Agenda item

To give Audit & Governance Committee an overview of the governance and details of the various highways budgets. To include revenue & capital expenditure and governance arrangements.

Speakers:

Lucie Monie, Director, Highways & Transport

Katie Stewart, Executive Director Environment, Transport & Infrastructure

Richard Bolton, Highways Operations & Inf Group Manager

Amanda Richards, Ad Highways - Network & Asset Management

Paul Millin, Strategic Transport Group Manager

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Executive Director ETI gave a brief introduction to the submitted report about highways budgets and the governance arrangements around those budgets.  She reported that there had been many changes in the highway service over the last 12 months.  These included changes to decision-making changes and to maintenance contracts with the aspiration of providing a better service for residents and providing better outcomes because of those changes. Much of what Highways do and the budgets was complex, and much was driven by legislation and regulation. There was an aspiration to engage better with Members and residents and ultimately provide a more transparent service.  The report set out a few next steps that officers would like to undertake with this committee after the discussion today.

2.    The Director for Highways and Transport continued to present an overview of the report which outlined some of the different approaches and requirements in terms of delivering the highways service. She gave a very detailed overview of governance including policies and strategies, strategic and local decision making and budget setting. The capital budget was largely investment focused and there were some specific rules around some of the capital in terms of the grants.  Some of the decision making was more straightforward in places than others and there was a need to think about how that was explained to Members and others.  As part of the recent restructure an engagement and stakeholder team had been set up to help facilitate and provide a better response in terms of queries or requests that were received from Members and residents.

3.    In response to a Member concern about the low budget for enforcement, the role of the two enforcement teams was described and it was explained that the report did not show staff costs, only work costs.

4.    There were comments made about Member perceptions of the new procedures which appeared to reduce member influence in decisions.  It was reported that the A-Z guidance would be issued within the next few weeks and would help provide clarity to members.

5.    The Chairman reiterated the role of the Committee in relation to this report in that they should not get into the scrutiny role but focus on the following elements around governance:

• What the governance arrangements are around highways budgets, both capital and revenue
• What the decision-making processes were
• What were the various checkpoints in the process.
• He wanted to see clearer, more simplified information on these areas as it was unclear at the moment and categories appeared to be duplicated, overlapped or just not clear what that related to.

6.    The Executive Director ETI explained that this was valuable feedback and would feed into the A-Z which she was committed to getting right.

7.    A Member asked for old programmes suggested by previous members under the Horizon programme to be removed if there was no chance of them getting the go-ahead as it was very confusing, and some schemes were more than seven years old.  The Chairman also requested that a list of projects also be provided for each division.  The Director for Highways and Transport responded that the website only showed those schemes that would be funded in the next five years.  The team were also working on members pages and would look at making it easier to find divisional information.

8.    There were several very detailed questions and comments requesting clarification on details within the submitted report around streetlights and trees which were responded to by the Highways Officers.

Action/Further information to note:

That a follow-up report be scheduled for six months’ time.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted and a follow-up report be scheduled for six months’ time.