Socio economic benefits of highways maintenance Geoff Allister OBE Executive Director Highways Term Maintenance Association

Current approach to asset management HTMA’s emerging thinking Social value Provoke debate Questions to delegates .

Trade association representing contractors and consultants Members maintain approximately 200,000 km of UK roads Industry employs around 30,000 people . Annual value of works is over £3.6 billion Extensive delivery experience .

Delivery Challenges Funding People and skills Public expectations Maintenance priority Capital/revenue disconnect Forward commitment People and skills Sector competition Capacity and capability Brexit Public expectations Better quality roads Smoother journeys Value for money

Asset Management Highway network – important social and economic role Political/public expectation of Transparency Accountability Efficiency Long term view Strategic approach v firefighting Best use of public money Answer the “what if” questions Establish priorities Forecast outcomes

Highways Infrastructure Asset Management Key recommendations Asset management framework Lifecycle plans Rolling 3 to 5 year programmes Leadership and commitment Competencies and training Benchmarking

The HTMA approach Promoting the socio economic arguments Invest to Save Balance financial benefits with customer expectations Importance of performance measurement HTMA knowledge and experience To HMEP To clients Collaborative delivery brings benefits to all

However !! Highways has difficulty competing with Education Social care Health Service taken for granted Impact of unexpected events Economic and social disruption Winter resilience review 2010 HTMA promotes Step change in maintenance priority Creation of formal assessment of social and economic benefits of maintenance benefits

Investment benefits Socio Economic Benefits: Safer roads Reduced disruption Less pollution Less noise Enhanced amenity Improved resilience Local economies

Positive social outcomes Reducing night crime Improving accessibility to local amenities Creating new training and employment opportunities Boosting SMEs and local economies Improved physical well being – more walking and cycling

What is Social Value? Social Value Social Environmental Economic All Encompassing Term Social, economic and environmental impacts created from activities By understanding the social value created, we can better understand the overall impact of our activities – not just from a financial perspective – and use it to inform and add value in every sense.

Social Return on Investment SROI is a framework based on social generally accepted accounting principles (SGAAP) that can be used to help manage and understand the social, economic and environmental outcomes created by your activity or organisation. Social Value UK Attributes monetary value to represent social, environmental and economic outcomes Demonstrates the ‘change’ as a result of the activity Two types: Forecast and Evaluative SROI is an approach to understanding and managing the value of the social, economic and environmental outcomes created by an activity or an organisation. It is based on a set of principles that are applied within a framework. SROI seeks to include the values of people that are often excluded from markets in the same terms as used in markets, that is money, in order to give people a voice in resource allocation decisions. SROI is a framework to structure thinking and understanding. Evaluates financial, social and environmental impact. Attributing a monetary value for each outcome. SROI analysis can be either forecast to predict the social value of a project or evaluative, using evidenced based outcomes to measure the social value delivered.

Tell the story What is the story? Stakeholder engagement Asset management x Improving peoples’ lives √ Stakeholder engagement Who with? Usual suspects? Who by? Who sponsors highways?

Questions? Measurement of good highway maintenance has been largely focussed around condition and response times. Should the impact on socio-economic factors be measured?

Questions? Does local authority socio-economic policy need to be integrated with highway authorities’ maintenance policy and how?

Questions? Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure (UKRLG) considers resilience factors and “place” factors but not socio-economic factors. Should community benefit be included?

HTMA Executive Director Thank You Geoff Allister OBE HTMA Executive Director www.htma.info