Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the National Audit Office report, maintaining strategic infrastructure: roads, what savings, under what headings, the Highways Agency has made in each of the last three financial years; and what savings are forecast for 2014-15.

The savings achieved in the past 3 years (2011/12 to 2013/14) total £136 million. The forecast for 2014/15 is £102 million (remains in line with the forecast in the June NAO report). This would total savings of £238 million for the 4 year SR10 period ending in 2014/15. Almost two thirds of the total savings will be achieved through maintenance contracts. See table below.

In reference to the National Audit Office (NAO) report, ‘maintaining infrastructure: roads’, the Highways Agency took a range of actions to achieve the savings and budget reductions set in the Spending Review 2010 (SR10). The main action relating to maintenance was; to renegotiate its existing and continuing maintenance contracts to give an affordable level of service; and it also developed a new type of contract in which it specified outcomes rather than prescribing maintenance activities. When maintenance contracts are renewed they are negotiated using the new type of contract. The majority of savings were anticipated to be achieved through the contract renegotiations.

Another area of savings identified in NAO report was the use of in-house staff to cover areas of work such as commercial and asset management.