Sian Jefferies discusses the variety of work on offer for lawyers at the Office of Rail and Road.
I joined the Legal team at ORR in January 2023 having worked previously at Ofgem as a regulatory lawyer in their enforcement team and prior to that at Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP as a commercial litigator. I thoroughly enjoy the work that I do, having had the opportunity to work across a wide variety of interesting and often high profile matters.
About our team
The team currently consists of nine lawyers: as well as our General Counsel and Deputy Director, we have four Grade C (legal advisers) and three Grade A lawyers (senior legal advisers), and are currently recruiting two additional Grade A lawyers. In addition, the team contains a Legal Business and Litigation Manager, an Information Governance and Data Protection officer, and our team administrator. ORR has about 360 staff in six offices across Britain. The current spread of our lawyers reflects that – we have nine staff in London; two in Manchester; one in Birmingham; and one in Glasgow. I was the first lawyer recruited to the Glasgow office. New recruits are welcome to join any of those locations, but also to the offices currently without a resident lawyer – Bristol and York.
ORR as a whole includes health and safety inspectors, engineers, economists, statisticians, analysts, consumer specialists, track access policy specialists, a communications team, finance, IT and HR/people specialists. As the in-house legal resource for ORR, our Legal team gets involved in everything the ORR does and works with all those areas on a regular basis.
All of our Grade A lawyers are primarily economic regulatory lawyers, and the roles we are looking to recruit will be the same. The economic regulatory work we do is very varied, and with just a few exceptions, any lawyer can expect to advise on any type of matter. This keeps the job varied and interesting! This is a brief guide to the type of work that I and the other regulatory lawyers have worked on over the past couple of years, and what any new Grade A lawyer may expect to find themselves involved in.
Access to rail networks and contracts
Under the Railways Act 1993, ORR is the approval body for track access contracts, allowing train operators access to Network Rail track, stations or depots. ORR licenses train companies and infrastructure managers. In particular, ORR acts as an appeal body for access applicants who consider they have been unfairly treated or discriminated against by the infrastructure operators. Our lawyers are involved with ORR’s access policy team on any appeal or other contentious applications for access, or licence amendments; this has included interpreting and advising on legislation and process, assisting on drafting Board papers and final decision letters, and leading on any subsequent challenges.
One of the most substantial tasks the office as a whole does is to produce a five-yearly periodic review of Network Rail, by which funding is provided by DfT to Network Rail, its performance targets are specified, and access charges set for the industry. Our lawyers are heavily involved with our economist colleagues both in respect of policy development (advising on relevant charging legislation) and in the implementation of ORR’s final determinations with the commensurate contractual changes for every train operator. Most of our lawyers, including myself, were involved in the most recent review in March 2024.
Our lawyers also assist the various rail teams in their enforcement work, holding Network Rail to account against targets set at periodic review and its licence commitments. I recently completed work on an investigation identifying a breach by Network Rail of its performance targets. ORR regulates the High Speed 1 line between St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel, as well as the Channel Tunnel itself (which we do together with the French regulatory body). This includes holding HS1 to account for its performance, service and value for money for passengers and the freight industry. We undertake a periodic review of HS1’s spending plans, and at least one of our lawyers is always involved with policy clients in this work, advising on legislative requirements, drafting and implementation of decisions.
As part of the previous Government’s rail reform project and retained EU law (REUL) work, our lawyers were closely involved with the Great British Railways Transition Team and with Department for Transport (DfT) policy and legal colleagues. I, and other members of the legal team have assisted ORR’s reform team in providing ORR’s views on how existing legislation operates for the industry and what the proposed changes might mean. I expect the legal team to be very involved again in any reform work arising from the new Government’s plans for the rail industry.
Consumer-facing
ORR has a consumer policy team which does a wide range of work as consumer law enforcer for the railways, as well as being heavily involved in accessibility issues, holding train operators and infrastructure managers to account in that field. Our lawyers are closely involved, advising on any investigations and actions we undertake, as well as advising on policy drafting, consultations and public law issues in a very public-facing environment.
National Highways
ORR has a role in monitoring the performance and efficiency of National Highways, and a number of the Legal team support this task. In particular, I and other lawyers assist the roads team in their enforcement work, holding National Highways to account against targets set by DfT. Most recently we worked on an investigation identifying a breach by National Highways of a licence commitment.
Competition
We have concurrent competition powers with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for matters in the railway industry. One of our current Grade As is a specialist competition lawyer. Over the last year, she has been heavily involved in the review ORR has conducted of retailing at stations.
Rail health and safety
In addition to the Legal team’s economic regulatory work, some of our lawyers are primarily focussed on safety-facing work. We set and enforce robust standards for the rail industry to follow, to ensure safety for everyone – passengers, workers and the general public.
ORR is a Crown prosecutor in its own right. Two of our current lawyers form our full-time prosecution and H&S legal team, supporting inspectors in their investigations and in appropriate circumstances prosecuting health and safety actions. However, our economic regulatory lawyers also get involved in non-prosecution elements of our H&S role. They work closely with the railway safety directorate on drafting and interpreting policies, making decisions on relevant applications from train operators. In the last year or so, this advisory work then in turn led to another lawyer and I working with leading counsel to run a successful defence against a judicial review brought by train operator West Coast Railways.
A rewarding opportunity
Of course, as the in-house team for ORR, we also advise on anything else that that the wider office requires. That includes advising on Freedom of Information (FOI), advising or being part of project boards developing corporate policies, and providing property, procurement or employment advice. For particularly specialist areas, we also instruct external legal firms.
Working in ORR’s legal team is hugely rewarding and provides the opportunity to be a valued part of a team, embedded within the organisation. It also provides the opportunity to work with a wide variety of people, across a diverse range of matters and I would highly recommend it to anyone out there looking to progress their career in regulation and public law.