Decision details

The Chair welcomed Karen Cassar, Highways Asset Manager; Rebecca Makinson, Highways Asset Management; and Steve Berry, Department for Transport to the meeting.

 

Steve Berry updated the Committee on the background to highway maintenance funding. Local highways maintenance was identified in the 2015 spending review as a priority and funding would be increased over the next 5 years. An important component of this was achieving efficiency savings through incentivised funding. Between 2015 – 2021, the Government would make £6 billion of capital funding available for local highways maintenance. £578 million of this amount had been set aside to incentivise local authorities to carry out cost effective improvements. A further £250 million had been made available through the Pothole Action Fund.

 

Steve pointed out that a number of authorities did not have a TAMP in place. Without effective asset management plans there was concern that local authorities' most valuable asset, their road networks, would be inefficiently maintained even under optional funding conditions.

 

The Department for Transport had provided authorities with a self-assessment questionnaire in January 2016. Three potential bands had been identified in the self-assessment.:

 

·  Band 1 – Innocent to Understanding

·  Band 2 – Basic to Competent

·  Band 3 – Proficient to Advanced

 

The self-assessment bands were based on the maturity of the authority in key areas. The criteria for the bands were as follows:

 

·  Band 1 had a basic understanding of the key areas and was in the process of taking these forward

 

·  Band 2 could demonstrate outputs that supported implementation of key areas

 

·  Band 3 could demonstrate outcomes had been achieved in key areas as part of continuous improvement

 

The questionnaire was divided into 22 questions and covered the following sections:

 

·  Asset Management

·  Resilience

·  Customers

·  Benchmarking and Efficiency

·  Operational Delivery

 

Responses had been received from every eligible authority. There were 115 responses in all.

 

In July the DfT was in consultation with the sector and the Highways Maintenance Efficiency Programme (HMEP) would consider the pattern of scores to establish:

 

·  Were there any obstacles which were preventing authorities from progressing up the bands

·  The DfT would meet those in Band 1 to better understand their challenges

·  How would HMEP and others from the sector be able to help

 

DfT would run a series of workshops around the country during the autumn which would reflect on the lessons to be learnt from the first year of self-assessment.

 

Regarding future work for LCC going forward with the DfT, Challenge Fund money would be made available from 2017/18. This was for large maintenance schemes. In 2017 there would be another £50 million for the Pothole Action Fund.

 

Copies of Steve's presentation are attached and a link to the speech from Andrew Jones MP Challenges to Asset Management is attached:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/challenges-in-highways-asset-management

 

 

Questions and comments by the Committee in relation to the report were as follows:

 

·  Members enquired how the fund was monitored so that local authorities used the money for what it was intended. It was pointed out there were two sides to highways maintenance funding. The first was capital funding which was provided by the DfT. The second was Revenue Support Grants provided by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The capital funding was not ring fenced and was not monitored. It was up to the authority on how the money was spent. The DfT asked the authority to publish on its website how the money was spent.

 

·  There were concerns about the quality of work carried out and if there were post work inspections carried out. The DfT was not responsible for the highway networks of local authorities. It was a matter for Members and their local highways team. The DfT had published guidance on defect inspections and repairs. There was a Highways Code of Practice which was guidance for local authorities. This was not statutory guidance but LCC did follow this guidance. This guidance was being revised to be a more risk based approach.

 

·  It was pointed out to the Committee there were no penalties for local authorities who had not carried out repair work, although if the authorities did not have their processes in place there would be a penalty of them not receiving as much funding. This was an incentive for authorities to follow good practice.

 

·  Regarding the Challenge Fund Tranche Members enquired what class of roads qualified for funding. In Tranche 1 there was £265 million to spend but there had been bids from authorities totalling £1.4 billion which meant a lot of unsuccessful bids. All asset types were looked at in Tranche 1 and LCC had been successful in terms of street lighting. Tranche 2 might be a different two phased approach. The DfT would ask for expressions of interest and then a full business case. The DfT would be interested in cases involving highways, carriageways and bridges. Also the condition of rural roads would be of interest, mainly the C and unclassified roads which had a lot of defects.

 

·  As Lancashire had a leading highways network and received more funding than most other authorities. LCC officers had an action plan in terms of each of the areas where they felt maintenance was required urgently and in the future. Through the self-assessment all the evidence had been collated and examined. Lancashire was leading by example and was working with the smaller authorities to help them as well.

 

·  Regarding other companies who worked on the roads, the highways team within the DfT was working jointly with the DfT's street works in respect of this. The DfT was talking to these mainly utility companies about repairing their work. Local authorities should be working with utilities in terms of having a forward program. It was vital to make sure utility companies got their repair work correct first time. It was suggested that there could be penalties put in place for utility companies which did properly repair their work.

 

·  Better communication with stakeholders was important. LCC and utility companies had to work together in achieving this.

 

·  The DfT wanted to make sure the funding was fair and consistent across the 115 authorities.

 

Karen Cassar, Highways Asset Manager, presented the report on the TAMP data refresh – June 2016 document which was attached as Appendix A to the report. The document provided an update of the changes that had occurred both nationally within the highway sector since the original TAMP was approved and locally within Lancashire. The document provided the opportunity to report the latest condition of our assets so that our performance over the past 12 months could be measured and scrutinised.

 

Members were informed good progress had been made since the introduction of the TAMP in 2014. This had enabled the condition of Lancashire's highways and transport assets to improve again which categorised the condition as being acceptable. On the condition of Lancashire's individual assets it was noted:

 

·  The condition of the A, B and C roads could be regarded as acceptable

 

·  The overall condition of Footways improved from acceptable to good.

 

·  The overall condition of bridges and similar structures improved from good to excellent.

 

·  The overall condition of street lighting improved from fair to good.

 

LCC was going in the right direction and the investment strategy that was agreed by LCC demonstrated that the work that was being implemented was successful.

 

Questions and comments by the Committee in relation to the report were as follows:

 

·  It was noted that whenever an Authority was doing an Asset Management Plan it had to determine the levels of service it wanted to achieve. Each of these services would then be broken down into categories from poor to excellent. From a resources prospective LCC was aiming for good. LCC had to align what it had in resources against what it wanted to achieve.

 

·  Members were informed that Lancaster was one of the largest areas in terms of A, B, and C networks. This meant it required a large investment to improve its network. Post TAMP Lancaster's network condition was improving greatly.

 

·  The question of highway video surveys was raised and whether the Highways Asset Management Team had the results of these surveys. The whole of Lancashire's highways network had been videoed. The Team had to align the results to service levels and conditions. Once this was completed it would be LCC's performance method moving forward. This would mean in the forthcoming years the Team would have all the condition data and this would demonstrate improvement year on year. Video surveys were going to be useful for Lancashire in terms of asset management.

 

·   Regarding Moss Roads there had been a piece of work done with LCC's Legal Department in terms of outstanding queries in relation to the Highways Act. This work needed to be finalised.

 

The Committee thanked Karen for all her help and wished her good luck in her new job.

 

 

Resolved: That the Committee note the content of the TAMP data refresh June 2016 document