Highways Agency

4. The Planning and Performance Framework

Corporate and Business Plans

4.1 The Agency's key planning documents are its corporate and business plans.

4.2 The Agency will submit a corporate plan setting out its overall direction and an agreed planning framework for a period of at least three years to support delivery of the outcomes sought by the Secretary of State. Its content will be agreed between the Agency and the Permanent Secretary before being submitted to the Secretary of State for approval.

4.3 Each year the Agency will submit a business plan to a timetable agreed with the Permanent Secretary. The Permanent Secretary will advise the Secretary of State on the plan, particularly on the degree of ambition and efficiency reflected by the proposed targets and their consistency with available funds. The business plan will focus on the forthcoming financial year, and will also indicate provisional plans for the ensuing years, consistent with the Government's Spending Review process. It will include:

1. the Agency's objectives and agreed performance indicators and targets, showing how they contribute to delivery of the Department's objectives;
2. the Agency's strategy to meet its performance targets;
3. the programmes and resource requirements for each main area of activity, explaining how those activities link to the meeting of objectives and targets;
4. a statement of risk management and mitigation;
5. the Agency's enabling objectives and values, including plans to improve the efficiency and effectiveness with which it discharges its responsibilities;
6. information on the trends and assumptions on which the plan is based.

4.4 The corporate and business plans will be published.

Performance monitoring and reporting

4.5 The Chief Executive is responsible for reporting to the Department in-year as follows:

Routine

• regular reporting to the Roads Minister, in a form approved by the Minister;
• regular reporting to the Department's board on progress and risks, in the form agreed by the board in its role supporting the Permanent Secretary; and
• such other regular reporting as may be decided by the Department's board.

By exception

• reporting to the Permanent Secretary:
  1. any issue that raises significant reputational risks for the Agency or the Department, including anything which is novel or potentially contentious, on a "no surprises" basis.
  2. issues relating to financial control, as detailed in Section 5 below.

4.6 The Agency will report its outturn performance against its business plan targets in its Annual Report and Accounts (see section 5.2 below).

4.7 The Chief Executive is responsible for ensuring that the Department's policies and practices for the appraisal and approval of investments are followed.

4.8 The Chief Executive is responsible for ensuring that an appropriate and active risk management framework is in place within the Agency:

1. providing leadership on risk management, including setting a "no surprises" culture; and
2. escalating to the Department's board or Executive Committee, at an early stage, those risks identified with a potential corporate impact to the Department.

Resource allocation

4.9 The Secretary of State will determine the level of resources to be made available to the Agency.

4.10 The Secretary of State may make adjustments to the Agency's programmes and budgets as appropriate in accordance with any significant changes or developments in his priorities.