Raising Standards and Improving the Quality of Road Works in Scotland

A quality plan should be about the whole process from cradle to grave which would include communication and more importantly collaboration between all parties which would include expectations of all parties:
• Authorities
• Utility companies
• Contractors
• Subcontractor partners
Several common themes have emerged from analysis around a lack of consistent working practices, the need for better communication and collaboration, too much time and effort is being spent managing inefficient processes and general lack of visibility and accuracy of very limited data.

The plan should be about how the work is planned, which would involve:
• Establishing safe working requirements according to the safety code of practice before the work is passed on to the contractor enabling them to turn up on site with the right tools for the job
• Establishing how each workstream may interact with the highway and public, working safely on site such as grab activity
• Planning for all workstreams to ensure that enough time is given to each activity, including ‘for example’ reinstatement
• More thought at planning stage would look more professional and the authorities could plan their works to coincided with TTM rather than cancel their works to minimise overruns

The plan should cover process across the board:
• Ensuring each workstream fully understands where they fit in the overall plan of works and more importantly fully understands where other workstreams interact
• Creating clear stage gates
• Stopping the confusion between planned and immediate works, removing confusion between authorities and utilities and then on site
• Defining how information is shared across all parties

The plan may also want to set clear service level agreements between all parties:
• Using an agreed Action Plan, high level agreements could be put in place for
o Planning
o Construction/Operations
o Backfill
o Reinstatement
o Back office control team
o Client control team
o Authority control team
o Site inspection

I think we can all agree that most defects are evident in the first six months and then by two years any ancillary cracking etc also becomes evident.
The Clancy group do not see how an extended guarantee period of six years will help this, in fact we believe it may cause some of the smaller subcontractor partners to avoid working in this industry due to the large amounts of money which would have to be held in retention and then if they were to close down, who holds the risk?.
Subcontractor partners live and breathe day to day life with very little money to control their works as they are often set to fixed rates of pay whilst still aiming to provide a quality service.
If we were to look at an extended guarantee period to match all, then The Clancy Group would recommend we stick with the existing two and then a three years maximum period with maybe an extra third paid inspection at that time which would once and for all close the works down.
If more emphasis was put on the works using the suggested quality plan at construction, backfill and reinstatement stage of the works where the contractor and their partners prove consistent quality with photographic records or clerking the works etc we feel this would be more beneficial to the overall quality of the works.

Yes; but we at The Clancy Group would suggest initially in the first year to prove one way or the other whether or not the quality plan was working and then (in line with our suggestion above) three years would be more suitable

We feel that if you try and clarify what is already a very technical document, it could be taken in various ways, depending on which paragraph you are reading combined with maybe another abstract paragraph and another person could read the same document completely differently depending on which side of the argument/discussion they stand.

We feel that the SROR should become more of a living electronic document where a board should meet to discuss regular updates and similarly as in England have an expert practitioners group made up of authority, client and contractor that could meet regularly to answer technical questions from the field.

SLG should stay with the separate Safety Code of practice as a risk assessed document. There are many activities we undertake that do not break ground and SLG is still used

Works start actual starts, works completed, works cleared, and works closed notices should remain notified within 2 hours of the next business day or by 10 am or within two hours on traffic sensitive routes only. Actual on site specific data collating is a good idea but at this moment in time there are a lot of areas in Scotland where signal for mobile devises is not reliable, not only that but there would be significant costs implications for both Utilities and Authorities

We should stay with the legislation and the code of practices within

This should be the same for both Utilities and Authorities as they do in England

This information is required by many now and the public are tuning in to the roadworks.org site far more frequently. Not only that but we also have Google, Tomtom and possibly tourist information that would gain

The same behavior should apply to all regardless of who they work for, including S109 license holders

The same behavior should apply to all regardless of who they work for, including S109 license holders

The key word here is competence. There are often situations where the main person who holds the streetworks ticket is also the driver and if they have to leave site to pick up something from a supplier or stores they can’t leave the site without a person who holds a ticket so two or sometimes three members of the team are not working and a site is left unattended for no practical reason

The Clancy Group agrees that there must be parity and fully support any improvement that would improve road works. The same behavior should apply to all regardless of who they work for, including S109 license holders

This should be done in consideration of the existing permit schemes used in England and the national set conditions.
The current safety code is a risk assessed document and although teams on site endeavor to always work to the safety code, not all roads are the same and we don’t feel that FPNs will be used correctly by just looking at some sites (particularly unmanned sites) without fully understanding the risk assessment involved in setting the site up.

We feel it will make a difference. But as before, the inspection role needs to be clarified so that we can understand what qualifications and powers the role can be carried out under. As before, the same behavior should apply to all regardless of who they work for, including S109 license holders.

We feel that more advanced notice of intended works (6mths -1yr) allowing identification for co-ordination purposes of intended new connections etc

Full communication is the only way. The local authorities are generally the only ones with the full picture of on works about to start or ongoing works

This already works very well in England with permit schemes

The implementation of everyone working on the highway working to the same high standard can only benefit the public at large. Young, elderly and infirm

There will inevitably be increased costs across the whole of the industry, both utilities and Authorities alike, especially if you introduce a longer guarantee period or mandatory reinstatement quality plan, as I would think this would be imposed on all.
Most (including authorities) will have to look at resources and possibly out of normal hours working to be able to comply with some of the suggested charges.