Road Safety Framework - Operational Partnership Group (OPG) - meeting minutes - 8 October 2024

Members

  • Steven Feeney (SF) Transport Scotland Road Safety Policy
  • Stuart Wilson (SW) Transport Scotland Safety and Development
  • Michelle Little (ML) Transport Scotland Road Safety Policy
  • Stewart Mackie (SM) IAM RoadSmart
  • Karen McDonnell (KM) RoSPA
  • Stuart Colbron (SC) SCOTS
  • Stephen Bridgman (SB) Public Health Scotland
  • Anne Docherty (AD) Living Streets Scotland

In Attendance

  • Andrew Paterson (AP) Transport Scotland Statistics
  • Caroline Brearley (CB) Scottish Ambulance Service
  • Michelle Van der stighelen (MV) Transport Scotland Safety Camera Programme
  • Caroline Hay (CH) Road Safety Scotland
  • Amy Phillips (APh) Transport Scotland Sustainable and Active Travel
  • Kos Papakyriakou (KP) Police Scotland
  • Fiona McKinlay (FM) Police Scotland
  • Laura McIntyre (LM) Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
  • Hannah Wood (HW)(Observing) Transport Scotland Road Safety Policy
  • Hannah Green (HG)(Observing) Transport Scotland Road Safety Policy

Secretariat

  • Kieren Green (KG) Transport Scotland Road Safety Policy
  • Ben McKenna (BM) (Observing) Transport Scotland Road Safety Policy

Apologies

  • George Henry (GH) (Chair) Transport Scotland Road Policy and Safety
  • Michael McDonnell (MM) Road Safety Scotland
  • Vinnie Fisher (VF) Police Scotland
  • Tommy Keay (TK) Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
  • Fay McNicol (FM) Scottish Ambulance Service
  • Keith Irving (KI) Cycling Scotland
  • Helene Mauchlen (HM) British Horse Society
  • Lynne Mason (LM) Road Haulage Association
  • Nina Day (ND) Health and Safety Executive
  • Alistair Ross (AR) Association of British Insurers
  • Alan Martin (AM) Transport Scotland Active Travel
  • Steve Wykes (SWy) Motorcycle Action Group

Welcome and Introductions

The Chair welcomed the OPG members to the meeting, and proceeded with round the table introductions.

Previous Minute and Actions

The minutes of the previous meeting on 12 June 2024 were agreed as an accurate record of discussion. All actions from the meeting were complete.

Knowledge, Data and Training

Police Management Information Data

  • KP provided the latest management information data, highlighted that Police Scotland continues to monitor and identify trends in activity to help inform its approach. Police Scotland continues to work with Transport Scotland on emerging trends and threats.
  • SB questioned if other factors such as population size are taken into account in the reporting of these statistics. It was confirmed that targets such as the reduction in pedestrians Killed or Serious Injured (KSIs) does take account for population size.
  • KP continued by providing an overview of the latest Police Scotland campaigns data including the number of offences detected and the reach of the campaign message.
  • The chair queries what qualifies as a successful campaign, asking if these are comparable to previous years.
  • A comparison can be produced, however it should be noted that it isn’t always possible to directly compare campaigns like-for-like due to a number of factors including police officer numbers.

Action Point 1: KP to supply a comparison of Police Scotland campaign detections from 2023/24 vs 2022/23

Framework Delivery

Delivery Plan Deliverables

Members were asked to provide an update on their deliverables for 2024/25, and the progress being made on these. The following points were highlighted by each partner during the discussion;

Transport Scotland Road Safety Policy

  • All the Transport Scotland Road Safety Policy deliverables are progressing well. Highlighting that the deliverable to research the impacts of technology on road safety was paused due to budgetary pressures. However, work has been undertaken, including the progressing of live operational deployment of distracted driver camera technology.

Transport Scotland Trunk Road Casualty Reduction

  • Currently no issues in delivery, with engagement being undertaken with local authorities to tie in 20 mph schemes on the trunk road at the same pace as local roads. A toolkit is also currently in development to assist local authorities with the delivery of Perceptual Rider Information for Maximising Expertise and Enjoyment (PRIME) markings on the local road network. The Strategic Road Safety Plan is also being relooked at with the possibility of this becoming a Safe System Delivery Plan for the trunk road network. It is expected this will be published next year.

Road Safety Scotland

  • Work is on-going with an education expert, whereby all school resources will be updated, and launch early next year. Campaigns are also being planned, with a fatigue campaign currently running and the next one being the festive drink and drug-drive at the start of December. In addition, work is taking place with Good Egg Safety to delivery child car seat clinics. There is also training available for partners to help facilitate future clinics.
  • SB questioned if campaigns are being considered on quadbike safety, as this has been an issue in some rural areas in north of Scotland. CH confirmed that this isn’t planned, however would be happy to meet to discuss any further safety promotion which could be offered. Currently there are no foreseen issues in delivery of any deliverables.

Police Scotland

  • Delivery of this year’s deliverables is progressing well, noting that the working group looking to established Road Traffic Diversionary Courses has reconvened. Police Scotland also uses an intelligence-led approach on the deployment of resources, however this is complemented by the use of technology and safety cameras. It was also advised that new safety camera vans have recently been rolled out which will assist as a visual deterrent and enforcement and aim to reduce speeding.

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

  • The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has worked with partner organisations to deliver various educational events, including at schools, garden centres and other community engagement. All are progressing well.

ScORSA

  • Following ScORSA being successful and receiving funding through the Road Safety Framework Fund, it has looked to embed smooth driving in the series of webinar being conducted. Plans are also being developed for three geographically focused events in the North, East and West. To help inform these events, ScORSA has been looking at data from Police Scotland, the Health and Safety Executive and also the Road Traffic Fatality Research.

Scottish Ambulance Service

  • The Scottish Ambulance Service now has a Specialist Services Desk (SSD) which is a 24/7 hub comprising of specialist clinicians and coordinators maintaining an overview of all emergency trauma calls (including Road Traffic Collisions). This allows for a wide range of specialist assets, such as pre-hospital trauma teams, Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) in addition to critical care and Specialist Operations paramedics to respond more effectively to serious traffic collisions.

Public Health Scotland

  • All deliverables are in progress with no issues, highlighting that it would be beneficial to arrange a meeting to discuss the evidence on road traffic collision injury prevention from NHS Datasets. Public Health Scotland also plans to soon publish a report on unintentional injuries which includes information from road traffic collisions as well as new transport pages on the Scottish Public Health Observatory.

IAM RoadSmart

  • No issues with the delivery of IAM deliverables, with the organisations recently investing in a new role to strengthen their engagement. This will allow IAM RoadSmart to increase their footprint in Scotland and bring new members to IAM RoadSmart groups to support wider road safety events across Scotland.

SCOTS

  • Local authorities are currently awaiting the report on the installation of PRIME markings on local roads. However, in the meantime continue to conduct accident investigation and prevention assessments annually, or joint site visits with Police Scotland for all Fatal collisions.
  • The deliverable to develop a National Dashcam Safety Portal was also discussed. Police Scotland will not use a national dashcam portal and is looking to develop this through the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) Programme, currently in pilot in Dundee.

Road Traffic Fatality Research Report & Recommendations

The Road Traffic Fatality Working Group last met in August. During this meeting it was agreed each of the recommendations from the report would be considered and delivered through the Key Priority Groups with a summary update stemming from these discussions provided to the OPG to monitor progress.

The recommendations specific to Police Scotland have been sent directly to them for consideration.

SB queried the possibility of opening up the working group membership to also include Public Health Scotland colleagues. FM advised that, due to the sensitive nature of material the group looked at this has been restricted to Police Scotland and Transport Scotland only. However, agreed to share the groups Terms of Reference (ToR) and Remit to consider this ask.

Comms Handling Plan

The chair advised that a significant body of work had taken place since the last meeting, including the production of a road safety specific communication plan to proactively map out key announcements. The group noted that the Cabinet Secretary planned to hold a media call to highlight current road safety performance and actions planned to address this.

There is a desire to share all of what is happening in road safety not only via Transport Scotland but all partners, and help manage our messaging with the communication plan helping to support this going forward.

The chair asked that the communication plan be shared for partners to consider and provide possible other announcements to include or to highlight where their organisations can support in planned activity.

Risk Register

The risk register was circulated in advance of the meeting and the Chair sought views on the current risks and scoring.

The group agreed to further review risks and scoring when recirculated with the minutes.

Action Point 2: AD/CH to meet to discuss RSS school resources.

Action Point 3: SB/CH/MM to engage to discuss quadbike safety.

Action Point 4: KM to share ScORSA webinars with the group.

Action Point 5: Secretariat to arrange meeting to discuss NHS Datasets with Public Health Scotland, Police Scotland and Transport Scotland.

Action Point 6: Secretariat to seek deliverable updates from Cycling Scotland, Road Haulage Association and British Horse Society.

Action Point 7: Secretariat to send Road Traffic Fatality Research recommendations to the group to seek members views and further actions planned on each recommendation.

Action Point 8: Secretariat to share Road Traffic Fatality Research ToR/Remit with SB.

Action Point 9: Secretariat to circulate Comms Handling Plan to members to consider and highlight further activity or areas for a collaborative approach.

Action Point 10: Secretariat to circulate risk register and members to review current scoring and identify if there is any further risks to the delivery of the framework.

AOB and Next Meeting

SB raised the importance of wide-ranging data, including, NHS datasets and the Scottish Morbidity Records (hospital inpatients). SB noted he had not yet, as had been agreed at a previous meeting, had the capacity to bring a proposal to the group for investment from the Road Safety fund into some analyst time to assist in providing better intelligence for road injury prevention using NHS datasets, noting that , including, police data underestimated the problem.

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Published Date 20 Nov 2024 Type Mode of transport Topic