Marginal Improvement by Road Contractors is not Good Enough

At the Transport Select Committee on 5th December members were given the latest set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the ill fated Surrey Highways Partnership (SHiP). The SHiP is the arrangement whereby Carillion manages road maintenance in the East of the County and Ringway in the West. Although there has been some improvement things are still not good enough.

On the KPI for % of works costs within 10% of agreed estimated costs, both contractors hit this only 2/3rds of the time, meaning that managing the budget (tax payers' money) is close to impossible. On the KPI of minor defects (i.e. potholes) repaired within timescale, Carillion only achieved about 90% and Ringway was at 75% for most of the year!

The timescale allowed is 28 days from SCC placing the work order so many repairs are taking more than a month to do. On top of this it is often taking Surrey weeks to place the orders as the Highways Department has been running with 20% vacancies for most of the year.

Both contractors are failing to meet the KPI for returning documentation to Surrey on time. This may not sound like a big deal but in the context of both contractors having been caught overcharging earlier in the contract and Surrey under spending its Highways budget by £5 million last year, it is vital that audit trails are available to the council.

Many of the other KPIs are not being hit, therefore it is clear that:

• Budgets are not being controlled properly;
• Work is not being done on time;
• Data is not available to audit performance.

David Goodwin (Councillor for Guildford South West) said, "I was promised a pedestrian refuge in my area in July. It is now December and I am still waiting. John Doran and I are members of the Transport Select Committee and we have been fighting hard to get these contractors to improve but the levels are still not acceptable."

John Doran, Lib Dem spokesperson on transport says "We are now four and a half years into this contract and we are still not seeing anywhere near the service we expect for Surrey residents. I find it disgraceful that we might be in the position of extending one of these contracts when we cannot get simple repairs done on time and on budget. The Tory Executive needs to bite the bullet on this and terminate the contracts in 2009 and explore alternative options to deliver this key service."