Highways Agency Financial Accountibility
Delivering savings and improving performance for the Highways Agency
“This has brought unprecedented levels of transparency , accountability and oversight to the Highways Agency. The positive working relationships between the Highways Agency and Atos Consulting have been instrumental to the successful delivery and implementation of the project .”
The Highways Agency is responsible for operating, maintaining and improving England’s strategic road network with a total spend of £7.5 billion for 2009-10. Following a major review commissioned by the Department for Transport, the Highways Agency set itself an aggressive six-month target to demonstrate significantly improved programme management control and to deliver £3 million efficiency savings in three years.
Business Challenge
Following a series of increases in the estimated cost of road schemes, the Department for Transport commissioned the Nichols Review of the Major Roads Programme, the report highlighted that:
- No standard approach existed for capturing, maintaining and reporting project-related data
- The Department for Transport did not have a full view of the roads development programme
- More governance structures were needed to establish control between the Highways Agency and the Department for Transport.
In October 2008 the Highways Agency set itself a target to implement standard reporting by March 2009 and made a clear commitment to the Department for Transport to meet this challenging deadline.
The objective was to deliver £3 million efficiency savings over three years through improved management and reporting. The Highways Agency asked Atos Consulting to implement the new reporting regime within six months.
Solution
A ready-made and proven method to address processes, roles, technology, and report specifications, along with a project plan to deliver the new regime. The new system and reporting regime was delivered to 150 managers across the Highways Agency, each responsible for controlling major project spend.
Five key factors of success:
- Challenged the status quo: the reporting requirements were complex, very diverse with limited transparency or visibility. We constantly challenged the Highways Agency to innovate.
- Stakeholder management: it was critical to ensure the new regime met requirements and was adopted.
- Governance and communication: A strong governance structure made sure there was sufficient senior sponsorship
- Technical and business expertise: required for rapid deployment and to simplify the roll-out of the new reporting IT system
- Compliance: Transferred change management capabilities and techniques into the Highways Agency’s own team to embed the new regime with promote a high degree of compliance.
Benefits
- Savings through improved anticipated management and control are to exceed the £3 million savings exceeded
- The project is also a key enabler to deliver at least 5-10% savings of total operating budget in the next three years (amounting to £150-300 million) through better decision-making which improves delivery of road programmes.
- Performance now monitored against strategic goals
- The transformation of executive-level tracking and reporting has cut lead time from days to minutes
- Team productivity is higher, with less time spent on administration and more on analysis
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