Vested interests ‘hampering road maintenance efficiency drive’

Delivery

The vested interests of some local authority transport practitioners can thwart the delivery of efficiencies in highways maintenance, an advisor to the DfT’s highways maintenance efficiency programme (HMEP) has said.

“In my experience of talking to practitioners, vested interests prevent change,” said Matthew Lugg, who is Leicestershire County Council’s director of environment and transport, and is seconded to provide support to the highways maintenance efficiency programme.

“So we are going over their heads and talking to the chief executives and council leaders to emphasise the benefits of this programme.”

The DfT wrote to chief executives of England’s highway authorities last month to urge that they take part in the programme to save 25% of the current £4bn annual investment in local highways without affecting frontline services. The letter from local transport minister Norman Baker states: “A sustained approach to efficiency can only be achieved if driven from the top.”

Lugg made his comments at  last week’s Future of Local Transport Delivery roadshow in Oldham, organised by LTT. Other speakers and contributors also suggested that council officers have obstructed drives for sharing services and outsourcing.

John Lamb, the North West branch chair of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE), said: “The question is how big a client needs to be. The bridge engineer says he needs to be retained as an intelligent client, when he could be a shared service resource. Would one bridge engineer for Greater Manchester be untoward?”

Jim Stevens, head of transport, Buckinghamshire County Council, asked: “Why are authorities not changing? Is it officers? Is it the politicians? What are the blockages?”

Lugg set out how outcomes from the highways maintenance efficiency programme will help local authorities go out to procurement and collaborate with other authorities more easily.

He said that the Midlands Highways Alliance for joint procurement of highways services had taken two years to establish, but with a HMEP toolkit “you’ll be able to do it in six months”.

Similarly, a standard suite of highways contract documents would cut the time and money spent on outsourcing, he said.

Kevin Melling, highways manager, Cheshire East Council, welcomed this. “Our procurement has taken a total of 17 months. Let’s get standardisation in place and get it down to six months.”