Return to Agenda

Division(s): N/A

COPY
ITEM CA12

ENVIRONMENT & ECONOMY SCRUTINY COMMITTEE - 21 SEPTEMBER 2005

BEST VALUE REVIEW OF ROAD CASUALTY REDUCTION - ACTION PLAN

Report by Head of Transport

Introduction

  1. In December 2004 the Road Casualty Reduction Best Value Outcome Report was considered by the Best Value & Audit Committee. This was the product of extensive consultation resulting in a wide range of aspects being considered. The Committee approved 13 topics in principle for further investigation and for action plans to be developed. The Executive on the 15 March 2005 agreed this Review recommendations subject to the Committee assessing the costs and feasibility of specific measures prior to submission of an action plan to the Executive for approval. Annex 1 (download as .doc file) lists and discusses the Outcome Report topics before recommending specific action plans for each one. The action plans largely reflect the fact that in practice our ability to influence change outside the County Council is limited with the most effective improvements generally coming from simple changes to working practices within the teams and with other colleagues in the organisation.

    2. Increasing Emphasis on Road Safety

  2. The importance of road safety and the level of public concern it raises is now being reflected in its inclusion as one of the 4 shared priorities of the Second Local Transport Plan (LTP2). Accordingly our road safety performance is increasingly judged by government and it closely influences the financial settlement they award. That the importance of road safety is ever more recognised by government will be welcomed by councillors as the public’s concern over road safety is reflected in the level of correspondence to local members.

    3. The Road Safety Function

  3. The Outcome Report identified the increasing importance of close liaison between the engineering and educational sides of road safety. As a consequence the Road Safety function has been re-organised into 3 sub-teams. Annex 2 (download as .doc file) gives a brief overview of the roles and resources allocated to these teams before recommending additional action plans to supplement those from the Outcome Report. As a result of the Outcome Report the whole road safety function has been placed under a single team leader which is already improving communication and giving a clearer focus to the core roles. Other recent efficiency savings are listed in Annex 3 (download as .doc file).

    4. Broad Conclusions from Annexes 1 and 2

  4. Engineering Team - Several additional practices leading to potentially significant casualty reductions are possible with no additional capital costs. As identified in the Outcome Report we remain vulnerable with a lot of accident data analysis expertise resting with a single highly skilled officer. There is an urgent need to recruit and train an officer to learn and share this role. At the current time it is believed that a budget has been identified for this post although it is likely to take time to recruit an appropriate person. Although many factors affect accident reduction, monitoring gives a relatively fast and reliable gauge of success.

  5. Education Team – This team arguably has more direct links with the public than any other within the County Council. It comprises of 4 Road Safety Officers (RSO) who investigate new initiatives, improve core ones and train hundreds of part-time staff, volunteers, and colleagues to interface with the public. It is widely recognised that the impact of education on casualty reduction is hard to quantify but there has recently been much work on gauging how well information is retained and how it affects behaviour. Expanding current successful initiatives would be a relatively straightforward task given the quality and enthusiasm of the RSOs but would require additional support which could best be achieved by an additional administrative post to remove much of this burden from them. However the administrative assistant would need to be carefully chosen to become sufficiently motivated and involved in each officer’s work to support them with minimal supervision once fully trained.

  6. Speed Management Team – this is a newly formed team combining elements of work that used to rest with both the engineering and educational functions. The team is headed by an officer whose level of competence should ensure that casualty reduction potential is maximised. Support comes from 5 externally funded speed indicator device (SID) operators and a Public Liaison Officer who all do frontline work and are extremely well regarded by the public. It is particularly unfortunate that the funding for the SID posts will cease in April 2006 after their good work has raised such high expectations amongst the public.

  7. The estimated casualty reduction benefits and additional resources required for work where new funding is required are listed in Annex 4 (download as .doc file) . Details of road safety education staff levels within other authorities are given in Annex 5 (download as .doc file) and a glossary of Terms is provided in Annex 6 (download as .doc file) .

    8. Conclusions

  8. Unfortunately the stated importance of casualty reduction by governments appears to be rarely matched by funding, especially in view of the actual cost of accidents to society. The emotional cost of accidents is also large but to this must be added the considerable emotional cost of the fear of accidents and the environmental effect of irresponsible and unsocial speeds. The level of importance attached to road safety by Oxfordshire residents can be gauged by the high level of correspondence received, far outweighing that over other matters and emphasised by road safety invariably coming top of all concerns expressed during Community Safety consultation.

  9. In terms of engineering the current funding is adequate. The Outcome Report acknowledged the level of experience and expertise lying in a single member of staff and emphasised the need to pool this knowledge. It is anticipated that funding has already been allocated to do this and although recruiting the appropriate person may take some time, once this has been done it should give a potentially excellent casualty reduction ability. High quality staff are already in place in the educational and speed management fields although administrative support and relatively modest extra capital funding would enable a significant extension to the already extensive work they do. Other staff are externally funded and, as outlined above, this funding will soon cease dramatically reducing the overall service.

  10. The estimated costs and benefits noted in Annex 4 (download as .doc file) suggest that savings of £3.5m in the cost of accidents to society could be realised for an additional annual, mainly revenue, expenditure of £172,000.

  11. The additional resources recommended are undeniably significant, however, they would not only have the potential for significant casualty reduction but also the ability to raise the Authority’s profile in this potential boost to frontline services. It is recognised that additional revenue resources in particular would need to be found through the budget review process, with compensatory savings identified from elsewhere.

    12. RECOMMENDATIONS

  12. The Committee is RECOMMENDED to:

          1. endorse the report and approve the Action Plans in principle while noting the significant financial implications of funding the measures; and

          2. RECOMMEND the review to Cabinet, on the basis that the recommendations outlined in the Action Plans will be subject to the future identification of resources.

STEVE HOWELL
Head of Transport

Background papers: Nil

Contact Officers:
Geoff Barrell Tel: (01865) 810450
John Disley Tel: (01865) 810460

September 2005.

Return to TOP