Highway partners to reveal encouraging results
With efficiency at the top of highway managers’ agendas, an update on the progress of an innovative approach to partnering is due to be revealed at the up-and-coming ‘Highways Efficiency’ event (4 October) – by Nottinghamshire County Council’s Services Director Highways, Bob Hart, and Tarmac’s Contracting director (Midlands), Mike Elford.
Efficiency in the management and execution of highways work is driven by recommendations, such as those of Sir John Egan, whose ‘Rethinking Construction’ report concluded that the efficiency of the UK construction industry as a whole was in need of significant improvement.
Nottinghamshire County Council’s response has been to develop the ‘Nottinghamshire Highways Partnership’ (NHP). The NHP was initiated back in 2004, when the County Council established a legal agreement allowing three Local Authorities – Ashfield District Council, Broxtowe Borough Council and Mansfield District Council – to continue to undertake highway work on its behalf under the title of ‘Manage & Operate Partners’ (MOPs), replacing previous highway agency agreements.
January 2006 saw Nottinghamshire County Council extend the NHP by appointing Tarmac National Contracting Limited as its external highway construction partner. This involved Tarmac entering into a 10 year contract, the scope of which includes, amongst others, patching, surface renewal, footway edging and kerbing, drainage, general highway improvements, traffic management schemes and scheme design and management.
Ever since, Tarmac’s National Contracting team has been supporting the Council’s delivery of highway maintenance and capital programmes (approximate value by Tarmac to date is £10m), extending considerably the breadth of resources, capabilities, skills and expertise available to deliver highway programmes.
Nottinghamshire County Council’s Principal Partnerships Officer, Ross Marshall, who manages one of the few public sector teams to have been established to manage highways partnerships, explains: “Tarmac has become a well established NHP partner, working closely with the Council to deliver real efficiency improvements, promote best value and spread best practice – while bringing private industry commercial expertise and experience to bear.”
The Council’s contract with Tarmac covers work valued at between £80 and £100 million over ten years, and is based on the NEC2 Standard Form of Contract, which sets out a management and legal framework that encourages joint working.
“The length of the contract means that the Council and Tarmac are able to fully commit to the partnership, experiment, develop and innovate to deliver at a local and strategic level, whilst achieving benefits for the longer term,” adds Ross Marshall.
Putting it all together
“Great efforts were made to involve staff from all levels, and across partner organisations, in the creation of the NHP,” says Bob Hart, Nottinghamshire County Council’s Service Director - Highways.
The process was kicked off with workshops, initially focused at a strategic level and then widened to develop a set of shared processes, values and behaviours. The first set of workshops was followed by a detailed study on the likely demands on resources, with recommendations being made to ensure that the correct resources would be in the right place at the right time.
Simple performance criteria and objectives were also established, with aligned KPIs and reporting tools enabling all partners to know exactly what they were charged with delivering, and whether or not they were delivering it.
This approach helped to secure staff buy-in, identify potential issues in bringing the partnership together and ensure that the most was made of existing experience and insight within teams. Staff training was a vital factor in the successful formation of the NHP, whilst continuing training and development played a critical part in maintaining momentum and focus within the partnership. A key element of the training to date has involved demonstrating to staff how they can benefit from the partnership, whilst improving their skills within the new structure.
Communication with teams included ‘question and answer’ workshops, where the NHP was explained to staff in detail as a positive initiative that would help to secure jobs and careers, and individuals were able to ask questions in an open and honest forum. The partners have learnt many lessons during the creation of the NHP, none more important than the need to fully communicate with all levels of staff throughout all stages of the partnership development process.
The inner workings
The NHP is currently governed through a three-tier structure, with strategic, operational and advisory groups designed to reduce the resource input of senior managers, streamline activity at the operational level and enable experts and practitioners to focus on identifying and recommending meaningful solutions at an advisory level.
This structure also facilitates efficient communications and defines clear roles and responsibilities across the three tiers, in the process empowering those involved. Previously the NHP has been managed using three separate three-tier structures, however, as of September 2007, two of these (the Tarmac and MOPs board structures) will converge – a sign of how closely the partners are working and thinking.
Successes to date
The NHP’s successful delivery of the 2007/08 highway programme (value of circa £52m) is testament to the strong and productive relationships formed between partners – with Tamac’s work delivered within 4.5 per cent of the Final Target Price (FTP).
“The majority of KPIs set for the first year of the contract have been achieved, delivering cashable savings, initially through developed rates,” reports Mike Elford, Tarmac's Contracting director for the Midlands.
“But there has also been a relentless focus on the quality of the approach to work as well as quality of work delivered, which has been evolved through various initiatives such as joint training exercises, benchmarking and continuous development of performance measures.”
Eighteen months on, the NHP’s vision, values and objectives are well embedded at all levels, including across partner organisations, with shared procedures, processes and standards being rolled out and well received.
“The NHP is now well established as a truly forward thinking and innovative partnership. Together we’re delivering demonstrable results, both in terms of the quality of the approach to our work, and the work itself,” says Bob Hart.
Future developments
NHP members are continually questioning, challenging and developing their approach. Recently, a set of four strategic objectives has been established to drive continuous improvement; fully integrated working relationships, operational efficiency, creation of better and safer working environments and improved environmental performance.
Whilst existing KPIs are largely focused on financial performance, further key drivers for improvement relate to partners’ need to develop, measure and manage the NHP’s performance in more detail and across a wider range of criteria.
In the future, the partners’ performance will be measured using a ‘balanced scorecard’ approach. The NHP is currently assessing existing systems used by partners, with a view to identifying best practice and to creating a powerful tool for the measurement and management of the overall partnership’s performance – while aligning strategic objectives to challenging, deliverable and measurable operational objectives, and achieving a ‘balanced’ view of the organisation.
Bob Hart continues: “This approach will enable our work and progress to be regularly demonstrated to all levels of staff, allowing teams and individuals to see the difference their contributions make in the bigger picture and focus on areas for improvement. This will empower staff to make positive change, and fits in with our commitment to regular, open and transparent communication.”
There is also the opportunity to integrate teams further still, by such means as combining staff from different partner organisations in single locations – enabling employees from across partner organisations to share ideas, expertise and knowledge, and utilising construction resources more efficiently.
The NHP in action
Nottinghamshire County Council has recently embarked upon delivering a high profile £10.5m project to rationalise its northern area depot facilities. Faced with the challenges of a limited budget, a complex programme, a short mobilisation period and the issue of business continuity, the Council needed to ensure the delivery team appointed was able to provide the necessary expertise.
To this end, the Council has approved the use of all partners within the NHP to deliver the project. All the partners have seized this flagship project as a key opportunity to demonstrate the power of integrated working and its partnership approach. The success of the project will depend on joint contributions made by the Tarmac team, internal Nottinghamshire County Council staff – including the Authority’s design and procurement team – and Scott Wilson, which has recently joined the NHP as engineering services and design partner.
The Council will benefit from the NHP’s agreed common objectives, its wide-ranging expertise, the time and cost certainty it can offer, and its commitment to deliver a value-engineered solution.
“The securing of this prestigious work is evidence that partners’ confidence to work together and deliver on the ground is well placed,” concludes Mike Elford.
Conclusion
There are real benefits and rewards from this kind of innovative working, but it takes considerable focus, resolve and commitment on the ground to deliver. The NHP is a living, breathing example of the public and private sectors working together to deliver best value and best practice in highway construction and maintenance.
20 November 2007
See more on the Tarmac and our sustainable products
.
