Open Letter #CroydonCrash #Coverup Transcript: Keith Prince AM's 27 September 2023 Request for TfL to 'come clean' about its Decision to Keep Internal Audit IA 16

Document date

27-09-2023

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At a meeting of the London Assembly Transport Committee on 27 September 2023, Keith Prince AM asked TfL to 'come clean' about what decisions it took about a Safety Audit that TfL was finalising at the time Sandilands occurred to be (a) cancelled (b) kept from the RAIB Investigation and (c) removed from the public record.


Here is my annotated informal transcript of Keith Prince's statement (a formal record of which will no doubt be published on the London Assembly site in due course)—

"From evidence TfL has provided through numerous Mayor’s Questions and FOIs, when the Sandilands Tragedy occurred on 9 November 2019, these facts are known—

• TfL was putting the final touches on Internal Audit 16767 ("Trams Management of Operational Risk") which had already concluded First Group “Adequately Controlled” Operational Risk on the Croydon Tram."

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• "Hours after the crash, one of the Auditors sent an email to the Head of Audit which stated
  • “As soon as I heard the news this morning my thoughts were, my audit is going to be more high profile”
  • “Incidentally, the Derailment RA [Risk Assessment] was last reviewed on November 2013, so is one overdue for review”

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• "Despite being asked for this Audit twice by the RAIB Investigators (on 24 November 2016 and 24 January 2017), Internal Audit 16767 was never provided by TfL to the RAIB and IA 16767 is nowhere to be found in TfL's Audit and Assurance Committee Records."

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• "Despite being—on 9 November 2016 and in the words of TfL’s auditor— “more high profile”, TfL appears to have deleted IA 16767 from the public record" .

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"In the evidence TfL’s provided to the Assembly, I have possession of a completely blacked-out letter which I believe explains why TfL a) decided to not provide IA 16767 to the RAIB and b) remove IA 16767 from the public record." (NB: the Blacked-Out Correspondence relates to the 24 January 2017 Request for IA 16767 from the RAIB Investigator).

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"Since (a) TfL and First Group have already received the largest Health and Safety fine in history and (b) the Sandilands families may seek to overturn the Inquest Verdict of “Accidental Death” will TfL:

1) Publish the Contents of the Blacked-Out Letter that TfL released in its much-delayed response to Question 2019/17340?​

2) Publish a link to the evidence TfL made available in its response to Question 2019/17340 on the GLA Mayor’s Question Time Site? I know for a fact that this evidence has been published online by a concerned member of the public — why not publish the Question 2019/17340 evidence on the GLA site and stop giving the impression TfL’s trying to hide something?"​

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“I am determined to lead the most transparent, engaged & accessible administration London has ever seen” —Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, 7 May 2016​

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Source: https://saferoxfordstreet.blogspot.com/2023/09/croydoncrash-coverup-transcript-keith.html
Auto-imported from Tom Kearney’s blog.