West coast mainline row: civil servant hits out at Department for Transport The Department for Transport headquarters in central London. The row over the scapegoating of civil servants in the west coast franchising fiasco has intensified as one of the three suspended officials hit out at her own department for "inaccurately portraying" her role and overstating her responsibility. Mandarins had been urging staff to face facts and fix the problems in the wake of a crisis that saw the west coast service run by Virgin handed to FirstGroup before the competition was scrapped, leaving the future of Britain's railways in chaos. Philip Rutnam, the permanent secretary, has told staff they must come clean and move on, and accept that the reversal was the fault of officials. However, Kate Mingay, a former Goldman Sachs executive director, spoke out after being identified as one of the suspended officials. She said: "My role has been inaccurately portrayed, mainly due to statements and other comment made by the Department for Transport itself. I would like to make it clear that I did not have lead responsibility for this project; neither I nor any member of my team had any responsibility for the economic modelling for this project, or for any DfT project. Nor did I have any responsibility for the financial modelling in respect of this project. Mingay's statement comes as the DfT embarked on a damage limitation exercise after mistakes that will likely land taxpayers with a bill far in excess of the initial £40m compensation announced for bidding companies. A senior official said of the franchising fiasco: "It's a big blow, as it is so clearly the responsibility of the officials. And it will take time to rebuild the department's reputation. But this department is not broken. There are so many things we have done well and are doing - the Olympics, or Crossrail. Department chiefs asked the franchising team to check the numbers were correct in the summer when Richard Branson and Virgin first publicly challenged the DfT's expected decision. The official said: "We didn't just ignore [Branson] - we kicked the tyres in July and got back assurances." Fresh checks were ordered after an admission of minor procedural errors in late August, after Virgin's legal challenge was mounted. But only on Tuesday did consultants discover that the spreadsheet on which all calculations were modelled was fundamentally flawed. The key mechanism, called the GDP resilience model, mixed up real and inflated financial figures and contained elements of double counting. A separate internal disciplinary procedure will investigate the precise actions of the three suspended staff. According to senior officials no evidence has been uncovered of anyone acting in bad faith, despite the fears of Virgin. Between eight and 10 civil servants were closely involved, as well as hired private consultants. No decision has been reached on who will run the service after 9 December when the current contracts expire. The transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, is taking legal advice on options including allowing Virgin to run the service under contract from the department's own arms-length company, Directly Operated Railways. FirstGroup said the option of legal action was being "kept under review."