Foreword
Welcome to the Performance Audit Group's ( PAG) report on trunk road maintenance in 2004/05.
Maintaining high standards on the trunk road network is vital for the economy of Scotland. The network spans the country, linking rural communities and ferry ports with urban centres, as well as providing cross-border access to the south. It forms a significant part of the transport framework that underpins the economic and social growth of the nation.
The Scottish Executive is committed to managing and maintaining the Scottish trunk road network:
"...we will manage and maintain it in the most efficient and effective manner possible, investing money now to avoid storing up problems for the future... "
( Scotland's transport future, Scottish Executive, 2004)
3,124km of the network are currently managed and maintained, on behalf of the Scottish Executive, by the operating companies ( OCs). 91km of M74 are managed and maintained by a concession company under the terms of the M6 DBFO project. In addition, the network includes the 20km M77 DBFO project, opened in April 2005, but this is not within the remit of our report.
The current OC contracts were let by the Scottish Ministers in February 2001. OCs were appointed to manage and maintain each of four geographical Units: North East ( NE), North West ( NW), South East ( SE), and South West ( SW) for a period of five years, with the option of extending to seven years. The Units are operated by the companies shown below.
Unit | NE | NW | SE | SW |
|---|
OC | BEAR | BEAR | Amey | Amey |
|---|
The SW and NW contracts are currently being re-tendered.
PAG's role is to audit, monitor and report on the financial, technical and performance aspects of the OCs to ensure standards are being maintained. To do this job effectively, we spent over 10,000 person hours auditing and monitoring on the network and in the OCs' offices, and carried out 134 audits. This report summarises our reporting in the year April 2004 to March 2005 and comments on the performance of the OCs.
We hope you find our report informative. We consider it provides a comprehensive assessment of the important work carried out by the OCs on Scotland's trunk roads.
Donald Bell, Project Director,
Performance Audit Group, September 2005
The PAG team
In 2004/05 the scope of work by Amey and BEAR included:
- Over 13,000 site works.
- 631,000m 2 of resurfacing, the equivalent of nearly 105 football pitches.
- 426km of road marking renewal, equivalent to the distance from Edinburgh to Nottingham.
- Over 11,000 emergency call out responses.