Strategic Consultancy Partner

Overview

The East West Rail (EWR) scheme aims to deliver a rail link from Oxford to Cambridge, via Bicester, Bletchley and Bedford. The scheme is being built in phases, which will allow services to start running sooner. Once complete it will create a world-class rail link connecting communities across the Oxford- Cambridge arc.

In response to the findings from a number of independent reports (e.g. Bowe 2015, Hansford Review 2017) on the delivery model of new UK rail infrastructure the Secretary of State initiated the formation of an arm’s length body of the Department for Transport (DfT), East West Railway Company (EWR Co), which will take on leadership of the EWR scheme. Overall, the role of EWR Co is to manage the delivery and operation of the rail infrastructure, and oversee train services in a vertically integrated manner.

How we helped

In August 2017, DfT engaged Deloitte by EWR Co as a strategic partner to support in the mobilisation and organisational augmentation of the Company. An initial six-week phase of work saw Deloitte support a shadow EWR Co Executive team through a co- design process to define a high-level Target Operating Model (TOM), and a cohesive blueprint for the organisation. An additional component of work during this stage was the development of a Transition Management Plan (TMP) that mapped the organisation’s maturity over time to the key milestones in the programme and put in place a detailed set of activities to build the required maturity for the subsequent 12 months.

Following the development of the TOM and TMP Deloitte was commissioned to support with its implementation. During this phase we established and managed a Transition Management Office that oversaw the stand-up of the organisation. This work culminated with an organisational capability assessment, determining the Company’s readiness to ‘go-live’. This go-live was formalised on 10 September 2018.

Since this time a multi-disciplinary Deloitte team has been embedded within the organisation to continue to support EWR Co across a range of cross functional areas including Strategy; Sponsorship; Technology; Business Case and Benefits; Project Controls; and Engineering.

Led by our Infrastructure and Capital Projects experts, the team leveraged various technical subject matter resources across our wider consulting practice to tackle a wide variety of challenges faced by EWR Co in its year of inception.

This continued partnership has seen Deloitte support EWR Co grow from 6 staff to over 70, and seek new and innovative ways to positively disrupt the industry.