The Office of Rail and Road may carry out an audit or initiate an external audit of an infrastructure manager, service provider and, where relevant, railway undertaking to verify compliance with the accounting separation provisions laid down in regulation 9.

For the purposes of paragraph (1) the power of the Office of Rail and Road under section 80 of the Act M1, as modified by regulation 36, to request relevant information to perform its functions includes a power to request any relevant party to provide all or part of the accounting information listed in Schedule 5 with a sufficient level of detail as is deemed necessary and proportionate.

For the purposes of paragraph (2) “any relevant party” includes an infrastructure manager, service provider, railway undertaking or other entity performing or integrating different types of rail transport or infrastructure management as referred to in regulations 6 and 9(1).

The Office of Rail and Road may draw conclusions from the accounts concerning state aid issues, which it must report to the Secretary of State.