Effective road and traffic management

Supplementary written evidence from National Grid plc (ETM 28a)

What is National Grid’s process for checking the quality of street works reinstatement?

National Grid has its own "Management Procedure for Reinstatement Monitoring" - T/PM/SW/4 for checking the quality of reinstatement. This procedure provides guidance on Works In Progress checks that are carried out by both Backfill & Reinstatement Operatives and dictates the frequency at which "completed" works (visual checks and core sampling of completed reinstatements), shall be undertaken to ensure compliance with the "Specification for the Reinstatement of Openings in Highways" (SRoH).

The New Roads and Street Works Act provides that Statutory Undertakers pay for Inspections of their works by the Street Authority.

The Sample Inspection regime is the procedure by which a street authority can regularly establish the overall performance of each undertaker operating in its area, and designed to enable street authorities to monitor undertakers’ performance.

There are three stages of inspections, at which information on undertakers’ performance can be obtained;

§ Category A (Undertaken during progress of works – predominantly Signing, Lighting & Guarding)

§ Category B (Undertaken within 6 months of interim or permanent reinstatement)

§ Category C (Undertaken within the 3 months preceding the end of the guarantee period).

Highway Authorities may inspect up to 30% of undertakers’ work, based on an average of the previous 3 years volumes, for which undertakers pay £50 per inspection. The calculation is based on inspection units generated from undertakers’ workload, but it is important to consider that one unit of inspection does not necessarily always equal one excavation.

Should any Statutory Undertaker have a failure rate in excess of 10% in any category in a given quarter, then the Highway Authority may issue an Improvement Notice. Over the last 5 years, National Grid has only ever been served one Improvement Notice relating to Category B and C inspections. This Improvement Notice was served by Cumbria Highway Authority, and it is worth noting that that every utility working out of Cumbria received an Improvement Notice.

What percentage of National Grid’s reinstatement works are checked by local authorities? Of these, what proportion are found to have defects that require subsequent street works to repair the original reinstatement?

National Grid produce a weekly defect exception report (IMC260) indicating the number of defects that have been received from Highway Authorities that potentially require remedial work. These are broken down by type of defect (Dangerous or Non Dangerous) and by Highway Authority. Investigation of this report allows root cause analysis to take place, to identify any trending, and specific areas of learning. Our 2010/11 performance is as follows:

· There were 83,027 registerable works activities carried out by National Grid

· From these works there were 93,381 inspection units generated and registered with the Highway Authorities. 30% are eligible for inspection under the current regime.

· Of the total 93, 381 inspection units generated, 3, 643 (following the Highways sampled inspection process) were found to have structural defects with the reinstatement which required subsequent street works to repair the original reinstatement.

June 2011