Memorandum submitted by The County Surveyors'
Society
INTRODUCTION
The County Surveyors' Society (CSS) represents
local authority chief officers with responsibility for:
— Sustainable Communities.
The Society's membership is drawn from the four
countries of the United Kingdom and have stewardship of:
— over half of the land area in England
and Wales;
— just under half the population of
England and Wales; and
— three-quarters of the road network
in England and Wales, all public roads in Northern Ireland and
have close relationships with the Society of Chief Officers of
Transportation in Scotland (SCOTS) whose members have responsibility
for 94% of public roads in that country.
The CSS response to this memorandum is set out
under the two broad issues identified for examination—local
transport funding and local transport planning.
LOCAL TRANSPORT
FUNDING
Have the local transport capital settlements met
what was expected and allowed delivery of the planned projects?
What have been the impacts on major transport schemes and smaller
schemes? Have the full allocations been spent as planned? How
have cost increases been settled?
The welcome but sudden increase in available
funds in a situation where many authorities had reduced their
staffing resources over the previous years, led to a lack of delivery
capability. This was largely resolved during the first year of
the LTP by a combination of recruitment and the employment of
term consultants, many under partnership arrangements. Another
barrier to the delivery of planned projects has been that of inflationary
pressures. The Baxter Indices show, over the five year period
of the first Local Transport Plan, that inflation was around 30%.
In addition to construction cost increases, local authorities
are also having to deal with significantly above RPI inflation
for local bus contracts and street lighting energy costs.
Regional allocations and other government funding
changes are set to impact further on local authorities ability
to deliver both major and smaller transport schemes now and in
the future. Whilst welcoming the principles of Devolved Decision
Making and the establishment of regional allocations, it has become
clear that there is a mismatch between the available funding and
the aspirations of the regions. The mismatch is compounded by
the inclusion of large Highways Agency schemes which, in some
regions, threaten to swallow up several years regional allocation.
Changes by DfT to funding arrangements also
have the potential to impact on delivery, with proposals that
would see local authorities having to fund at least 10% of the
cost of all major schemes locally.
In addition, HMT have introduced changes to
the way in which local authority funding is to be allocated in
future, which could impact on an authority's willingness to take-up
all of its borrowing approval. Local funds are constrained by
council tax capping and a recent survey of our membership revealed
that whilst a significant proportion intended to take-up their
full allocations in 2006-07, an increasing number were uncertain
about whether their authority would do so in future years.
Contrary to some reporting, local authorities
are delivering their Local Transport allocations and very often
over and above these allocations, using Section 106 contributions
and prudential borrowing to supplement LTP allocations.
Another barrier to effective delivery has been
the length of time taken to complete the statutory processes for
scheme approvals, with significant delays being experienced whilst
waiting for decisions. By way of example, the regional advice
submitted to Government at the end of January, as part of Devolved
Decision Making, has yet to be determined at the time of writing.
Is the formulaic funding approach the most suitable
method for allocating transport investment? What has been the
impact of the performance related component?
In principle, CSS welcomed the move away from
the outdated historic basis used to determine an authority's allocation,
towards a more transparent and objective methodology. However,
we remain concerned at the overall level of funding identified
to deliver the real improvements to the local transport system
that Government and we wish to see delivered.
The impact of the performance-related component
has been limited. In some years of the first Local Transport Plan
there was no performance funding at all. In other years the amount
allocated was based on broad performance bands, was modest and
all but covered inflation.
Any performance related element simply allowed
an authority to borrow more and did not come as grant, thus raising
the issue of an authority's ability to resource the capital charges.
Do local authorities have adequate powers to raise
resources to fund local transport infrastructure? What other powers
could be useful?
Local authorities currently have powers to raise
resources under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act,
with such agreements being designed to compensate for the impacts
of development and provide the necessary infrastructure to make
the development viable. CSS are concerned that Government's proposals
for the introduction of Planning Gain Supplement do not leave
authorities any worse off and that revenues are recycled at the
local level and in particular to the appropriate tier of local
government in two-tier authorities.
Has the balance between revenue funding and capital
funding for transport proposals been appropriate? How well have
the different funding streams from the Department for Transport
and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister supported local transport
projects? Are transport services successful in securing sufficient
revenue funding?
Throughout the first Local Transport Plan period
local authorities had the ability to invest capital funding in
improving transport infrastructure, but lacked adequate revenue
to support and maintain that investment. As an example, a consistent
finding in transport surveys at both the local and national level
has been a call for reducing the cost of public transport. Whilst
a significant amount of integrated transport block funding has
been used to provide bus lanes, priority measures, interchanges
and better on-street facilities, these do not address the often
stated public transport revenue issues.
At present, many public transport services are
funded through a combination of Revenue Support Grant and Rural
Bus Grant in addition to the various challenge funding streams.
The issue is perhaps less about securing funding and more about
sustaining it once in place, particularly for time-limited sources
secured through challenge bids. A good example is the rural transport
partnership funding of the former Countryside Agency. This resulted
in RTPs being set up all across the country with the offer of
75% of the core costs being met by the CA, plus a percentage of
any project costs. With the demise of the CA this funding has
ceased and there is nothing obvious to replace it, though the
issues remain the same. Some transport issues, especially rural
accessibility ones, require continual revenue support.
How efficient is the bidding and scheme preparation
stage? What could be done to avoid local authorities wasting significant
resources on preparing and designing transport schemes which do
not get approval?
The scheme preparation stage for major schemes
continues to be complex, expensive and time-consuming. The introduction
of Regional Funding Allocations is welcomed and has the potential
to help avoid wasting resources by giving scheme promoters the
opportunity to seek a level of commitment from the regions before
wasting resources preparing detailed "Annex E" submissions.
However, there is currently some uncertainty about its future.
It is anticipated that further advice on regional priorities will
be sought in the future, but no timetable has been provided to
date. It is also not clear when the regions will receive any confirmation
about the submissions made to Government earlier this year.
LOCAL TRANSPORT
PLANNING
Were the administrative process and timetable
for delivering Local Transport Plans appropriate? How helpful
was the guidance from the Department for Transport? How did the
second round of Local Transport Plans learn from the first, and
how could the process be further improved?
The Local Transport Plan Guidance was lengthy
and highly prescriptive, leaving practitioners juggling between
central, regional, sub-regional and local priorities. Local Transport
Plans need to move towards the de-layering of levels of influence
to dealing with local issues "in the round"—best
described as "sphere, not tier". The Guidance would
be more appropriate if it were directional rather than prescriptive.
A study carried out by Atkins, for DfT—"Long
Term Process Impact Evaluation of the LTP Policy"—made
a series of policy recommendations including one that given the
resource requirements and technical difficulty of some of the
key processes (Accessibility Strategies and Asset Management Plans),
DfT should not expect full delivery against all aspects of the
guidance by March 2006 if it wishes to see high quality results.
Instead, authorities should be encouraged to develop some areas
in the medium-term. It is not apparent that such recommendations
were fully taken on board.
How well have the Local Transport Plans delivered
better access to jobs and services, improved public transport,
and reduced problems of congestion, pollution and safety? To what
extent has the Government's Transport Strategy fed into the second
round Local Transport Plans?
The first question applies the Central/Local
shared priorities retrospectively to the delivery of the first
Local Transport Plan. When the first round of plans were developed,
these priorities were not the core agenda. However, the profile
of public transport has increased and road safety has long been
a key issue in planning and delivery. Tackling congestion and
pollution through local transport planning are more problematic—the
degree to which LTPs can influence measures like area wide road
traffic mileage (one of the mandatory indicators) is questionable.
How effective is the Local Transport Plan performance
management regime? Do the Annual Progress Reports give the necessary
transparency and rigour in assessing performance?
It is our view that the Annual Progress Report
assessment process is flawed and has resulted in generating and
reporting erratic performance tables, where some authorities'
rankings have swung dramatically in the space of one year, with
little change in performance "on the ground". You do
not become a good or bad transport authority overnight and in
future assessments there needs to be a consideration of qualitative
as well as quantitative achievements.
How successful is the balance between infrastructure
projects and travel planning initiatives?
The ability of local authorities to invest in
such "soft measures" is very often constrained by a
lack of revenue funding to support those activities. A higher
profile for travel planning and travel awareness is desirable,
but this has been somewhat overshadowed by the demands of new
requirements in the second Local Transport Plan eg Accessibility
Planning, Traffic Management Act, Transport Asset Management Plans.
26 April 2006
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