Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

Introduction

The Highways Agency's aim is to achieve Safe Roads, Reliable Journeys and Informed Travellers. Since our Procurement Strategy Delivering Best Value Solutions & Services was published in 2001 the Agency has been focusing on being a network operator, actively managing the traffic on our roads. This means we need to consider good customer service and think about putting customers first.

At the core is the Agency's new Corporate Plan and vision for the next five years. Published in February 2005, Customers First sets out where we want to be and what we need to change to get there. It is about putting customers at the heart of our business.

The roles of our suppliers and the HA Traffic Officers are critical to this vision. These are our front-line service providers. In order to continually provide effective and improved service delivery, the Agency will need to retain and incentivise its highest quality providers; setting targets for providing continuous improvement in the services delivered to our customers.

These changes together with the successes of the last four years means our procurement vision has developed. We want:

It is very important that, as a major client in the construction industry, we continue to show leadership and make it clear to our suppliers what is expected of them at corporate and project level. The Construction Clients' Charter sets out the minimum standards expected in construction procurement. In order to improve our position as an intelligent construction client, we will maintain our Client Charter Status and measure our improvement against our approved action plan.

The first part of this document reviews the progress made against the HA's Procurement Strategy. The second part looks forward to 2008, updating the procurement framework for delivering the Government's spending plans for the strategic road network and sets the challenge for the next three years.