A report claiming that driver only safety procedures on Southern trains are safe has been blasted as being a “whitewash” and “disingenuous” by trade unions.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR), an independent regulator, published a report that said Southerns’ plans to have drivers handle safety procedures is a safe method of working.

Southern workers have been striking over planned cuts to the number of rail staff, taking away guards who make sure passengers get on the trains safely and transfer that job to the driver of the train.

Ian Prosser, chief inspector of railways for ORR, said: “Following a thorough review of GTR-Southern’s method and implementation of Driver Only Operation, ORR is satisfied that with suitable equipment, proper procedures and competent staff in place, it is a safe method of working.

“ORR has made some recommendations for further improvements, including ensuring that CCTV image quality is consistently high. GTR-Southern has accepted and is in the process of implementing these recommendations.

“As the safety regulator we will continue our inspections and are also working with the industry to ensure it reviews and updates its work in adopting best practice procedures, training and equipment in relation to the safe dispatch of trains.”

The report says that improvements do need to be made before driver only operations are brought in, such as improved lighting at certain train platforms.

The report brought a fresh wave of criticism for the planned strikes, with Chris Grayling, transport secretary, saying that there is “no possible justification for the strike action to continue”.

He said: “Since the independent regulator has now stated that there is no safety issue, and since no one is losing their job or losing any money, the unions really now need to explain properly to everyone why they are causing so much damage to so many people’s lives.

“We will continue to use all the different channels available to us to help try to reach a resolution. But it is very difficult to escape the conclusion that there are political motivations for what is happening.”

Charles Horton, chief executive of GTR, Southern’s parent company, said: “The ball is now in the unions’ court. This futile industrial action must come to an end.

“It’s time for both sets of union members, to tell their RMT and ASLEF leadership in the strongest terms that it’s time to call an end to all this. They voted for the original strike action and they have the voice to bring it to an end.”

Union leaders have slammed the report, with transport union RMT’s general secretary Mick Cash calling the ORR a “servile shambles”, and saying it was part of a “coordinated attack from Government, their wholly-owned regulators and the rip-off train companies.”

He said: “The Office of Road and Rail are claiming to be an independent safety body when in fact they are a department of the government made up of Tory appointees and funded by the transport industry.

"Despite their own reports highlighting over 20 serious safety failures they claim that, with remedial action, Driver Only Operation can be made safe .

"Any other industry that had over 20 serious safety failures would be put under special measures immediately but with the government itself pushing Driver Only Operation it is no surprise to us that this whitewash of a report has appeared on the eve of a strike.

"The ORR didn’t even have the decency to speak to the RMT when compiling their report to get the workforce side of events and instead concentrated only on the opening of doors and not on the far wider guard’s role of evacuating a train during an accident, fire or terrorist incident and a suite of other safety competencies.

“Any settlement of this dispute or consideration of the development of safe train operations must fully encompass this agenda and cannot be based on the dilution of the safe operation of trains in the interest of company profits and the government’s anti-union agenda.”

Mick Whelan, general secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, said: “Despite what Southern Railways is disingenuously claiming, the report from the Office of Rail and Road does not give driver only operation a clean bill of health. It doesn’t say it is safe, merely that it can be safe.

“You will notice that Ian Prosser, HM Chief Inspector of Railways, is careful to qualify his remarks and say “with suitable equipment, proper procedures, and competent staff in place” it can be a method of working.

“And, indeed, Ian goes on to say that the ORR has made a long list of recommendations for further improvements because they fear it is not safe. Those recommendations, the company concedes, are not yet in place.

“The truth is that passengers, every time they are asked, want a second safety-critical person on their trains. On board to help the elderly, the young, and the disabled.

“The company, which doesn’t seem to care what passengers to think, want to take us one step closer to losing that second role.”