TSSA, Britain's second largest rail union, welcomed the Rail Regulator's announcement of that Network Rail (NR) would be allowed to spend £22.7bn on the network over the next five years.

TSSA General Secretary Richard Rosser said: "This increase in investment in the network is great news for the railway.

"Now NR have to make best use of the extra cash - and that means putting a stay of execution on their panic plans to randomly axe 700 of its key managers.

"Just a week ago, NR said it would be increasing its workload by taking all of Jarvis's maintenance contracts in-house. Now we know it has the money needed to employ the best people to fix the railway.

"There could well be staff savings to be made, but NR have insisted on using a completely arbitrary system for cutting jobs. Usually an organisation decides what work it doesn't need to do and then cuts jobs accordingly. NR have decided to cut the jobs then decide what it can actually do with those left.

"NR's so-called 'efficiency programme' is a knee-jerk reaction that will ultimately backfire on the industry and its passengers."

"If the rail industry is to invest this new pot of money wisely, to the benefit of the travelling public, it can only be done on the basis of carefully-considered plans and not panic cuts."

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Notes to Editors

1. TSSA represents 33,000 members in administrative, clerical, managerial, professional and technical jobs in the railways, buses, the London Underground, the travel trade, canals, ports and ferries, and road haulage.

TSSA gained sole union recognition for 4,700 managers at Network Rail in November last year. This means the union is able to negotiate with Network Rail on matters including pay, working hours and holidays.