Highways Agency

Better preparedness

We have taken steps to tackle disruption to the road network caused by bad weather and other risks. Our preparations for the 2006-07 winter season focused on improving our winter service plans by:

• increasing standardisation,
• better governance,
• setting up a liaison group with the salt industry for continuity in road salt supply, and
• having an effective system in place for learning lessons from severe weather-related incidents.

At the same time we have also improved the reporting system to supply up-to-date information for drivers on the condition of the road network. We tested the readiness of our staff and service providers in ‘snow desk’ exercises at the start of the winter.

We have continued to strengthen emergency and contingency planning arrangements by producing a family of plans at a local, regional, and national level. These have been tested with other partners by way of exercises, and in some cases, real events.

In addition we are reviewing with local authorities diversion routes to decrease delays to travellers following incidents.

Frontline empowerment

We have set up regional operations boards, made up of divisional directors from our main business areas, to establish a single performance focus in each region. These boards have given an opportunity to consider and address network performance issues and draw out best practice, supporting improved working relationships and better understanding of key issues.

The right skills, in the right place, at the right time

We have implemented several initiatives to build our staff capabilities:

• Flexible deployment
  Two pilots were started during the year, testing flexible deployment of staff resources on a geographical basis and on a functional basis, to learn lessons before using more widely.

We plan to roll out flexible deployment across the whole agency over time, helping us to work smarter by:

• using our skills and capabilities to best effect
• helping us recognise which teams are overloaded and allocate work differently
• giving everyone the opportunity to develop their skills and capabilities without the need to move away from their current team
• making sure that collectively we are putting our effort against the highest priority work

• Clarity of roles
  We have drawn up role profiles for senior staff, taking on board the DfT competency framework and the Professional Skills for Government agenda
• Priority development and training
  During the year we improved our corporate development and training strategy, and produced guidance for managers
• Bringing in and bringing on talent
  We ran a leadership recruitment campaign for our middle management tier during the year

Best practice and innovative solutions to improve service

We have been working with other statutory bodies in the planning process, such as local authorities, so that they can receive and respond to planning consultation electronically. This is providing a forum to share best practice across government.