Option 30 Report
3 Current Delivery of Roads Services
3.1 Establishing Current Arrangements (Baseline Position)
The first step in approaching this work was to identify the current models of service delivery in place across Scotland. This exercise was carried out in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the approach to delivering roads maintenance and the levels of expenditure being incurred. It is essential to be aware of the current position in order to develop and properly assess feasible alternative delivery models. In discussion with the Working Group, the Task Group devised information gathering questionnaires, based on formats3 previously used by Audit Scotland and SCOTS.
The Task Group developed a two-part questionnaire for the roads authorities on their current delivery structures for organisational arrangements and financial matters respectively.
The organisational arrangements part of the questionnaire was based on a previous format used by SCOTS and sought to gain a profile of delivery models across Scotland for roads services. It covered road network length, client/contract arrangements, reporting arrangements, shared services arrangements, examples of good practice and human resources utilised.
The information gained provided an understanding of how current roads authorities are structured and informed the assessment process.
The financial part of the questionnaire was based upon the Audit Scotland questionnaire of 2009 used in delivery of its report "Maintaining Scotland's Roads - A follow up report". The requirement for some additional information was identified by the Task Group.
The financial return sought data on roads maintenance expenditure across seven revenue expenditure categories. These were based on the structure of the previous Audit Scotland information request and included road construction, structural maintenance, environmental maintenance, weather / winter maintenance, lighting safety / emergency patching and routine repairs.
In addition, it was requested that expenditure in each of these seven categories be broken down into the main cost elements of staff, plant and materials.
The purpose of requesting this data was to build a picture of the current spending on road maintenance across Scotland to allow an analysis of the current position in several areas to:
- Assess the proportion of total spend for each of the seven categories
- Understand the constituent elements of spend for each of the seven categories (i.e. employee costs, plant and machinery etc.)
- Calculate the movement in expenditure since Audit Scotland last gathered information in this format in 2009/10 to give an insight into trends and spending patterns.
Before circulation to the roads authorities, both parts of the questionnaire were trialled by South Lanarkshire Council and Transport Scotland. The feedback was then reviewed and some adjustments were subsequently made to the questionnaire in an effort to ease completion of it.
Copies of the questionnaire were produced and passed to SCOTS and Transport Scotland representatives on the Steering Group for circulation on Friday 2 March 2012, with a return date of 16 March 2012.
The return of questionnaires to the Task Group was over an extended period of nearly three months.
The status of questionnaire returns at the end of May 2012 is detailed in Table 3.1 below.
Questionnaire Responses |
Organisational |
Financial |
|---|---|---|
Substantially complete |
31 |
23 |
Incomplete |
0 |
3 |
Not returned |
2 |
7 |
There were gaps and apparent anomalies in the information provided. Consequently it has not been possible to establish a complete picture across Scotland of the current arrangements for roads service delivery. Nevertheless, an overview of the information received is shown below.
3.1.3 Overview of Current Arrangements
Organisational
The understanding of "organisational arrangements" is based on submissions from the 31 out of 33 roads authorities that provided a response. The information provided has been categorised into broad headings as detailed below.
Road Network Length
The responses show the diversity of the road network being managed across Scotland with three local roads authorities responsible for 0-500 km, ten responsible for 500-1000 km, thirteen responsible for 1001- 2500 km, three responsible for 2501-5000 km and two responsible for over 5000 km of road network. In comparison, the trunk roads authority is responsible for 3405km of trunk roads.
Client/Contract arrangements
The questionnaire sought to establish the nature of management and contractual arrangements in place within roads authorities. In summary:
- Whilst two roads authorities use outsourced service delivery arrangements the remaining 29 also use the private sector to varying degrees by exposing a percentage of contracts out to tender in line with Best Value requirements and therefore have a mixed economy in terms of service delivery
- There are six roads authorities with a client/contractor split in place
- There are 25 in house contractors providing services to other customers
- There are 26 roads authorities intending to review current arrangements over the next twelve months
- There are 26 local roads authorities who have contractual arrangements (including framework agreements) of two years or longer e.g. North Lanarkshire Council (10 years)
- The trunk roads authority has contractual arrangements greater than five years duration including long term Design Build Finance and Operate (DBFO) arrangements of up to 30 years (eg M80 DBFO).
Reporting arrangements
- There are 32 local roads authorities, who each report directly to their local authority leadership
- Transport Scotland is the trunk road authority responsible for managing the trunk road network on behalf of Scottish Ministers
- Organograms were provided by 30 roads authorities for the delivery arrangements for the management and maintenance of roads services. They demonstrate a wide range of management arrangements for the delivery of roads services but the common theme is that roads services are part of an integrated front line service model as opposed to a standalone one.
Shared Services and Good Practice
- Shared service/joint working arrangements regarding roads maintenance from 31 roads authorities included winter maintenance, salt provision, roads maintenance materials, street lighting, plant, benchmarking and weather forecasting
- Good practices adopted by roads authorities include salt conservation, Sideways Co-efficient Routine Investigation Machine (SCRIM) and scanner surveys i.e. Scottish Road Maintenance Condition Survey (SRMCS), monitoring Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS), annual tenders used to ensure value for money and operating a mixed market strategy to ensure works are procured both internally and externally.
Human Resources Utilised
- There are approximately 3,000 persons directly employed in roads services in 23 roads authorities who submitted data. Around 1,000 are office based and the remaining 2,000 are site-based. The total figure for all 33 authorities could be in the order of 4,500.
Financial
The financial part of the questionnaire returns were received from 26 roads authorities including Transport Scotland. The information provided offers a level of insight as to how much is being spent across Scotland and on what functions of roads service provision. However, a comprehensive baseline financial position could not be established due to the incomplete responses as noted in the table above. There would be significant benefits to be obtained by having a full financial baseline to inform and support any change process.
It is also recognised in considering the responses that the particular reporting formats adopted by individual roads authorities tend to reflect the standard reporting formats adopted within the parent organisation. This makes wider analysis and comparison much more difficult.
From the partial response to the financial part of the questionnaire it is estimated that annual total expenditure by all 33 roads authorities could be in the order of some £450m-£500m. It would also be reasonable to conclude that spend by local roads authorities equates to some 75-80% of overall roads spend.
In summary, for both organisational and financial parts of the questionnaire it is vital to have all data, to facilitate effective quantitative assessment of any changes in service delivery. It is also considered appropriate to confirm the robustness of the information gathered to date as part of any future assessment, and to seek the adoption of a standardised form of reporting, wherever possible.