Local Government and Transport Committee, 11 Nov 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Official Report 291KB pdf

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Scottish Road Maintenance Condition Survey

I welcome members, the public and the press to the eighth meeting of the Local Government and Transport Committee. We have apologies from Rosie Kane and Iain Smith has sent apologies for the fact that he will miss the start of the meeting. I also welcome Tommy Sheridan, who is here to substitute for Rosie Kane. He is not an official committee substitute, but he is entitled to participate in any committee meeting.

I welcome to the committee Jim Valentine, who is head of roads service at Perth and Kinross Council, and Sandy Ritchie, who is head of direct services at Moray Council. They are here to talk about the Scottish road maintenance condition survey, which the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland completed earlier this year and which raised a number of issues on the maintenance of roads. I invite the witnesses to make some introductory remarks on the survey, after which I will open up the discussion to questions from members.

I will briefly mention the clerk's paper. To be correct, the survey is not complete; it is on-going. It is only a carriageway survey, but it is indicative of underfunding in other areas—similar work is being done nationally on footways, lighting and bridges.

We hoped that the survey would provide local and national members of SCOTS with robust information that they could use to inform their decision making. The survey goes back some years, to about 1994, when it was proven in Scotland that the subjective visual survey methods that were still used in England and Wales were unreliable. The lack of good qualitative information had led to a lot of media discussion, much of which was based on anecdotal observations. The need for a new kind of survey was reflected by the initiative's swift take-up by all Scottish councils.

The survey uses laser technology, which has been used internationally for many years, including on the Scottish trunk road network, but has now been specifically developed for local authority roads. I am pleased to say that the Department for Transport has now picked up the Scottish system and will introduce it on its principal roads from 2004 and roll it out over the rest of its network by, we hope, 2008. We continue to work with the department to develop the system.

Audit Scotland has worked with SCOTS to arrive at a suitable performance indicator for carriageway condition. However, I stress that the indicator is only a network-level indicator of needs. Local knowledge still needs to be applied to the results and other factors—such as road safety, economic development and the general prioritisation of funding—need to be included in the equation. One of our next steps is to have a roads summit to provide a common methodology for calculating a backlog figure that will be used throughout the United Kingdom.

Many of the figures that have appeared in the press recently have been based on anecdotal evidence or surveys that are not statistically representative. The big benefit of the survey is that it will allow trends in condition to be monitored with scientifically based evidence. It has provided the information that the former Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning and the Transport and the Environment Committee requested in 2002 to substantiate the original backlog figure that SCOTS produced.

We have the preliminary result for the principal roads from 2002 and a sample from 2003. The 2003 survey continues. It must be borne in mind that we are at the cutting edge of technology and did not have a benchmark for how long the survey would take, although we hope that it will be completed early next year.

The information that we have to date indicates that approximately 40 per cent of the local authority A-road network needs to be investigated for maintenance treatment and that around 50 per cent of the B, C and unclassified road networks also need to be investigated. That is a good-news story in light of our initial press release last year, which indicated that around 70 per cent of the B, C and unclassified road networks needed to be investigated. Because we have a much bigger sample this year, it now looks as though the figure will come in at around 50 per cent.

Because of budgetary constraints, councils have found it necessary over the past few years to concentrate on immediate concerns and the long-term investment programme on the local road network has effectively disappeared. We hope that the survey will quantify the roads problem that is apparent in MSPs' and local councillors' mailbags.

As I understand it, 2002-03 is effectively a trial year for the survey, which will be a continuing process from now on. How successful do the councils and SCOTS regard the survey as being? Do improvements need to be made in future? Moreover, has the survey been funded solely from local authority budgets or has the Scottish Executive made any contribution to date? Are negotiations taking place on that issue?

I will answer the second part first. The survey has been funded purely by the local authorities, apart from a contribution from the Department for Transport towards development costs and the research that was required. That research is continuing and the funding from the Department for Transport is continuing.

I should explain that a national roads board does all roads research on behalf of the four nations and tries to co-ordinate that research. We have attracted funding from the board, but each council contributes towards a four-year programme for the survey.

Councils are finding the information useful and are using it to prioritise some of their programmes. However, it is early days and the technology is new. There is no benchmark to work to and it has taken a while to get the system up and running.

How significant has the Department for Transport's financial contribution been?

It was significant in that it got research with the Transport Research Laboratory up and running. We are working in partnership with all bodies and that funding stream is continuing. What started off as a Scottish initiative has become a UK initiative because there are common problems.

You might know that Stirling Council has been surveying its roads. It has set up a panel to scrutinise how resources are allocated and to make long-term plans of four years and 20 years. Can you use the results that you have come up with to comment on the time scales? I am thinking about next year and where that will to take us. Perhaps more important, I am wondering whether the Scottish Executive will follow what has been happening down south and commit to a long-term strategy. Do you think that we have enough information from the SCOTS surveys to be starting on a long-term strategy? From the information that we have received so far, I am aware that a stitch in time will save money in the long-term.

It would be great if we could have a 10-year plan and I believe that the SCOTS survey would recommend that we strive for that. However, we do not have sufficient information at present; only 14 of the 32 councils have finalised results and we do not have any of this year's A-road surveys yet. However, by February, we will have all the results in. We told the Audit Scotland value-for-money study group that we would strive to get the information to it by then. Although I said that the percentage of unclassified roads that have to be investigated has dropped from 70 per cent to 50 per cent, we will have to wait to ensure that our information is robust and repeatable.

So you are saying that by February 2004 you will be able to propose some sort of long-term plan to which we could encourage the Scottish Executive to make a commitment.

Through working with the UK roads board, we hope that, by that time, we will have a methodology for calculating a backlog figure and for finding a way ahead.

Audit Scotland has announced its value-for-money study into the maintenance of Scotland's road network. How will the work done by SCOTS relate to the Audit Scotland study?

We have worked closely with Audit Scotland for the past three years. As soon as Audit Scotland said that it was going to ask for a performance indicator for roads maintenance, we said that, based on our experience, we believed that the one that it intended to use was not the most appropriate. We then worked with Audit Scotland to arrive at an appropriate indicator. We continue to work closely with Audit Scotland. The value-for-money study does not mention any backlog figures because it was decided that that matter could wait until the work had been concluded.

So your work is complementary. Do you have a different focus from Audit Scotland's and, if so, how do the two approaches link up?

I do not think that we have a different focus. We have told Audit Scotland that as technical officers we are striving to get the best that we can out of the roads network. Audit Scotland is obviously doing what it can with the information that we have provided.

Do you have any indication yet of how road maintenance standards vary across the country?

We have an indication, but not the full survey. The information will be published once the survey is complete.

Have you noticed any geographical trends—whether rural, urban or mixed—or identified any early signs in that respect?

Our original survey debunked a few myths about A-class roads. For example, it showed that there was not a great deal of variation between urban and rural roads; although the problems were different, the overall condition rating was similar. As for the old all-purpose trunk road network versus local road network argument, the results of the original survey showed that the conditions of the two types of road were very similar.

Does the maintenance of roads vary across the country?

The survey examines only the condition of the roads.

Are some local authorities performing better than others on road maintenance? Is there any discernible pattern in that respect?

Any such pattern is related to the condition of the road. One would need to examine the trend and spend by individual councils before that issue could be fully analysed.

Do you intend to do that?

That is the next step, but it will take a considerable amount of research.

I am aware that some local authorities are increasing their spend on roads maintenance partly because of the move to the prudential borrowing regime. Do you intend to analyse the importance that local authorities across Scotland give to roads maintenance and capital expenditure?

SCOTS would simply supply the results of the survey to the decision makers. How they interpret those results is up to them. We intend to develop the survey further to allow people to arrive at budgetary figures and make other decisions. However, although we could recommend an asset management plan, it would be up to local decision makers to decide whether that plan should be implemented.

It would be useful to find out the priority that individual local authorities are giving to roads, perhaps in terms of the spend per kilometre or mile of road. Such a measure would certainly tell us whether a particular local authority was making roads a priority.

Although the spend per kilometre of road has been dropped as a statutory performance indicator, SCOTS has retained it as a voluntary performance indicator in order to inform the process.

I assume that you have taken into account the fact that the Scottish Executive's quality-of-life moneys have allowed councils to spend a little more on roads. As far as relating the matter to grant-aided expenditure is concerned, we should remember that that additional money has been allocated over the past two years. If you are seriously considering the convener's proposal, you will have to be careful about making clear the amount of money that has been made available.

My second point follows on from Andrew Welsh's question about Audit Scotland. I am concerned about the extent to which the work will move us on. You have said that any survey has to be evidence based, that it must be carried out using laser technology and that we must ensure that the right techniques are available. What extra information will we receive from Audit Scotland and the questionnaire that it is giving to local authorities? I hope that we will be able to use that information to start to get the non-trunk roads looked at.

From Audit Scotland, you will get all the stuff that I cannot give you, such as asset management plans for each council and information on budgets that councils have spent. It can supply much more information. All that we can give you is information on road conditions.

Much quality-of-life money and additional moneys that have been given to councils over recent years have been targeted at specific objectives. However, in respect of cycling, walking and safer streets, for example, cycle lanes or coloured surfacings that are put on to a street that is deteriorating will add to the maintenance burden—some £15 per square metre might be added to the costs of repairing a street. Therefore, dilemmas occur where money is specifically targeted.

I take on board what you are saying about the information that could be used from the local authorities and Audit Scotland. However, the fact is that we need around £1 billion to start to rectify matters. If such a huge gap exists, how useful in the scheme of things is the little bit of extra information that will come from the local authorities via Audit Scotland?

In the past, we have always worked on subjective information, but we aim to make figures such as the £1.5 billion that has been quoted objective information rather than subjective information. It might be that £1.5 billion is an unrealistic figure—the figure might be more or less than that—but currently we do not know. We want reasoned information to allow us to identify needs and how much things will cost. Such information will inform the investment programme that will be necessary to write off the backlog. We should work through an objective, repeatable and reliable process.

On a technical aspect of the survey, it appears from what I have read that the survey is a surface assessment. Can you judge the structural strength of the highways from it?

The survey considers defects in a length of road and aggregates that information to arrive at a score. It therefore gives an indication of the road's structural strength. Currently, specific defects are being considered. Consideration is being given to the longitudinal profile of a road, which relates to the road's bumpiness; rutting, which relates to depression by wheels; and surface texture. This year, we are measuring cracking and developing measurement of edge deterioration, which is important for rural authorities. Once those five parameters have been considered, we will have considered all the aspects of the road's structural condition.

We hear much about backlogs. From your existing knowledge or from the results of the survey, can you say what level of expenditure local authorities in Scotland should be making in order to break even and to ensure that backlogs do not worsen? Obviously, that is important for judging the level of funding that should be made available.

We cannot give an exact figure at the moment. As I said, research into arriving at a backlog figure is on-going. In the past, there have been problems as a result of various people attempting to arrive at such a figure. We are now aiming to have a UK standard for calculating backlog, which would inform each council of what its backlog is.

So you cannot tell us whether, for example, the fact that a local authority is spending approximately £300 million this year on maintenance of the road network is enough to prevent further deterioration.

Not at this moment in time.

You said that yours was an initiative to pull together information that was not in the public domain or that was not collated in any way. The idea behind it was, as you said, to get that information to the decision makers. That was what you envisaged. How have the decision makers in the local authorities responded to the provision of that information?

As roads professionals within local authorities, we present information to councils on a yearly basis. To do so, we have various tools available to us. We can look at the historic spends, the information from accidents and the information from the routine visual inspections and safety inspections that we carry out. The survey is another tool to add to those, which identifies in more detail the physical structure of the road itself. With that information, we can prioritise areas and put forward indicative spending needs to our councils in relation to the maintenance of the asset.

You can talk about papering over the cracks or painting the windows when, in fact, the wood is rotten—that idea has been raised before. The issue is whether we can go beyond that and say that, if remedial work is carried out at the appropriate time, the road's longevity will be increased and, therefore, the long-term spending will be less. We want to know the level of investment. As I said, the survey gives us information not only on individual authorities, but on all the local authorities. Therefore, comparators throughout Scotland can be looked at and investment can be proportioned accordingly.

You are obviously trying to dovetail your survey with the UK picture. Do you see any reason why, in doing that, you may delay the time scale for coming to a decision on how bad the roads are and what investment is needed?

No, that will not delay the SCOTS initiative, which will proceed regardless. The Department for Transport is now trying to dovetail with that progress, but that will not delay the SCOTS initiative, as it is separate. It makes sense to undertake things such as machine development on a UK level in order to make savings, principally because there are not many survey machines and each one needs to be verified and calibrated every year. It makes sense to spread the economic burden of that across the UK, rather than to leave it in Scotland. However, what the rest of the UK is doing will not hold up Scotland at all; we are leading the way in the technology.

Will the results of your research be robust enough to allow prioritisation of work programmes and investment by local authorities? What will the end product be?

The end product will be the performance indicator that is given to Audit Scotland and the maps showing where the areas of concern are. We hope that local councils will use that information to target their resources, but work is still required at a lower level to investigate how those priorities fit in with other issues such as road safety and economic development, as Sandy Ritchie said.

I would like clarification on a couple of points. The first relates to the issues that you said you are also surveying. Where does drainage fit in? Is it part of the survey? In rural Scotland, in particular, the lack of roadside drainage and the impact of flooding are a big issue. Is that factored into the survey or is it something that you would consider as part of a separate survey?

Drainage is not picked up in the survey except where a lack of it is causing a problem that is apparent on the surface of the road. The survey is of carriageway condition. However, drainage is another aspect that will be looked at.

My second point concerns the extent to which you factor in usage and anticipated usage. I am thinking of timber traffic, in particular. A truck carrying timber is the equivalent of almost several hundred ordinary vehicles in some instances. If you know that 100 timber trucks will pass along the road, you can anticipate that within six months the road will be in a different condition. How much is anticipated deterioration factored in?

To date we have left that analysis with local authorities. We have supplied them only with survey results at a network level, with no information added other than an urban-rural split and a split by classification of roads. It is up to each council how it wants to use that information.

I come from a local authority area in which there is a lot of timber traffic. As we said, the survey will cover edge deterioration as well—a lot of timber traffic goes down narrow roads. That will inform the debate. It is down to local authorities, working with the forestry industry, to try to prioritise routes and timing, and, if possible, to do remedial strengthening and widening works to minimise impacts. That will still be part of the picture that needs to come back to local authorities so that they can decide whether a route that looks as though it is failing and is expecting timber traffic should have a higher priority within the programme that the councils consider and fund each year.

Are there examples of local authority best practice in addressing poor road conditions from which we could learn?

We want to see examples of best practice over time. The survey is incomplete at the moment and it is too early to demonstrate the best practice areas. Information from the survey and local knowledge can together assist the programme of investment in a particular road over time so that complete deterioration, which has happened in parts of the Highlands, will not happen again.

Is the issue just one of funding or could we adopt best practice that would reduce the funding requirement?

As roads professionals, we always think that there is insufficient funding. We need as much information as possible so that we can prioritise work and anticipate where there will be failure. That will come from the condition surveys and the safety surveys that we carry out, which pick up drainage issues. We will take all that information on board to get a composite knowledge of where to target funds to deliver the most benefit.

I have two quick questions. Would the Audit Scotland work pick up what David Mundell was saying about timber traffic? I acknowledge that there is a specific need in that regard. If you were going to allocate funds on the basis of need, you might not take into account additional needs such as those around timber traffic. From the work that you have done, can you say something about issues relating to service tracks? Were those issues covered?

The issues to do with service tracks were not included, but they will arise as the survey progresses. If a road is failing because of issues around service tracks, that will be apparent in a short time scale, as it will show up in the condition survey. The Audit Scotland work asks about varieties of traffic as well as service tracks, so information will come out of that.

Will it be possible to highlight whether there is a significant on-going problem with service tracks and damage to roads?

We are using DVDs as the survey progresses. We could examine a problem in a given area and see whether it was tied to service tracks. However, that would not show up differently from any other form of deterioration without our examining 56,000km of road.

Are there any further questions?

I have a quick question, not so much on maintenance but on the overall funding mechanism. What is your opinion of the funding mechanism that is used to calculate support for local authorities? Is it fair? Does it need to be changed? If so, how?

That is a good question. As far as we have identified, the backlog shows that there is a level of need. I know from the council mailbags—I am sure that this applies to the Parliament's mailbag, too—that road maintenance, potholes, drainage and flooding problems are frequent topics. As professionals, we struggle to command sufficient local authority funds to deliver on the anticipated level of need, so in our subjective way we prioritise where the funds go. However, the issue is for our political masters and, although we can make the case for roads funding, a wide range of other local priorities have been identified.

That brings us to the end of questions from members. I thank Sandy Ritchie and Jim Valentine for their evidence. The information from the SCOTS survey will be a valuable asset to the committee and the Parliament in examining whether local authorities are adequately funded, particularly in relation to road maintenance. I commend you for the work that is being undertaken. We look forward to seeing the further evidence that will come out of the survey, which I am sure will inform the debate in Parliament.