Issue - meetings

Report by the Director of Communities, Economy and Transport.

16.1     The Lead Member for Transport and Environment gave an overview of the first years performance of the Highways Contract. The asset management approach has improved the condition of roads and there have been improvements in safety and response times through the use of new technology. The savings target of £1.4m has been achieved, and it is estimated that the value of contracts awarded to local companies, thereby supporting the local economy, has been around £17million. Local engagement has been improved through roadshows, tours, and strengthening local relationships (SLR) meetings. The Customer Centre has been restructured and call answering times are above national performance standards. The achievements under the Contract during the first year of operation are highlighted in Appendix 2 of the report. The focus of the next year will be improving customer service, operational delivery and achieving accreditation for the quality management system.

16.2     The Contracts Manager and the Contract Performance and Compliance Manager highlighted further areas of contract performance during the first year of operation. The overall performance achieved and individual targets at end of first year are shown in Appendix 1 of the report. These cover a wide range of service outcomes in line with recommendations of the Highways Reference Group. When looking at the key service outcomes:

• Improving asset condition - the target of reducing the percentage of unclassified roads requiring maintenance to 19% was achieved, whilst the condition of the and non-principle roads has also been maintained at the previous levels of 5% and 6%respectively;
• Ensuring a safe road network - the level of third party claims has been reduced;
• Value for money - service efficiencies have increased the number of minor works schemes it has been possible to carry out;
• Supporting the local economy - around 43% of the contract value went into local economy; and
• Customer service – the number of complaints has reduced by 82% and the number of complements has increased by 63%.

16.3     The Committee discussed various aspects of the performance of the Highways Contract and the key points are summarised below.

Incident and fault report updates

16.4     The Committee noted that although customer service and engagement with residents is working well, there appears to be gap between when an incident is reported and when updates are given on the proposed course of action or resolution. It is important that Councillors are kept informed of when a fault has been fixed, or the reasons why something has not been repaired. Some Committee members have also experienced difficulties when they have requested residents are copied into emails that give an update to an outstanding issue.

16.5     The Contract Performance and Compliance Manager outlined that all customers get an update response with 10 working days, and there should not be a problem in copying customers into emails to Councillors. The team are currently undertaking work to check, and if necessary, improve the quality of the information in the responses given. The Contracts Manager explained that the team are looking to improve  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16

Report by the Director of Communities, Economy and Transport.

37.1     The Contracts Manager (Head of Service – Highways) introduced the report and outlined the background to the letting of the seven year Highways Infrastructure Services Contract awarded to Costain in a joint venture (JV) with CH2M. Under the contract model approved by Cabinet, a new Contract Management Group has been established to manage the contract. The Contract Management Group includes teams dealing with:

•           service development;

•           contract performance & compliance;

•           asset management; and

•           commercial management.

37.2     Work on the Highways Contract commenced on 6 January 2016 with the start of mobilisation process. The new contract started on 1 May 2016 and has involved the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment (TUPE) transfer of 150 staff from ESCC and previous contractors. The early part of the contract has focussed on providing staff training and introducing new Information Technology (IT) systems and business processes. It is acknowledged there have been challenges in the delivery of the contract outcomes, but these issues have now largely been resolved and were related to combining staff, cultures, and the implementation of new processes.

37.3     The new contract has a robust commercial and performance management framework in place. This includes direct monitoring of contract performance to ensure ESCC is receiving value for money from the services delivered by the contract. The contract has performance incentives as well as penalties. There is good early evidence that the contract is now delivering the outcomes that the Scrutiny Committee consider are important.

37.4 The Contract Performance and Compliance Manager described the performance frameworks that her team works to, and outlined how the Service Performance Indicators (SPI’s) are measured to assess the performance of the contract. The Contractor is required to complete returns on a monthly basis, together with evidence of performance. The Compliance Team look at all types of work under the contract, performance indicators and data collection.

37.5     It is fairly usual for not all the SPI’s to be green at the start of a contract, particularly as ESCC has set challenging performance targets for the Contractor to achieve. If an SPI is not green, the Contractor has to submit a smart action plan to improve performance back to the expected level. If the performance falls below the expected level for two consecutive months, ESCC can instruct the Contractor to undertake a root cause analysis study. If an SPI is 10% below target, ESCC can carry out contractual service review to identify the actions necessary to improve performance. All contract performance measures are monitored at monthly Service Management Board meetings.

37.6     The Committee discussed the report and a summary of the points raised is given below.

Service Performance Indicators (SPI’s)

37.7     The SPI’s in Appendix 1 are grouped under the desired contract outcomes identified by the Scrutiny Committee and the overall score of the grouping is an average of the constituent SPI’s. Some SPI’s are calculated over a whole year, and therefore more accurate figures can be provided when a full year of data is available.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37