Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on the (a) affordability and (b) efficiency of the work for which Highways England is responsible of its decision to in-source more of that work; and if he will make a statement.

Highways England assessed the potential effect on affordability and efficiency when designing the recently introduced model for management of the Strategic Road Network, which involves in-sourcing the decision-making for investment planning, routine maintenance and operational management.

Taking question (b) on efficiency first, Highways England expects to deliver cost efficiencies of about 12% when compared to the previous approach. The largest saving is from no longer needing to pay fees to the lead suppliers for management of their supply chain. The second largest saving is from staff headcount reductions by integrating the former Service Provider staff into Highway England’s structure. This is through the removal of duplicated roles and a layer of management.

Turning to question (a) on affordability, Highways England expects the cost savings described in the answer to question (b) will begin to exceed the upfront transition costs within the first 4 years of operating the new model. Once the upfront transition costs have passed and with cost savings from efficiencies, the new model is expected to be more affordable than the previous approach.