Today we celebrate the news that Richard Bowker (helpfully listed between Birt and Branson in the New Labour phonebook) has been gifted another sinecure - this time, privatising secondary schools - following his stunning success as Chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, of which someone unkindly said: 'It has no strategy and no authority'.

Bowker (surely a peerage, or at the very least a knighthood cannot be far away) has bounced back from what a few embittered cynics interpreted as a slightly disappointing record as New Labour's rail privatisation supremo; Hatfield, Potters Bar and Great Heck rail crashes all occurred on his watch. As a fervent believer in 'free enterprise' he presided over repeated state bailouts of Railtrack Plc's finances, the eventual collapse and state takeover of the private behemoth and frequent and lavish use of taxpayers' money to bail out private train operators C2C and Arriva Trains Northern during strikes by RMT members.

Mr Bowker's severance package when the SRA quango he headed was rather brutally derailed may at least have softened the blow. Under the severance agreement, Mr Bowker was paid £377,157, of which £11,050 was paid into his personal pension plan. Associated legal fees incurred by Mr Bowker were also reimbursed.

Just because his reign culminated in abolition of the quango he headed, we say: that's not failure, just deferred success. We look forward to the withering away of New Labour's Privatisation/Private Finance Initiative policy for schools in Richard's capable hands.

Ex-chief of SRA to head up schools renewal
The Times online: August 11, 2005
By Angela Jameson

RICHARD BOWKER, the former chairman of the now- defunct Strategic Rail Authority, is to lead a £30 billion programme to rebuild or renew every secondary school in the country.

The man who in 2001 was charged with bringing some strategic decision-making to Britain?s railways and rescuing the West Coast Main Line will take a £200,000 salary as chief executive of Partnerships for Schools next month.

Mr Bowker, who left the SRA last September after Alistair Darling scrapped the quango, will be in charge of the national programme of investment in the country?s secondary schools.

Partnerships for Schools is a non-departmental public body wholly owned by the Department for Education and Skills. Mr Bowker will report directly to Jacqui Smith, the School Standards Minister. The body is the primary agency that will deliver the 15-year Building Schools for the Future programme announced during the last Labour Government. Partnership for Schools was set up with guidance from Partnerships UK, the Treasury-owned body that oversees Private Finance Initiatives.

Mr Bowker said yesterday that he had given up several private-sector opportunities to take up the position. ?I still feel there is a bit of unfinished business for me there. I am a passionate believer in the intelligent public sector client,? he said.

?What?s fantastic about this job is that it isn?t just about delivering bricks and mortar through PFI; it?s about delivering improved performance in our schools so that kids do better.?

The Blackburn-born father of one will receive a guaranteed bonus of £50,000 in his first 18 months, putting him on a par with some of Britain?s best-paid civil servants. He earned £350,000 a year at the SRA.

Mr Bowker is also a nonexecutive at British Waterways, which looks after Britain?s canals.