Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

1.3 Conclusions

1.3 Conclusions on progress to date

The output from the 2001 national debate Rethinking the Construction Client proposed six key guidelines for clients in the public sector. These provide an independent benchmark for measuring our progress. The guidelines set out in 2001 were:

• Traditional processes of selection should be radically changed because they do not lead to best value
• An integrated team which includes the client should be formed before design and maintained throughout delivery
• Contracts should lead to mutual benefit for all parties and be based on a target and whole life cost approach
• Suppliers should be selected by best value and not by lowest price; this can be achieved within EC and Government procurement guidelines
• Performance measurement should be used to underpin continuous improvement within a collaborative working process
• Culture and processes should be changed so that collaborative rather than confrontational working is achieved

The Agency as a result of its strategy, has made significant progress against all of these, but major challenges remain to support culture change in delivery teams; implement new policies and procedures in a consistent manner; measure and understand value; improve the safety record of operatives on our network; and improve our service to customers.