criticism that the league table ignored companies’ performance in assisting disabled passengers who did not book their journeys in advance but instead used their legal right to “turn up and go”.

Tobyn said in a statement: “Our investigation found that Northern Trains failed to meet its public commitment to provide training to existing staff at least every two years, falling short of the basic standard of service that disabled passengers rely on.

“Staff training is essential to delivering an accessible railway, and the failings we identified highlight the need for strong management oversight and accountability.

“Northern Trains has, however, acknowledged these failings, taken steps to address them, and committed to further improvements and reparations that should make a meaningful difference for passengers.

“Securing lasting changes to training, governance and passenger support will deliver greater public benefit than us imposing a financial penalty, and we will continue to monitor Northern Trains closely to ensure these commitments are fully delivered.”

Tricia Williams, Northern’s managing director, said: “We welcome ORR’s feedback.

“Through the delivery of our improvement plan, we are working towards a stronger approach to the definition, governance and oversight of disability awareness training.

“All items are on track to be completed as outlined in the plan.

“Our priority is simple: every customer should be able to travel with confidence, dignity and the support they need, and we are sorry if any customer has been let down.

“We remain committed to working closely with ORR to ensure that improvement continues across our network.”

Picture by Office of Rail and Road