Issue - meetings

(Report by Director, Kent Highway Services)

Mr J R Bullock declared a personal interest in this Item as Chairman of the Lamberhurst British Legion.

(1)       This was the first formal Director’s Update report and it was proposed to provide one to each Highways Advisory Board from now on.

Governance and Decision making in Kent Highway Services

(2)       The Director was aware that whereas ultimate Governance decisions were made at Cabinet, Highways Advisory Board enabled Board Members and officers to exchange views and formulate recommendations that passed to the portfolio holder via the minutes and the Board Chairman.  The new Alliance structure of KHS enabled a broad range of disciplines to be presented to HAB covering from consultation and planning to delivery.  The Alliance team was also available to attend JTB meetings.

Joint Transportation Boards –KHS believed that Joint Transportation Boards enabled local issues to be debated with officers at a local level and amongst others things help identify, prioritise and endorse schemes that were either capital investment in changes/improvements to the network and validated by PIPKIN or maintenance of the existing asset as identified by the asset management model.  There was more work to be done to shape the interaction with JTB’s as the changes to KHS and the wider E&R directorate took shape.  A PIPKIN conference was being planned for the New Year to discuss with Members and Parish/Town Councils their role in representing the community voice for any ideas to improve/change the road layout or transport provision for the county.

Alliance Board – when the new highway contracts were let to Ringway, Jacobs and TSUK all parties, including KCC, realised that for partnering to achieve its full potential a common culture had to be developed and driven to give a strategic direction to improve administrative efficiency and better value delivery.  The Alliance Board was chaired by Keith Ferrin (Cabinet Member Environment, Highways and Waste) and included Adam Wilkinson (Managing Director of Environment and Regeneration Directorate), Geoff Harrison-Mee (Director Kent Highway Services), Scott Wardrop (Managing Director Ringway Group), Mike Higgins (Group Vice President Jacobs) and Richard Bevins (UK Director TSUK).  The Board issued delivery directives to the Alliance Executive.  The terms of reference for the Alliance Board were attached as Appendix 1 to the report.  The Board currently met on a monthly basis, and this would probably move to every two months from April 2008.

Alliance Executive – made up of the senior managers from Ringway, Jacobs, TSUK and KCC this management team was chaired by Geoff Harrison-Mee and included Roger Manning, lead Member for Highways.  Their role was to drive the outcomes, performance and management of Kent Highway Services and their terms of reference was also set out in Appendix 1 to the report.  The Executive currently met every two weeks, and this would probably move to monthly from April 2008.

The proposed new shape of Kent Highway Services

(3)       The Transformation process started a little over a year ago following the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3