Our priority will be to enhance our in-house service to help us remain responsive to the needs and priorities of our members and local communities, using our knowledge and skills to create the best solutions for our network.
The new highways service
We are creating 2 new service areas to help us transform the way we work - commissioning and delivery.
The commissioning service
The commissioning service will prioritise projects and improvements across our network by listening to the priorities of our members, stakeholders and local communities.
A comprehensive annual work programme will be developed, prioritising projects in line with our technical assessments, to make sure investment is targeted at roads most in need of urgent repairs.
The service will work with local communities to make sure people feel more informed about the improvements we are making to the road network to increase residents’ satisfaction.
It will focus on improving how we operate to maximise our budgets, demonstrated by publishing an annual value for money assessment.
The service will include the following groups of staff:
- commissioning management group
- technical services groups
- asset management group
- communications and engagement group
- network management group
- emergency planning group
As part of the transition to the new structure, a number of new appointments have been made including:
- Neill Bennett, Assistant Director for Commissioning
- Alan Tulloch, Head of Commissioning Management
- Chris Allwood, Head of Delivery Management
- Max Adams, Service Improvement & Sustainability manager
- James Adams, Functional Lead, network management
- Julian Austin, Functional Lead, engagement and partnerships
- Teri Ford, Functional Lead, asset management
- Kevin Gilbert, Functional Lead, technical services
The delivery service
Our delivery service will bring together our existing network planning, construction and design teams to ensure a more co-ordinated approach to the way we work. This will help to:
- work more efficiently and deliver value for money
- make sure our highway network is maintained in line with our agreed policies and national standards, and is fit for purpose
- provides the public with safe, reliable and convenient journeys
Additional support for our delivery service will be available by appointing a professional service partner. The partner will support our in-house staff, sharing their knowledge and upskilling our colleagues to reduce the reliance on external agency staff and organisations, increasing the skills set and knowledge of our team.
We will set clear roles and responsibilities for each service area and expectations about working together to deliver the best services. There will be less confusion about who does what and greater accountability to make sure work is completed and delivered on time and to agreed budgets.
Due to the scale of investment, we will use external partners, where appropriate, to support us to deliver our services. This flexible approach will mean we are better placed to deliver our programmes on time and meet the expectations of our local communities.
The delivery service will include the following groups of staff:
- HR, legal, finance, operations co-ordination and professional services
- major schemes
- traffic management and road safety
- drainage and flood risk
- carriageways, footways and rights of way
- structures
- network resilience
- electrical assets and intelligent transport systems
As part of interim management changes to deliver the new highways service, Paul Boulton has been appointed on an interim basis as the Assistant Director for Highways Delivery.
Benefits
Our new approach will help to end the frustrations colleagues currently experience at work and help us deliver a better service for our community. For example, we know that the condition of our roads has deteriorated over a number of years, customer satisfaction levels have reduced and we have struggled to attract new colleagues to join us to help deliver an increased workload.
This has resulted in our team becoming overstretched and our need to bring in temporary staff to support us. Our new service will be designed to tackle these issues.
We will improve how we plan our works to give communities more targeted information about what schemes will be undertaken, where and when, helping to reduce frustrations and maximise the local road network.
We will also look at ways to attract new colleagues and partners to support us in working better to deliver more.
Working together across services will become business as usual, looking at ways to solve challenges as one team, rather than passing problems on to colleagues.
We will use new technology to help us work in a more modern way, more effectively plan and monitor our performance and budgets, equipping colleagues with the information they need to make the right decisions about investment and improvements.
Above all, we will develop a service that delivers value for money by reducing waste and inefficiencies and is financially affordable for local taxpayers.
Timescales
The highways transformation programme has 4 phases to help us keep essential business as usual activities going while we introduce major changes to the way we work and how our service is structured.
Functions will be developed incrementally, and phases will run concurrently.
We have already completed the first phase.
Phase 2 - development
January 2022 to July 2023 - gain the knowledge of how we work now, to look at gaps and areas we can improve including the systems we use and listening to your feedback to help us do things better.
Phase 3 - implementation
August 2022 to December 2023 - of the new structure we’ve designed together, creating new ways of working and processes to be as effective as we can and making sure our systems work smoothly with council wide ones.
Phase 4 - transition
January 2024 to March 2025 - to the new ways of working to deliver the new Derbyshire highways service.
Download the delivery service and commissioning service structure charts.