Dominic Carey - **HAS LEFT**

Said the following about Prosecutions Team:

“Great Western Railway (GWR) is one of the biggest rail franchises in the UK, part of the First Group of companies, operating the Western network since 1996, rebranding ourselves as GWR in 2015. We employ over 6000 people across our network and we carry more than one and a half million customers over two million single journeys on 10,000 services every week. People are at the heart of our business and our ethos is that we are 'greater together'.

The Prosecutions Department continues to improve performance year on year, continually finding ways to make improvements in order to increase income and customer experience. The Prosecutions Department ended Yr 17/18 with an income of £1.2million, over a 100% increase from 3 years previously. So far in Yr18/19 the department are continuing to improve performance and have increased income by 11.6% on top of the record breaking year last year. The Prosecutions Department never stands still and continually looks for ways to improve, through identifying easier ways for customers to make contact with the team, or make payment (such as an online payment portal).

The focus on the customer experience has been key to increasing the revenue and truly transforming the performance. Understanding that the sooner the customer is contacted and is explained what is required, the more likely they are to accept our settlement offer. The Prosecutions Department deal with work that can be very sensitive and can be negative by its nature, however the team have worked hard to ensure that the customer experience is a positive one and that resolutions are found to issues. The team have introduced targets in order to respond to customer contact, the target is 7 days and the team consistently achieve this by having an average turnaround time of 3 days, which is fantastic and allows the customer to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and secures the income for the company. All members of the Prosecutions Department understand how important it is to input the work received by the department throughout the period as all the data received is used by the Revenue Protection Management team to help review performance of individuals. Therefore it is vital to the performance of the revenue protection teams that the Prosecutions Department carry out their work efficiently and ensure that all work is uploaded onto the system by the end of each period. This can be stressful at times and requires members of the team to step up and plan their work well to ensure that the end of period target is achieved. Knowing that the data is required elsewhere in the business is a great motivator to ensure that the work is completed and individuals take pride in ensuring that they achieve the goals to help other departments. More cases than ever have been prepared for court and this has been achieved by implementing new processes without the need to increase headcount and has ensured that there is support to our frontline colleagues by ensuring that there is a mechanism in place for those individuals who are trying to intentionally avoid paying their fares, which affects both fare paying customers and our colleagues.

The Prosecutions Department has been working for the past year without a full team and therefore have had to work together to take on additional work and ensure that the tasks that need to be completed are. Communication within the team has increased and improved and it has been great to see that the team are ensuring that they are offering help to each other. Committed to our customers: Customers are at the forefront of what the Prosecutions Department do, ensuring that customers are contacted as quickly as possible. The management team have ensured that the focus has been on improving customer interaction and individual team members have taken responsibility to embed this into their day to day tasks. For example, all letters and emails are responded to using the principles of great customer service, ensuring that they are personalised, show that time and effort has been put into each one, the response answers the questions asked to show integrity for the department, empathy is key whilst at the same time as setting out the expectations for the customer and coming to a resolution.

Sometimes bad news has to be delivered and therefore this needs to be handled in an appropriate way. Setting the highest standards: The GWR Prosecutions Department is ever evolving and aims to be the industry leader in its approach to Prosecutions and Revenue Protection, taking a pragmatic and customer focussed approach which not only protects the customers but also protects the GWR brand from negative publicity. Cases are constantly reviewed and the Prosecutions team lead the way in dealing with scenarios sensibly. For example the Prosecutions Department have led the way in adapting to new technology and the approach for leaving railcards at home and not being able to display mobile tickets. We have introduced a warning system for customers where they get a warning letter where appropriate, which prevents them having to pay money so that everyday mistakes are not unduly punished and we can educate customers. This approach is appreciated by the industry, watchdogs, and customers who continually thank us for taking a common sense approach.

This nomination is not only for displaying excellence over the past year, this is for continued excellence over a number of years that have focussed on delivering record breaking performances year on year for the past 3 years. All members of the team have contributed to the success and this was not an easy journey with lots of processes changed and changes in personnel. The team have come together to ensure that performance has not suffered and has been driven by a desire to succeed and be the best, in order to deliver for GWR and the customer. Although a hidden away department, in a part of the business rarely talked about, this team have delivered time and time again with its performance and have increased income an astounding amount over the past 3 years, with continual growth this year, with the prospect of another record breaking year. The more cases the Prosecutions Department deals with the more it supports the frontline colleagues in all areas, and will help the local communities as it will help dissuade those individuals who want to intentionally avoid their fares or commit unacceptable behaviour from travelling on our network and will make our stations and on train experiences even better.“