Meeting minutes - Road Safety Framework Local Partnership Forum - East - 25 November 2021
Attendees
- Michelle Little (ML) (Chair) - Transport Scotland - Road Safety Policy Team
- Kieren Green (KG) (Secretariat) - Transport Scotland - Road Safety Policy Team
- George Henry (GH) - Transport Scotland - Road Safety Policy Team
- Bertrand Deiss (BD) - Transport Scotland - Road Safety Policy Team
- Lorraine Forrester (LF) - Transport Scotland - Road Safety Policy Team
- Hannah Wood (HW) - Transport Scotland - Road Safety Policy Team
- Ben McKenna (BM) - Transport Scotland - Road Safety Policy Team
- Andrew Patterson (AP) - Transport Scotland - Statistician
- Alasdair Sim (AS) - Transport Scotland - Area Manager
- Debbie Nicol (DN) - Road Safety Scotland
- Roger Park (RP) - Police Scotland
- Andrew Gibb (AG) - Police Scotland
- Michael Grant (MG) - Police Scotland
- Niall MacLennan (NM) - Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
- Stacey Monteith-Skelton (SM) - City of Edinburgh Council
- Marshall Greenshields (MG) - East Lothian Council
- Philippa Gilhooly (PG) - Scottish Borders Council
- Steven Sellars (SS) - Fife Council
- Gillian Kelly (GK) - Fife Council
- Stuart Geddes (SG) - West Lothian Council
- Iain Reid (IR) - East Lothian Council
- Iain McDonald (IMcD) - Clackmannanshire Council
- Ian McCall (IMcC) - Paths for All
- Mark Lazarowicz - Living Streets Scotland
- David Monaghan (DM) - Spokes
- Jim Reid (JR) - BEAR Scotland
- Peter Jackson (PJ) - Sestrans
- Euan Clayton (EC) - MAG
Apologies
- Keith Warhurst (KW) - Police Scotland
- Suzie Hynds (SH) - Clackmannanshire Council
- Darren Cook (DC) - Police Scotland
- Russell Steedman (RS) - Falkirk Council
- Thomas Keay (TK) - Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
- Scott Irving (SI) - Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
- Vinnie Fisher (VF) - Police Scotland
- Brian Poole (BP) - Police Scotland
- Richard Perry (RP) - Transport Scotland
Welcome and Introductions
The Chair welcomed everyone to the first Local Partnership Forum East (LPF) and proceeded with round the table introductions.
Overview of the Road Safety Framework 2030
Slides on Scotland’s Road Safety Framework 2030 (“the framework”) were presented to the group, highlighting how road safety can contribute to cross-cutting national priorities and the new Scottish Government’s commitment from the programme for Government, to reduce car kilometres by 20% by 2030 and that all appropriate roads in built-up areas have a safer speed limit of 20mph by 2025 to help encourage more active and sustainable travel and improve safety.
The framework fully embeds the Safe System approach, it has five outcomes which align to the five pillars of the Safe System, 12 challenges, which are backed up by evidence from STATS19 or other forms of data such as speed counters or roadside surveys and 12 Strategic Actions.
These actions will be translated into deliverables through both national and local delivery plans. The first annual delivery plan was published late September 2021.
A poll was launched gain an understanding of local road safety strategies. This poll showed that 36% have a strategy which aligns to the road safety framework, 14% that don’t have a strategy and 21% that do have a strategy but it doesn’t align with the framework.
Overview of the Local Partnership Forums
When evaluating the performance of the Road Safety Framework to 2020 it was recognised that there was a lot of local road safety initiatives and good work going on that at a local level we were not aware of. The key purpose of the LPFs is to share a consistent message across national and local, work together to find solutions and plug any gaps in knowledge. The Chair highlight that there is already good partnerships or work happening and by creating these LPFs we don’t look to disband any of the groups or step on the toes of the work that is already happening.
The group were asked their views on the creation on the LPFs, it was noted that there is overall general support, it is useful to have a direct link to what is happening at a national level.
NM added that the structure of these groups are useful to build a picture of what is happening at local levels and SFRS are keen to replicate a similar structure within their own organisation.
The terms of reference and membership to this group was discussed, asking if any other organisations would benefit this group who are not here today. Cycling Scotland and Sustrans were mentioned.
The Terms of Reference and Remit will be circulated along with a formal invite letter to join the group. Any new members going forward will be considered and agreed by the majority of the group.
Action Point 1: Chair to consider wider membership going forward.
Action Point 2: Secretariat to issue Terms of Reference and Remit with invite letters to the group.
Road Safety Framework 2030 Delivery Plan
Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030 was published in February 2021 with the first annual delivery plan later published in September 2021 with actions on-going between these dates.
LF highlighted that this contains 60 deliverables, which supports the 12 Strategic Actions. It sets out immediate actions and also longer term actions. The plan also includes Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which were agreed with partners that will help the monitoring of road safety behaviours, road infrastructure and vehicle safety.
The development of the next delivery plan is currently underway and is planned to commence from 1 April 2022.
The group continued to discuss local level delivery plans. Fife do have a plan which looks at urban and rural routes and although Scottish Borders have a road safety plan, the approach is more reactive than proactive currently. It was also noted Operating Companies for the Trunk Road Network align all their work the framework or the Strategic Road Safety Plan.
Action Point 3: Secretariat to circulate link to Delivery Plan.
Reported Road Casualties Scotland 2020
AP presented the latest figures from the Reported Road Casualties Scotland 2020, noting that going forward analysis will also be include at LPF level. Some of the points highlighted were:
- All of the 2020 casualty reduction targets were met.
- The baseline figures for the new targets is set on the 2014-18 period. This means in LPF East there would need to be fewer than 22 fatalities by 2030 to meet our targets.
- LPF East has had the lowest number of fatalities in recent years.
- LPF East contains around a third of the population of Scotland over a large number of geographical areas. LPF North are keen to see more of a breakdown on rural and urban routes and this is something that can be look at in the East as well.
- Around 35% of KSIs in the East are active travel users.
The issue of e-scooters and that currently the legislation doesn’t allow for these to be used on public highways was raised and how these will be considered in the stats going forward.
BD confirmed that these are illegal in Scotland to use in public areas and highlighted that in England there is currently rental schemes in operations which the DfT will evaluate to established how e-scooters could be introduce legally. The DfT recently published a dedicated e-scooter analysis from the casualties and a link to this will be circulated.
AP confirmed that currently collisions involving e-scooters are recorded as ‘other’ within Stats19 but there is a new category being added that will encompass more than just e-scooters called ‘Powered Personal Transport Devices’ this will start being collected from 2022.
AG stated that much of the police approach to e-scooters currently is reactive enforcement and this is something that the Road Policing Management team are looking at going forward.
The question on impacts of Covid-19 that haven’t been proportionate within the stats and how changes in traffic patterns affected road safety was raised. In repose it was highlighted the other Nations in Great Britain all saw a similar drop in traffic over the Covid-19 period and lockdown however haven’t seen a similar drop in casualties. In Scotland we saw a bigger drop in casualties than we did in traffic. Cycling on the network increased over the period and was the one mode where a slight increase was seen.
IR noted that with the significant increase in e-bikes can these be identified, as there is an opportunity to gather these within the stats. There has also been an increase in active travel but there isn’t sufficient segregation to enable individuals to make this shift to active travel and queried if there is a national message that can go out to educate members of the public on how to share the space safely.
The Chair confirmed that we are in talks with wider policy teams, including active travel who are looking to make improvements to local communities. As part of our framework we are also looking at wider data other than Stats19 to ensure we get a true reflection of all these incidents that are happening on the network.
In addition, contained within the Programme for Government announcement we are match funding a project from Police Scotland to introduce a National Dashcam Safety Portal to report near misses or other dangerous behaviours of all road users on the roads.
EC raised concerns around the illegal use of motorcycles and that these can lead to fatalities or serious injuries and questioned if there was any differential in the stats to highlight what is being cause by legal or illegal use.
AP confirmed that these are included within the stats and can be broken down by whether the rider had a licence etc. Continuing by stating that if it was the case that a vehicle had been deliberately driver at an individual this wouldn’t be included in the stats but rather class as an assault.
AG confirmed that Police Scotland are tackling this criminal use of the roads and individuals can be traced back through CCTV from dashcam footage which has been sent to the police.
The Chair asked if there would be any further that would be useful to include or breakdown the stats for future meetings, the following was requested:
- The harms also included with the stats.
- The breakdown on the age of vehicles involved, the evidence if newer vehicles are safer.
- Broken down by local authority area and urban and rural.
- Damage to Crown property, to evidence where collision have taken place.
Discussion on Local Road Safety
Local road safety was then discussed with the group, what and how road safety is considered locally. Interactive system that local authorities can use to break this down and pull out what is needed was mentioned with others commenting on MAST and the CRASH system either being difficult to use or not providing the most useful information. The general consensus for local authorities in the group was the use of Key Accident for their analysis which is map base but this is at a cost.
MAST
A poll was launched to establish who is aware of MAST and who uses it. MAST is an analytical tool which can be used to breakdown casualties and trends. The poll showed that 43% were not aware of MAST, and 36% said they were aware but do not use it. A link to MAST will be circulated with the minutes.
The Chair queried if there was any issues or barriers that prevented the use of MAST that is free for organisations to use in Scotland as the subscription charge is paid for through the frameworks budget. Highlighting that the service will be kept under review and if not used widely enough to justify the costs then will be proposed to the governance groups to possibly be removed.
It was also noted other tools are available, the DfT have launched an interactive dashboard that can be disaggregated by local authority and is also free to use with a link to the dashboard being shared.
The Chair confirmed that if you would like to become a member of MAST by using the link to sign up it should recognise that you are based in Scotland and grant you access. However if you do have any issues to let one of the Transport Scotland team know.
Action Point 4: Link to DfT e-scooter consultation findings.
Action Point 5: AP to circulate link to DfT and TS analysis on traffic and casualty levels over the pandemic.
Action Point 6: Link to Public Health Scotland hospital admissions from RTCs.
Action Point 7: Link to the DfT interactive road safety dashboard.
Action Point 8: AP to consider additional information in section 27 bullet points for next meeting.
Key Topics for Subsequent Meetings
The group were asked if there are any road safety topics members would like to discuss at the next meeting. This can be mode-specific or any other issues that members would feel to be of benefit to this group. The following were suggested:
- Lower speeds in communities.
- Shared space and the schemes that were introduced during COVID-19 (Spaces for People) being discussed and the benefits or otherwise that these had on road safety.
Framework Funding
Overview of Road Safety Framework Funding and Road Safety Funded Initiatives
KG began by stating that through Scotland’s Road Safety Framework budget we have funding available to support road safety initiatives in Scotland. The two funds available are the Road Safety Framework Fund and Evaluation Fund. The Framework Fund supports initiatives to deliver targeted road safety interventions whereas the Evaluation Fund focuses on the retrospective evaluation of road safety interventions and the wider impact that these have on road safety.
Some of the projects that we have supported over the years are Rider Refinement North, led by Police Scotland which looked at motorcyclists, Drivewise, which took place in Fife, DriVR and Police Scotland Operation Soteria. An overview of these projects and the evaluations can be found on our website which will be shared with the minutes.
New Call for Funding
HW informed the group that the new call for funding is currently live and will be open for applications until 14 February 2022.
The round of funding will focus on applications that directly contribute to the Safe Road Use pillar of the Safe System, this might include projects that have a focus on road users such as pedestrian and cyclists or age groups such as young and older drivers. Although, all applications will be considered.
The animation for the safe road use was provided to the group. It was further highlighted that there are 5 further animations on the safe system which can be viewed on the framework website.
Development of the Road Safety Improvement Fund
LF stated that within the Delivery Plan there is an action for Transport Scotland to consider the implementation of a Road Safety Improvement Fund.
The funding would allow for a proactive approach to road safety by undertaking a risk mapping exercise on all routes, in addition to more traditional road safety measures. This may identify where investment could be targeted to improve the maintenance and upgrading of roads, kerbsides and pavements.
PG questioned if this will also provide local authorities with revenue funding or capital.
LF advised that the business case is still at an early stage will all areas being considered but this is being looked at, confirming that the funding would not be for measures which they already receive funding for through their block grant. More information will be provided early in the year.
A link to additional funding was also highlighted and was agreed to circulate along with the minutes.
Action Point 9: Secretariat to circulate link to previous projects and link to live applications.
Road Safety Framework Activity
Education and Publicity
DN detailed the work carried out by Road Safety Scotland (RSS) and the initiatives that they have recently been involved in. Providing an update on the Education side, advised that that the RSS website is undergoing a complete rebuild.
RSS, in collaboration with Good Egg Safety, Police Scotland and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, are producing an ICE card for positioning under the child seat so that first responders can access vital details about the identity of the child and any medical conditions.
RSS continue to promote their motorcycling activity through the ‘Live Fast Die Old’ platform and will do so throughout the biking season. They are working with Police Scotland to develop a new Breathtaking Roads video for next year which will focus on overtaking. This lead to a discussion on motorcycle techniques and the SMIDSY wave, with the idea that in certain circumstances you can make yourself more visible to motorists who might not notice you by making non-dramatic swerves within your lane. EC added that he would be happy to support this. and RP from Police Scotland confirmed the technique is taught in the Biker Down and that it is very effective and worth considering.
It was also recognised this was a problem for cyclists and would be good to have a campaign which covers both.
DN advised that the details will be passed to Michael McDonnell to consider.
Information on educational material was requested with DN confirming that there is a ‘Learning’ tab on the RSS site which contains all the road safety learning resources for 3-18 year olds. All resources are linked to Curriculum for Excellence and can be played on a variety of platforms.
Following the publication of the PACTS report on seatbelts, a new campaign is being developed, and it is expected to air early 2022. Following testing, the most successful script was one featuring crash test dummies.
RSS will align their drink/drug-drive campaign to the Police Scotland enforcement campaign which will launch on 1 December in Glasgow. The Minister for Transport will join Police Scotland at the event.
Road Traffic Fatality Research
Transport Scotland have been working in partnership with Police Scotland to establish Road Traffic Fatality Research. The research will involve ‘deep dive’ investigations into the root causes of all fatalities on Scotland’s road network. Investigating and scrutinising each fatal collision beyond the broad-based options currently available on the STATS 19 form.
The research will lead to a more proactive and preventative approach in the reduction of road deaths. A working group was established at the beginning of this year to lead on the delivery of the research and once reports are produced the group will examine the recommendations and agree on how to progress/action the countermeasures going forward.
The group welcomed this work.
Road Safety Framework Website
BM informed the group that along with publishing the framework in February 2021, the Road Safety Policy Team also launched a framework microsite with the purpose to have a ‘go to’ platform for road safety in Scotland.
New content is continuously added and members are encouraged to highlight any articles/campaigns and we can look to promote this on our website. The Road Safety Policy Team are also beginning to develop a road safety newsletter that will share knowledge and updates between all the governance groups and on work that is progressing in road safety.
National Conversation - Road Safety Week
LF advised that Transport Scotland are working on a National Conversation to road safety, which aims to reach out to all road users to encourage greater personal responsibility and a change in perception which, ultimately, should lead to a transformation of the road safety culture.
As part of this National Conversation, we are establishing a Scottish Road Safety Week. To date a working group has been formed and made up of TS staff and several external organisations including Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, RoSPA and IAM Roadsmart.
A week has been set for this week and will be held during the week commencing 21 March 2022, with the Road Safety Scotland Annual Seminar on Wednesday 23 March 2022.
National Strategy for 20mph Zones and Limits
An update on the development of a national strategy for 20 mph zones and limits was provided highlighting the recent Programme for Government commitment of: “We will ensure all appropriate roads in built-up areas have a safer speed limit of 20 mph by 2025, forming a task group to plan the most effective route for implementation” which has hastened the implementation.
Key policy areas across the Scottish Government met in October to discuss individual policies were lower speeds were identified as key in the delivery of their wider objectives and to discuss the inception of the strategy and the task group. With the first meeting of the 20mph task group will take place in December of this year.
National Speed Indicator
Transport Scotland have worked with the operating companies and local authorities to install 100 speed indicators. As of March 2021 indicators are now configured to start collected data which will be used to evidence speed compliance on Scotland roads and can be broken down by road type and vehicle type.
The monitoring and research of speed is essential in the delivery of the Safe System and provides and insight into not only speed compliance but driver behaviours. The collected data will inform an analytical product that will be used to identify patterns and issues, thereby focusing partnership efforts in the right places on the road network.
User friendly reports are being developed and hope to be in use early next year.
AOB and Next Meeting
A Living Streets action plan was provided to be considered by the group which looked at slower speeds within City of Edinburgh Council, however this is relevant to all local authorities.
The plan was added to the chat but will also be circulated with the minutes along with a link to the slower speeds summit for the group for the group to consider.
The next meeting will be held in March and then every 6 months. We will keep in touch during that time, if anything needs to be shared virtually.
Action Point 10: Secretariat to circulate Living Streets report to the group.
Action Point 11: Secretariat to set up meeting for March 2022.