Oral history interview with Michael Lee, conducted and recorded by David Wharton-Street (session 2) at the interviewee's home in Hertfordshire on 23 May 2019. Duration: 1 hr. 35 min. 31 sec. Creation of Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF) teams for each franchise; South Central and West Anglia-Great Northern (WAGN) franchises; franchise length; forms and process documentation; successful bidders for South Central and WAGN; Transportation Consultants International (TCI); AEA Technology; Office of Rail and Road (ORR); open access; manipulation of Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services (ORCATS); ORR business plan and monitoring; disruption compensation; Network Rail; Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate (HMRI) and rail safety; ORR’s risk register; Network Rail devolution; investment scheme overruns and cost escalation; British Rail (BR) investment in developing people; overseas privatisations; Control Period (CP) 5 and Northern England; sectorisation; reflections on privatisation; Williams Review

One of over 150 oral history recordings made as part of the Britain’s Railways All Change (BRAC) archive project. BRAC was set-up to cover gaps in documenting the railway privatisation process in the United Kingdom, between 1994 and 1997, when the government-owned British Rail was dismantled into over 100 privately-owned companies. The interviews capture the recollections of people involved in the planning and implementation of the privatisation process, the management of change and running the railway during privatisation.