Agenda item

Mr P Carter, Leader of the Council, Mr M Austerberry, Executive Director, Environment, Highways and Waste Directorate and Mr J Burr, Director of Kent Highway Services will attend the meeting from 10.15am to 11.00am to answer Members’ questions on this item.

(Mr P Carter, Leader, Mr M Austerberry, Executive Director, Environment, Highways & Waste Directorate, Mr J Burr, Director of Kent Highway Services and Mr K Hills, Head of Community Operations were in attendance for this item to answer questions from Members of the Committee)

(1)     Mr Manning introduced the item by stating that he applauded the aspiration of the project and the positive benefits of supplying work within Kent to small and medium sized companies.  However it was one thing to have the aspiration, it was another thing to deliver the project.

(2)     Mr Carter explained that there was a good mix of contractors and he had been impressed by their ability.  Mr Carter confirmed that each contractor was asked to bid for whole districts, rather than part of a district. 

(3)     Mr Manning queried how the contractors would be co-ordinated, supervised and managed.  Public opinion was very important and Members were pleased to note that it was highlighted in the supplementary info.

(4)     Mr Austerberry confirmed that there were seven contractors.  Four were Kent-based Small to Medium sized Enterprises, the remaining three had operational bases in Kent.  Contractors would work from a list of roads provided by KCC, and would be regularly visited by KHS staff.  The contracts were very specific about the quality of work required.  The supervision and administrative resources would be drawn mainly from KHS, supplemented from its consultancy services contract which was designed to assist KCC at peak times of workload. 

(5)     Mr Carter explained that regarding supervision of the work, most companies would have a supervisory employee to go ahead and iron out any problems before the fixing gangs arrived.  With officers Mr Carter would be having weekly discussions with the contractors to determine what was working well/not working well to ensure success. 

(6)     The Chairman asked whether the contractors had flexibility, would they mend anything that the public would want fixing.  Mr Austerberry explained that the contracts covered both potholes and areas of patching, including the highway edges.  Mr Carter confirmed that the contractors would be applying a sensible and long term solution to any problems. 

(7)     Mr Manning continued to query the supervision aspect of the work, how would it be possible to photograph the quality of material being used and how much would the supervision aspect cost?  Mr Austerberry confirmed that the cost of administering and supervising the process was not huge and was a very necessary part of the process.  Mr Burr explained that where possible the contractors would undertake a permanent first time fix of any damaged road surface.  Mr Carter explained that £2million was being allocated to this project, it would be reviewed after £1million, and there was a total of £2.4million available from the Government for road repairs. 

(8)     Mr Parry asked how the relationship between the current Ringway operatives and the new contractors would work.  How would the Council ensure that Ringway would perform well and ensure that the find and fix scheme would work effectively, would quality checks be carried out?  It was vital to ensure that Parish Councils, Town Councils, Neighbourhood Forums and local members be made aware of when and where work would be carried out. 

(9)     Mr Austerberry explained that the Council was very keen to get local input with regard to priority areas.  Under its existing Term Maintenance Contract, Ringway would continue to work on other highway maintenance issues.  Ringway’s work under the weather damaged roads contracts would be monitored in the same way as the other contractors.  Teams would focus onto the minor roads (rural and estate roads especially) which represented over 70% of the road network.  The teams would be allocated roads where there were known problems. 

(10)Mr Scholes asked whether the officers were satisfied that where a pothole defect could be considered ‘lethal’ it was being classed correctly.  It was considered difficult to measure severity objectively.  Mr Burr agreed that what might be lethal to one individual might not be to another, however the classing of severity of road defects was improving.

(11)In response to a question from Mr Christie, Officers confirmed that contractors would repair cracking to the surrounding area of any potholes.  Contractors were chosen with a weighting of 75% related to price and 25% related to responses to questions in the area of quality.  It was difficult to determine the quality of the work until the contractors were up and running whereas the cost of the work was a fact as set out in the tender submission.  A key issue in the quality evaluation had been the attitude and approach of the tenderers.  Under KCC’s supervision of the work any contractors which fell below the expected standard would be removed from the programme.

(12)Mr Burr explained that there was a 3 month maintenance guarantee.  Officers were confident that if there were issues with the quality of the work they would be picked up with the supervision.  If they were apparent within 3 months of the work being completed the contractor would re-repair the road at their own cost.  There were no concerns about the 3 month guarantee period.  Regarding the admin costs, they were small figures, and certainly not into double digits, officers were confident that it was a cost effective method of delivering the repairs to roads work. 

(13)In response to a question from Mr Kite, about whether this way of working might be adopted in the future to deal with other highways issues, the Leader confirmed that it was essential that the programme was a success for it to continue.  In principle a mixed economy of contractors on a district based approach could have a part to play in future arrangements if, as was hoped, the programme worked well.

(14)Mr Burr confirmed, in response to a query about road marking and who was responsible, that it was not cost effective to get repair companies to undertake road marking.  Kent Highway Services would put together a reasonable programme and undertake the work.  However, if the markings were safety critical it would be done urgently.

(15)Mr Burr confirmed that drain covers which had potholes around them would be covered by the contract.

(16)Mr Chell suggested using lampposts to inform the public that the find and fix programme was going ahead.  Officers explained that publicity was ongoing, it was not felt that it would be the most efficient publicity method to use lampposts, however officers were being proactive and websites such as ‘fix my street’ and facebook campaigns were being monitored and used. 

(17)Mrs Stockell asked if there would be follow up surveys with Parish Councils for example, and the Leader explained that monitoring the process was very important, officers would be looking for a range of feedback. 

(18)Mr London queried whether the inspection of public utilities road reinstatement work could be increased to ensure that work was being undertaken in a satisfactory manner.  The Leader confirmed that Mr Burr would be undertaking a review of the quality of supervision of both the utility companies and other contractors working with Kent Highways.  The Council had to be a fair but tough client.   Mr Burr explained that where possible roadworks were planned together, however getting utilities companies to work together in the same trench was often logistically problematic.  There was room for improvement but progress had been made.

(19)The Chairman asked how work was incentivised.  It was understood that contractors were asked to determine some innovative ways of working.  Did officers have any feedback from the interviews, were there any differences between the contractors contracts and the Ringways contract?  In relation to incentivisation, the answers received from the contractors were reassuring, with a number proposing bonuses for their staff based on matters like volume of work covered to acceptable quality, no public complaints, no defects and client satisfaction.  In relation to innovative ways of working some contractors explained the use of hot boxes; which contained a heating element which kept material hot all day and therefore provided an efficient use of small amounts of material.  Some contractors explained that they would use their own supervisor to check out road damage in advance and mark, measure and quantify the repair needed.  Mr Austerberry explained that the contracts had been drawn up with KCC as the client heavily specifying what it wanted. 

(20)The Chairman referred to the House of Commons Select Committee for Public Accounts which looked into the Highways Agency’s performance and made a number of recommendations, one of which was regarding continually monitoring the cost of the contract throughout its life, another was life costing to predict the cost of highways maintenance.  It was also apparent that the Highways Agency did little in terms of benchmarking across authorities.  How would the council use the information it got from this process to improve work in the future?  Mr Austerberry said that it sounded like the Highways Agency used long term partnering contracts similar to those of the Council with its main suppliers.  There were aspects of these contracts which KCC did not feel had worked as well as they could, and the contracts for the winter damage repairs had taken a different approach. 

(21)  The Chairman referred to the backlog of work which remained outstanding, there had been a significant increase on the amount of money which was being spent on the roads, but it was apparent that work was not keeping up with demand.  Could Members be provided with information relating to the amount of money necessary to clear the backlog?  Mr Carter and Mr Austerberry said that while investment had increased in recent years this had not been enough to get on top of the backlog.  Mr Burr explained that the asset management database was now almost completely up to date, the asset management plan, which was almost complete, would allow the Council to determine the funding requirements to meet the maintenance plan.  The council did a lot of whole life costing, with a variety of options for the repair of large stretches of road.  Mr Hills explained that he represented Kent on a board which met to share quality of work and good practice.  Information on contractors was also shared across the board.  Mr Burr explained that figures on the cost to clear the backlog of road repair work which remained outstanding would be made available to Members within a couple of months. 

(22)In response to a question about responsibility for traffic management around potholes, closing roads etc. would officers anticipate that this would cause delays.  Mr Hills explained that teams would be working on minor roads to avoid delays, speed limits were shown on their plan and contractors were aware of their responsibilities regarding traffic management. 

RESOLVED that the Cabinet Scrutiny Committee:

1. Thank Mr Carter, Mr Austerberry, Mr Burr and Mr Hills for attending the meeting and answering Members’ questions;

2. Support in principle the process of inviting local companies to submit tenders for the road surface repair contracts; 

3. Ask for confirmation of the level of backlog to road repairs, the level of government support, and the level of expenditure which would be required to clear the backlog;

4. Ask for written confirmation that the total cost of administering the process and overheads is no more than 10% of the total cost of the contract;

5. Ask that Members, Parish Councils and Town Councils be informed when teams will be working in their areas;

6. Ask that the frequency of inspection of utilities work to road surfaces is increased to ensure benefits and high performance of utility companies;

7. Thank the witnesses for their assurance that there would be systematic monitoring of the work and ask the Scrutiny Board to review the Weather Damage Repairs to Roads in Kent contract and the work to date after £1million has been spent.