1. Delivery of the maintenance programme
1. The condition of the network has improved since
the late 1980s, and the Agency has sustained this improvement
since it was established in 1994. The proportion of the network
that is at the end of its life, where the asphalt surface no longer
fully protects the road base, has more than halved since the Committee
last reported on the road maintenance programme in 1991 (Figure
1). This improvement partly reflects the emergence of 'long
life' roads, due to successive surfacing of roads creating a surface
layer so thick that roads' structural bases are protected from
damage indefinitely. The Agency estimates that 60% of motorways
and 25% of trunk roads are now long life.[3]
Figure 1: The trend in
the condition of the network, 1985-2001
Notes
1. The figures for 2000 and 2001 are not strictly
comparable with those of earlier years because of a change in
the Agency's method of estimating residual life.
2. A lower percentage of motorways than of trunk
roads have a zero residual life because the Agency gives motorway
maintenance a higher priority.
Source: National Audit Office
2. The condition of the network does, however, vary
significantly between regions. At March 2002, the South West for
example had just over 5% of roads requiring maintenance compared
to 9% of roads in the North West. The East Midlands and East of
England also exceeded the Agency's target range of seven to 8%
of the network needing maintenance. The Agency acknowledged that
it had only recently started to consider road condition on a regional
rather than national basis. It had introduced indicative regional
allocations for the part two years which had reduced the degree
of variation.[4]
3. The Agency does not directly assess whether the
network is in a good, fair or poor condition but uses the proportion
of the network requiring maintenance in the following year as
a proxy. The Agency recognised that a more robust indicator of
network condition was required and had planned to introduce a
direct measure of condition in April 2003. However, it was not
yet in a position to do so and would retain the current indicator
for the current year.[5]
4. The Agency's measures of network condition, and
its assessment of the optimal level of maintenance on the network,
do not take account of perceptions of road users. The Agency was
considering whether and how far users' perceptions should be taken
into account more explicitly. Nevertheless, the Agency listened
to road users, particularly their views on road surface condition,
which was why maintenance was considered so important by the Agency.[6]
5. National data on road surface condition was called
for by our predecessors in 1991 but much of the data has only
been available since 1998 and data on roadside assets remain incomplete.
Our predecessors were also assured by the Department that there
would be centrally collected data on the maintenance history of
roads from April 1992, but in practice such information has only
been recorded for some recent major schemes. The Agency attributed
the delays in acting upon previous recommendations to difficulties
with the hardware solutions. The Ten Year Plan now included a
target on data on road surface condition. The Agency also acknowledged
that it had not collected information on the maintenance history
of roads systematically or robustly.[7]
6. To assess the technical and economic merits of
all major capital schemes over £100,000, agents use Value
Management Workshops to score proposals against six criteria of
which safety is the most important. Agents then submit their proposals
to the Agency and the scores may be revised in discussion. These
techniques should allow for projects to be assessed systematically
and consistently, but agents' proposals often lack supporting
evidence about the benefits that schemes offer, particularly safety
benefits which are not quantified. Lower priority projects might
therefore go forward at the expense of higher priority work. The
Agency acknowledged these weaknesses but was now addressing the
problem by putting in place more rigorous systems to measure safety
and other benefits.[8]
7. Until recently, the Agency relied on a system
of Technical Audits to monitor agents' adherence to contractual
requirements and provide assurance about the standard of work
undertaken. These audits had revealed deficiencies in the quality
of agents' inspections. The Agency is, however, replacing them
with Performance Review Improvement Delivery (PRIDe) inspections
which audit agents' own quality control systems and their basic
competencies, as well as the quality of work. The Agency had extended
the length of agents' appointments from three to four years to
encourage contractors to invest more fully in the training and
development of their staff.[9]
8. The National Audit Office had found that seven
out of a sample of nine of the Agency's regional areas had overspent
against projects' lifetime budgets by 27% or £21 million
in total. Additionally, all three of the projects forecast to
cost more than £10 million in 2001-02 were expected to overspend
against tender price by between 12 and 27%. The Agency acknowledged
that it had focused too much on in-year cost control at the expense
of controlling costs over the lifetime of projects. Poor lifetime
cost control had resulted in delays to new projects to fund cost
over runs on projects not yet finished. Overruns on resurfacing
schemes, however, often arose due to unforeseen problems with
the structure. The Agency had introduced a new process for managing
costs from April 2003.[10]
9. Maintenance work undertaken often differs from
that planned, frequently reflecting insufficient design work at
the project proposal stage. Costs are estimated before detailed
design work has taken place or before the precise nature of the
problem is known. Variations after contracts are placed weaken
the Agency's ability to negotiate the price of additional work.
The Agency acknowledged the deficiencies in its budgeting, and
was now making resources available to carry out more detailed
assessments, particularly surveys of the structure of the roads,
to achieve more accurate specifications at an early stage.[11]
10. Materials known as 'thin surfacings' are now
normally used on major repairs. These materials offer greater
resistance to rutting, use fewer materials and result in lower
noise levels for motorists and nearby residents when compared
with conventional surfacings. The Agency acknowledged that it
did not have data on the life expectancy of the new surfaces but,
based on current evidence, considered that they were good value
and wearable. The Agency had a target as part of the Ten Year
Transport plan to cover all concrete parts of the network with
low-noise surfacing and 60% of all the network.[12]
11. The Agency's annual allocation of monies to smaller
capital projects costing no more than £100,000 should be
improved. The Agency tells agents what percentage of each category
of work, such as drainage or barrier repairs, is 'urgent' on a
national basis, based on historical spending patterns. The Agency
then funds these sums in full with a lump sum budget. No evidence
of urgency or need is sought from agents and there is no prioritisation
of bids. The Agency also funds, as a matter of policy, half of
the total bid received from Agents for non urgent work, again
without any assessment of need. There are therefore no controls
to prevent individual agents from over-bidding for this work.
The Agency acknowledged that its scrutiny and management of agents'
bids for small capital works had not been as strong or as systematic
as it should have been, but it had now put in place stricter control
and monitoring of smaller schemes.[13]
12. The Agency has transferred 3,200 kilometres of
roads not considered to be of strategic importance to local authorities
and has also introduced new contracts with agents which are intended
to improve efficiency. These changes might have been expected
to reduce the Agency's maintenance and administrative costs. The
Agency could not, however, quantify the savings, and cost trends
suggest that no reduction in the Agency's administration costs
has arisen as the workload has reduced (Figure 2). The
Agency envisaged that its administrative costs and staffing complement
would remain broadly constant for the foreseeable future, as resources
were needed to implement the Government's Ten Year Plan for Transport.
Staff were being redeployed from managing maintenance work to
overseeing the construction of major new road schemes, and to
making better use of the existing network. The Agency was, nevertheless,
negotiating with local authorities about the transfer of resources.[14]
Figure 2: Highways Agency
spending in real terms, 1994-95 to 2001-02
Notes:
1. All amounts are adjusted to 2001-02 prices
and show spending on roads, bridges and other structures.
2. Payments to DBFO operators are payments made
under contracts with consortia of private sector firms to design,
build, finance and operate roads. There are currently eight DBFO
roads, covering 7% of the Agency's network.
Source: National Audit Office
13. Unit costs of maintenance work have risen in
real terms over recent years, from £34 per square metre in
1997-98 to £42 per square metre in 2000-01, an increase of
24% in real terms (Figure 3). Costs look set to continue
to rise in future years. The Agency noted that in recent years
it had contracted for quality, rather than for lowest cost, to
improve delivery and service, and to provide greater certainty
of cost.[15]
Figure 3: Unit costs of
maintenance work, 1997-98 to 2001-02
Note:
Unit costs are the total costs of all capital maintenance,
including Agents' fees, at 2001-02 prices, divided by the number
of square metres of road affected.
Source: National Audit Office
14. Motorists involved in accidents may damage crash
barriers and safety fences. The Agency has a poor record of recovering
the repair costs of such damage, losing over £6 million a
year. The Agency noted that in many accidents the culprit could
not be identified, especially if the vehicle had been removed
before the Agency's contractors became aware of the incident.
In other cases, the culprit was known but the Agency had decided
not to continue with a claim, often because there was insufficient
proof of liability or it was not cost effective to pursue the
case through the courts.[16]
3 C&AG's Report, para 2.4 Back
4
ibid, para 2.10, Figure 6; Qq 9-11, 29-36, 48-54 Back
5
Qq 37-38 Back
6
Q 92 Back
7
C&AG's Report, paras 2.5, 5.6; Qq 59-63 Back
8
Qq 75 -78; C&AG's Report, paras 3.4 -3.6 Back
9
Qq 23-24; C&AG's Report, para 4.17 Back
10
Q 18; C&AG's Report, paras 4.8, 4.10 Back
11
Qq 79-80, 82-86 Back
12
Qq 64 -70; C&AG's Report, paras 5.13-5.15 Back
13
Qq 39, 44; C&AG's Report, para 3.12 Back
14
Qq 26-27, 96-103 Back
15
Qq 5, 17; C&AG's Report, para 4.2 Back
16
Qq 13-14, 55-56 Back
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