A transport union has slammed the government's handling of a review into former Kent train operator Southeastern as a "fatally compromised farce".

Southeastern was stripped of its franchise to run the bulk of the county's train services last month.

The shock move by Transport Minister Grant Shapps came after he revealed the firm had failed to declare £25million of "historic taxpayer funding" which should have been returned to the Department for Transport (DfT).

Southeastern is owned by Govia, a joint venture between the Go-Ahead Group and France-headquartered Keolis.

Govia says it "acknowledges that errors have been made in relation to the franchise" and insists the money has since been repaid.

Now the RMT, the UK’s leading transport union, says the DfT’s independent review into financial bad faith was one in which the public could have no confidence.

It says Mr Shapps wrote to its general secretary, Mick Lynch, explaining that the DfT "has been engaging with an independent committee which is formed of the chairs of both owning groups alongside external advisors. This independent committee is reviewing the issues and will produce a report [for the DfT] to review."

But the RMT has now called on the Public Accounts Committee to examine the actions of the DfT and reiterated its demand that the government cancel its tendering process for the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise, currently held by the same company that ran Southeastern, and run it in public ownership through the Operator of Last Resort.

The Operator of Last Resort is the DfT subsidiary which has taken over failing franchises from the private sector.

The RMT's Mick Lynch said: “This review is a fatally compromised farce. The government has accused this company of breaching financial good faith to the tune of at least £25m, stripped it of its franchise and admitted that there may be more to uncover, so these people have form, yet unbelievably, it’s quite content to let them effectively investigate themselves.

“To make matters worse, these groups have a material interest in clearing themselves to make sure they keep their last franchise. This is totally irresponsible and either means the government doesn’t want anything else to come out or that they’ve got no confidence that their officials could uncover the truth even if they tried.

“I’m calling on the Public Accounts Committee to question the government as a matter of urgency and I’m reiterating my demand that the government takes the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise into public ownership now.”

Last month, the government revealed the existing franchise structure would be scrapped in November and instead replaced with what are called 'passenger service contracts (PSCs)' - a key part of its major reform for the UK's rail network under what it calls Great British Railways.

The Department for Transport said: “The government took decisive action to take control of services, making it unequivocally clear that we will not accept anything less from the private sector than a total commitment to their passengers and absolute transparency with taxpayer support.

“The department continues to work through these issues as a priority and are closely monitoring the ongoing investigations.

“We have a commitment to protect taxpayers’ interests and following these investigations, the government will consider the full range of options for enforcement action or further investigations.”

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