South West Highway Alliance
Business Plan 2015/16
Executive Summary
The South West Highway Alliance (SWHA) is a partnership of 15 highway
authorities in the south west of England that have formally agreed to work
collaboratively to deliver more efficient highway services.
Within the Southwest region, the local highway authorities collectively spend
in the order of £415m pa on the delivery of highway services (£170m revenue
expenditure, £245m capital expenditure). The funding used to support these
services comes from a variety of sources which are becoming increasing
unpredictable, as revenue funding sources are constrained as a result of
public sector cuts and capital funding allocations remain volatile. Work by
other alliances has shown that savings of 10-20% can be achieved from
collaborative procurement activities. If this established model can be
replicated in the Southwest, there is the potential for significant savings to be
achieved by member authorities.
The Alliance’s objectives are focused on achieving cashable savings from
joint procurement and driving efficiencies through the sharing of innovation
and best practice. There has been significant best practice sharing and
benchmarking between South West Authorities through various highway
activity theme groups, and drawing this work together under the umbrella of a
highways alliance, will not only assist in disseminating best practice, but will
also allow a greater focus on developing and pushing forward efficiency
measures and innovations, as well as removing any duplication that currently
exists between groups.
Progress against the 2014/15 Business Plan is reported in the 2014/15 End of
Year report, which highlights the considerable progress made in the first year
of the Alliance. This second business plan continues the challenging, but
achievable, programme of activities set out in the first business plan and
incorporates a number of quick-win and opportunity led projects which draw
on activities already underway. There is an emerging emphasis on moving
from opportunity led activities to planned collaborative projects, particularly
around procurement. Whilst this is a one year plan, the development of more
challenging projects, focussed on business transformation and resource
sharing over medium and long term time horizons is considered.
Scott Tompkins
SWHA Programme Board Chair
Emma Cockburn
SWHA Manager
Contents
Section
1. Introduction
2. Budget
3. Issues
4. Work Programme
5. Service Area Group Projects
6. Programme and Alliance Management
Page
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South West Highway Alliance Business Plan 2015/16
1. Introduction
The South West Highway Alliance (SWHA) is a partnership of 15 highway
authorities in the south west of England that have formally agreed to work
collaboratively to deliver more efficient highway services.
The Alliance has modest financial and human resources at its disposal,
limiting its capacity to deliver a large number of projects. Consequently,
efforts will be focused on a small number of projects, making the best use of
any opportunities that arise and harnessing the enthusiasm of existing groups.
A number of authorities will be progressing procurement projects in 2015/16,
creating opportunities to collaborate on procurement activities and/or develop
framework contracts.
2. Budget
The SWHA will maintain its subscription fees at £2,500 for district unitaries
and £5,000 for county authorities in 2015/16. This will generate a total
income of £52,500 pa to support SWHA activities. A modest amount of
additional funding is expected to be generated from contract access fees
The Alliance manager is expected to cost approximately £33,000 in 2015/16
(on a half time basis), with the cost of Executive Board, Programme Board
and Work Groups meetings expected to be in the order of £2,000.
It is anticipated that unless allocated to projects, by the end of 2015/16 the
surplus funding available to the Alliance will be close to £20,000. Workstream
leads will be encouraged to apply for SWHA funding, where additional
resources are required to deliver projects, and £40,000 is allocated for this.
Financial Projection
2014/15 Income
Membership fees
£52,500
Balance Brought forward from
£43,767
2013/14
Total £96,267
2015/16 Income
Membership fees
£52,500
Balance Brought forward
£61,266
from 2014/15
Total £113,766
2014/15 Outgoings
Alliance Manager
2015/16 Outgoings
Alliance Manager (including
expenses)
Administrative support
£32,461
Expenses (includes website
development)
Administrative support
Programme Board Meetings
Work group meetings
Climate Change Resilience Project
Total
£1,239
£0
£382
£920
£15,000
£50,002
Programme Board Meetings
Work group meetings
Funding for projects
£34,461
£0
£460
£1,500
£40,000
Total £76,421
Balance £46,266
Balance £22,344
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South West Highway Alliance Business Plan 2015/16
3. Issues
The first SWHA business plan set out a number of issues facing local highway
authorities in the South West region, and for the most part, these issues
remain. Customer expectations regarding the condition of the highway
network remain high, despite growing public awareness of reductions to public
sector funding.
The central government agenda of devolving power, to enable greater local
decision making on spending priorities, has continued to develop over the last
year. The majority of funding received by local authorities from central
government isn’t ring fenced for specific activities and this continues to apply
to funding allocations for the delivery of highway services.
The provision of the pothole fund and the establishment of local highways
maintenance challenge fund suggests a trend towards increasing use of
competitive bidding processes to provide some ring-fenced highways funding
allocations to local authorities. There is also increasing emphasis on linking
funding allocation levels to local authorities’ work to achieve efficiencies and
adopt collaborative working arrangements, as highlighted by the inclusion of
an incentive element within future Local Highways Maintenance block funding
allocations.
Continued reductions in funding to local government have resulted in
significant decreases in budgets and staffing levels in highways departments.
These pressures are now being exacerbated by the upturn in the private
sector, with recruitment and retention of technical staff becoming an
increasing problem for many local highway authorities. For many authorities,
the lack of capacity to take on additional work raises serious concerns over
their ability to access funding via complex, competitive bidding processes
being put in place for funding.
Whilst the pothole and severe weather recovery funds were successfully
accessed by many SW authorities, and have proved very helpful in tackling
some of the problems arising from long-term underinvestment in the
maintenance of the road network, and severe weather damage, many SW
local highway authorities continue to face an increasing highway maintenance
backlog.
The announcement of highways maintenance funding formula allocations for
the five year period from 2015/16 to 2020/21 provides a degree of welcome
certainty in respect to future highways funding levels, and the relatively benign
winter has provided some respite for stretched highways budgets.
A significant issue facing the whole highway sector is a shortage in the
availability of materials, equipment and staff that are required to deliver the
construction and maintenance projects planned for the next few years. A
significant increase in infrastructure expenditure by central government
agencies and the upturn in the development industry programme is driving
competition for limited resources across the construction and design sectors.
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South West Highway Alliance Business Plan 2015/16
4. Work Programme
The following projects will be developed during 2015/16:
Alliance Project
Procurement and supply chain:
Contract performance monitoring and
evaluation framework
Professional Services Framework
Medium / Major Schemes
Group
Lead
PB Timescales
PB
Bristol
by October 2015
Gloucestershire
Somerset
by October 2015
by October 2015
Salt
PB
PB /
SWHAM
SWWSSG
by October 2015
Weather forecasting
SWWSSG
Small Contractors / RoW DPS
Term Maintenance
RoWG
PB
Shaun Taylor Bristol
Chris Cranston Devon
Somerset
Devon &
Somerset
Policies & standardisation (meeting statutory requirements)
RoW contractors’ standards
SWRoWG
Dorset/Cornwall
Highway safety inspections
SRAMG
Shaun Taylor –
Bristol /
SWHAM
Charges applied for external Highways
SWHSIG
Gordon
service
Sneddon
Demand Management - Declassification
PB
Devon
and stopping up minor roads
Developer-led infrastructure: commuted
SWTDMOG Torbay
sums
Asset Management
Collaborative development of asset
SRAMG
Andy Stevenson
management strategies.
- Cornwall
by October 2015
by April 2016
by April 2016
by October 2015
by April 2016
by April 2016
by April 2016
by April 2016
by October 2016
Highway Asset Management System
(procurement)
SRAMG
Andy Stevenson
- Cornwall
by April 2016
Incorporation of climate change
predictions in asset management strategies
Collaborative development of drainage
asset management strategies.
Specifications - standardisation, guidance,
evidence
Business transformation
To explore potential within all LHA
activities, considering shared and traded
resources
SRAMG
TBC
by April 2016
SRAMG
TBC
by April 2017
SRAMG
TBC
by April 2016
PB
TBC
by October 2016
Details of the main activities being progressed for each project are described
below:
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South West Highway Alliance Business Plan 2015/16
Contract Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Framework
In order to record the savings achieved through the use of SWHA contracts, a
sub-group will be tasked with developing a performance monitoring framework
to capture this information and other key outcomes from the procurement
workstreams.
Bristol has been piloting a Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Framework
on a number of their own contracts, and it is envisaged that as well as sharing
lessons from this pilot with other authorities, this framework will form the basis
for monitoring SWHA contracts.
Professional Services
Gloucestershire is working towards procuring a framework contract for
professional services around transport modelling, highways development
planning application advice and approvals, and major scheme assessment,
which may be developed as a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). This
contract will be available for use by all SWHA authorities.
Bristol are also leading on procurement of a four year professional services
framework. Developmental work is being steered by the West of England
authorities, but it is envisaged that the contract will be open to all SWHA
members. The contract will be available for use from October 2015.
Medium and Major Schemes Framework.
Somerset County Council plan to procure a contract to deliver major schemes
coming forward from Local Growth Fund deals. Their intention is to establish
a four year framework contract, with multiple suppliers, which will be open to
all authorities in the South West. Swindon, Devon and Gloucestershire are
likely to be closely involved in the development of this contract
Salt Procurement
Several authorities need to renew their salt supply contracts in 2015. The
South West Winter Service group will undertake a salt supply benchmarking
exercise, and publicise its findings to all SWHA member authorities, to assist
with procurement strategies of those authorities going to the market in near
future.
Weather Forecasting
A number of authorities may be renewing their weather forecasting contracts
in 2015, providing an opportunity for a more collaborative approach to be
considered. Preliminary benchmarking has been undertaken by the Winter
Service Group and feasibility work will be undertaken in 2015.
Small Contractors / RoW DPS
In order to address cost efficiencies concerns around small works being
delivered by large contractors and to develop better arrangements for
accessing small contractors, the SW Countryside group plans to develop
common contractor vetting standards, which would assist with resource
sharing across administrative boundaries, where appropriate. In addition,
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South West Highway Alliance Business Plan 2015/16
Somerset County Council plan to develop a DPS for rights of way
maintenance activities.
TMC Collaborative Procurement
Both Somerset County Council and Devon County Council have term
maintenance contracts which expire in April 2017. Plymouth, Bristol, BANES
and North Somerset have expressed interest in being able to access any
emerging contracts, should a framework approach be taken. Whilst the
intention is to go to the market in 2016/17, considerable preparatory work will
be required in 2015/16, particularly if a collaborative approach to procurement
is agreed.
In addition to these opportunity-led procurement projects, work will also be
undertaken to develop a longer term, co-ordinated procurement strategy that
makes use of existing framework contracts to fill gaps, permitting alignment of
specific procurement activities where collaboration is desired.
Highway Safety Inspections
The South West Regional Asset Management Group (SRAMG) has
established a sub-group to benchmark the inspection regimes currently
adopted by southwest authorities, comparing inspection frequencies,
intervention criteria and repair timescales. This exercise will be used to
inform further work exploring whether a regional, risk based approach can be
adopted to inform any local inspection policies. It is envisaged that this work
will also be used to influence the revision of the national code of practice.
Charges applied for external access to highways services
Within the South West, there are a multitude of operational activities, where
there is potential to collaboratively develop common policies and charging
regimes, providing a consistent experience for the customer, regardless of
local authority area. The SWHSIG undertakes an annual benchmarking
exercise which identifies differences in charges to inform budget and fee
setting activities in individual authorities.
Demand Management: Declassification and Stopping up of Minor Roads
A number of authorities within the region have an extensive network of rural
roads that serve no other purpose than providing agricultural access. In order
to reduce ongoing maintenance liabilities, declassification, downgrading and
stopping-up are amongst the options available to highway authorities. Devon
are currently leading a pilot project, working with local communities to explore
options for reducing the maintenance burden of lightly trafficked, minor roads.
The findings of this project will be shared with SWHA members.
Developer led infrastructure: Commuted Sums
Infrastructure delivered through the development management process has
significant implications for local highway authorities, due to potential costs of
bringing up roads to adoptable standards, ongoing maintenance and
electricity costs, as well as the costs of putting things right later, should
parking or congestion problems arise. The SWTDMOG will explore the scope
for developing a common approach to infrastructure delivered by developers.
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South West Highway Alliance Business Plan 2015/16
Collaborative Development of Asset Management Strategies and
Systems
The South West Regional Asset Management Group (SRAMG) has
established a sub-group to scope out the core requirements for an asset
management system, with the intention of using combined buying power to
incentivise the market to provide a standard product that meets these
requirements. Cornwall plan to procure the asset management system in
early 2015, following market testing in 2014/15. This project will run in parallel
with the development of a common approach to the development and
implementation of asset management strategies.
Incorporation of Climate Change Predictions into Asset Management
Strategies
The southwest climate change task and finish group has been developing a
methodology, based on work by Dorset County Council, which allows local
highway authorities to risk assess the potential implications of climate change
on their core, resilience networks (usually the winter network). The toolkit
highlights points of weakness in the network, using historic and geographic
information to identify high risk assets, thereby enabling future investment to
be directed to secure the ongoing resilience of the network. It is envisaged
that once finalised, this process will be embedded in authorities’ asset
management strategies.
Collaborative Development of Drainage Asset Management Strategies
Similar to the Asset Management Strategy project, this workstream will seek
to embed the good practice developed by authorities such as Cornwall
Council and Wiltshire Council within a common approach across the region.
Specifications
Differing standards and specifications are a potential barrier to achieving
economies of scale from the supply chain, through joint or collaborative
procurement. This project will explore the opportunities for contributing to
HMEP’s suite of common standards, initially benchmarking the standards and
specifications across the region, drawing on evidence to develop a core,
common approach that offers best value for money.
Business Transformation
Emerging evidence indicates that there are considerable savings to be
achieved from shared services, whether these are delivered through sharing
or trading resources across authorities. This project will explore the regional
scope and appetite for buying, selling and sharing expertise across all local
highway authority activities, leading to the development of a number of work
packages.
In addition to efficiency savings, it is anticipated that the skills shortage in the
highway sector will also be a key driver for this project. Work will initially
focus on gathering information about issues relating to skills and staff, scoping
the extent of the problem, before progressing to the development of potential
solutions.
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South West Highway Alliance Business Plan 2015/16
5. Service Area Group Projects
The South West ADEPT environment directors group, which provides the
executive board governance for the alliance, has requested that the SWHA
provides direction for task and finish activities to be undertaken by the various
highway service area groups. A number of core projects have been identified
as indicated below:
Group
Southwest Regional Asset
Management Group
South West Winter Service Group
South West Highway Service
Improvement Group
SW Lighting Engineers
Traffic Controller User Group
SW Area Bridges Conference
South West Transport Development
Management Officers Group
SW Traffic Managers
SW Road Safety group + SW
Accident reduction group
SW Street Works Highways Group
HAUC and JAG
South West Data Group
Flood Risk Management Group
CSS Countryside Working Group –
SW Region
SW Assoc. of Transport Coordination Officers
Core Projects
Highway asset management system procurement
Highway safety inspection policy benchmarking
Asset management strategy collaboration.
Salt procurement
Weather service procurement
Appendix H compliance
Highway service charges benchmarking,
Performance indicator benchmarking
Risk and claims benchmarking
Good practice case study development.
Street lighting policy benchmarking,
Commodities cost/performance benchmarking
TBC
TBC
Transport development management policy
development
Development infrastructure standards.
TBC
Joint road safety campaigns & procurement
TBC
Transport data collection procurement
Maintaining compliance with Flood and Water
Management Act’s requirements for Local Lead
Flood Authorities
Responses to EA’s FRMP and RBMP consultations
Commodities procurement
Contractor standards
DPS contractor procurement
TBC
A secretariat service is provided to regional groups working on highway
alliance projects. The South West Councils web based workspace is being
used to provide all groups with a central repository for meeting minutes and
case studies, as well as offering a discussion forum and secure online
environment for working on documents, such as common policies.
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South West Highway Alliance Business Plan 2014/15
6. Programme and Alliance Management
All projects are managed in accordance with sound project management
principles, with outcome monitoring and evaluation embedded into individual
project management activities.
During the life of this business plan, the SWHA communications strategy will
continue to be focussed on raising awareness of the alliance amongst
highways professionals in its member authorities to secure buy-in to SWHA
objectives. Details of SWHA contracts open to member authorities will be
provided on the SWHA website
Service area groups will be encouraged to provide public-facing information
about their activities for inclusion within the Alliance website and contribute
article to the SWHA Newsletter. Newsletters and the end of year progress
reports will be distributed via the website, service area groups, the
programme board and executive board.
Conclusion
This second business plan continues the challenging, but achievable,
programme of activities set out in the first business plan and incorporates a
number of quick-win and opportunity led projects which draw on activities
already in progress. There is an emerging emphasis on moving from
opportunity led activities to planned collaborative projects, particularly around
procurement. Whilst this is a one year plan, the development of more
challenging projects, focussed on business transformation and resource
sharing over medium and long term time horizons is considered.
8