Welcome to this morning’s session. This is the final evidence session of our inquiry on managing the impacts of street works, which is an issue that impacts all of us in our constituencies and that we get a lot of annoyed emails about. We will be putting questions to the Minister on how street works can be managed more effectively to improve the quality of reinstatements and the time taken for street works, and to minimise the impacts on travel disruption and the quality of roads and pavements. Could I ask you to introduce yourselves, please?

I am Lilian Greenwood, the Minister for the Future of Roads.

Welcome back.

Good morning. I am Anthony Ferguson. I am a deputy director in the Department for Transport and look after the traffic and technology team, which contains street works policy.

Welcome. We have heard that the quality of reinstatement following street works is often very poor. Do local authorities have the tools that they need to hold utility companies to account on the standards of their works?

I absolutely understand the frustration felt by all our constituents when the roads are dug up, and particularly when they are not properly reinstated. We know that lumpy, bumpy streets cause difficulties for everyone. I reflected on the evidence that you heard from Emma Vogelmann at Transport for All. They have particular impacts on more vulnerable road users, so it is important that local authorities have the powers to hold utility companies to account. The arrangements for street works have been built up over quite a number of years. We have the permitting system and quite a lot of regulation in the whole area. As well as regulation, there is statutory guidance, and guidance produced by the Highway Authorities and Utility Committee, all of which is designed to incentivise making good reinstatements and getting it right first time, which is what we want to see. Of course, that does not always happen, as you heard through your evidence, but the way in which the system has been developed is to try to make that more likely. One of the more recent changes is to performance-based reinstatement programmes, so that those utility companies that are not producing reinstatements to a high standard then have a higher level of inspections, for which they have to bear the cost. The system is designed to incentivise them to get it right and, where they are not, the local authority has powers to hold them to account. They can go through the reinspection regime, which costs further money. They can do two rounds of reinspections and, if it is a faulty reinspection, the cost is £120. They can go through that twice, and then there is an escalation process. To some extent, it depends on the highway authorities using those powers. I appreciate that resources are stretched for local authorities, and different local authorities will make different choices about how high a priority they make this, but they can and should hold utility companies to account. That is what we want them to do, but we want utility companies to respond to those incentives and do a better job.

Thank you. Through our questions, we will give you an opportunity to let us know what the Department is doing in terms of addressing those ongoing concerns.

Good morning. I have no doubt that, as an MP and as a Minister, you get quite a lot of emails about potholes. We know that, when we walk down streets in our constituency, potholes are quite often associated with the poor-quality reinstatements that you have been talking about. Is it right that, in England, reinstatements are guaranteed for only two years?

There are a few things in that question. Everyone will recognise that the state of our roads has become a terrible mess. I do not know whether it is as bad in Scotland as it is in England, but certainly that is an issue that gets raised with me very regularly, both through correspondence and just out and about as a Member of Parliament. The reason our roads are in a terrible mess is primarily the lack of investment in them over an extended period, which is why the current Government have made a very significant change to that in England by spending an extra £500 million this year, which for most local authorities will be a 40% increase, to tackle poor roads maintenance. I do not have a figure for what proportion of the poor state of our roads is down to poor utilities works, but a proportion of it will inevitably be. I do not know, Anthony, whether you have ever seen any data that suggests what that proportion is.

It is only internal data and nothing that we could share here, but it is something that we are continuing to collect.

I absolutely recognise that, if reinstatements have been poorly done, that will be a contributing factor to it. I have now completely forgotten the second part of your question.

The question was about the two-year guarantee period. If I was getting my drive resurfaced, I would expect more than a two-year guarantee, so why is it okay for utility companies to give just that two-year guarantee?

There is a two-year guarantee for most works, and a three-year guarantee for works deeper than 1.2 metres. I know that, in Scotland, they have moved to a six-year guarantee period, and we will be interested to see what the evidence shows from that and whether it makes a difference. Like you, I questioned why a two to three-year guarantee period, but the Department did consult in 2019 on whether it would be appropriate to move to a longer guarantee period, and the feeling was that it would not make a significant difference. There are two parts to it, really. One is that, usually, if a reinstatement is going to fail, you will see signs of failure within the two-year period. The work that local authorities do to check the quality of reinstatements varies. Some of them will be doing just visual inspections. As a Committee, you will know that some of them have done the more detailed coring work, which perhaps will give you a clearer indication about whether you would face longer-term concerns. I am open to the idea of looking at how long those guarantees should be in place for, but we would want to consult on that. Given that they have already moved in that direction in Scotland, it would be really useful to see what evidence comes out of that.

Do we really have to wait for evidence from Scotland to know that a two-year guarantee does seem quite short? Most people—and I am talking about local authorities as well—would expect that reinstatement to last for more than two years. It seems like one of these things where we are saying, “Let us consult and collect evidence”, when perhaps the solution is obvious.

I do not disagree, except that I know that it has been consulted on previously and rejected, so I would want to go back to look at the consultation in a bit more detail and see why it was rejected. I do not know whether part of it would relate to the fact that you will sometimes get a multiplicity of reinstatements, and perhaps it would be less clear who was responsible for the defect if it came about longer ago, but I am very happy to look at that point.

When the change came to Edinburgh, we realised that you would have to track the paperwork much better over a six-year period rather than just keeping shorter-term records.

Our understanding of the consultation was that, funnily enough, the utilities generally wanted to keep it as it was, at two and three years, and that the local authority respondents wanted to extend the time limit because of, as they put it, the costs that they were incurring in having to reinstate repairs that were older than two or three years. At the time, the Department said that it needed to carry out further work on the financial impact—I guess to local authorities—of implementing such a change, so I just wondered, Mr Ferguson, whether there had been any progress on having a look at that financial impact.

There is nothing explicit. That is partly because it is one of many priorities that we have. That was a pre-covid thing and, post pandemic, there have been a number of other priorities that Ministers have brought forward for us. I would probably just make the general point that any change of this kind is going to require a lot of impact assessment work, so we would need a lot more evidence, to the point that was made earlier, before even thinking of bringing forward another consultation, which it would require. It is not untypical that local authorities and utilities come out in slightly different places, and the difficulty that we often find ourselves in is that we have to balance two quite differing views on the same subject. There has not been, but there could easily be, and it is one of many things that we keep under review.

That is helpful of you to say that. We will now go on to inspections.

In 2023, the Department for Transport introduced a new performance-based inspections regime, which means that companies with a high failure rate on standards are inspected more often. In your opinions, how successful has this been?

It is still fairly early days in terms of seeing how it is operating. As I already said, it is about trying to incentivise good behaviour, and there is also a financial impact from it. All companies began on either a 30% or 50% sample rate, depending on their performance in the previous year. The information that we have from Street Manager between July 2023 and July 2024 shows that 101 of the companies that worked in each quarter that year improved their pass rate, and the majority of those improvements was by a few percentage points; 21 stayed the same; 36 had worse performance, the majority of which were telecommunications companies; and for the remaining 57 there is data only for either the first or last quarter. That would suggest that more of them were doing better than were doing worse, so that is promising, but it is still early days. The movement is every three months, so they are reassessed every quarter. The minimum sample inspection rate is 20%, and I understand that a number of utility companies have moved to that 20% sample rate, but, as you heard in your evidence, some have moved in the opposite direction. It sets a very clear signal to utility companies about what the expectation is. Anthony, is there anything that you want to add?

My main observation would be that we can say this now only because we have introduced this regime and are gathering the data. We have information now about relative performance and change of performance over time that is not anecdotal. It has been collected through proper data. Two years in—we are at the second anniversary of it—is very early days in our terms. We would need several years’ worth to do a proper evaluation. We would not normally be thinking about coming back to evaluating something within two years, because it is too soon, and it is too sophisticated an organism that you are trying to change. There are a lot of factors in determining whether a utility company’s performance is going up or down. It will depend on what type of utility they are and what sorts of works they are doing. In terms of telecoms and broadband roll-out, there are a lot more operators. That is a very fast-growing area, with less-experienced utility companies. There are a lot of factors in here that we would have to separate to be able to tell whether the trend was going in the right direction and why.

Can I just pick you up on that in terms of the newness of telecoms and broadband?

I thought that you might.

We have had those for a couple of decades, have we not?

What I meant was the types of utility companies that there are. If you break it down by the number of people who use Street Manager, and the number of utility companies in each sector, the telecoms number is much higher than anyone else’s. There are as many of them as there are local authorities.

I understand what you are saying now and, to be fair, I have recently moved house and have a broadband provider that I had never even heard of a year or two before.

That is my point.

That is fair enough.

I should just add that, interestingly, not every utility company operates to the same standard in different places. There is variation. They will be using different contractors in different areas. I am not going to name any utility companies, because I will upset them, but one might be performing well in one area but not so well in another. That might depend on the contractor that they are using. Equally, I would expect that, if you were seeing poor performance, it is entirely legitimate to pull them in.

Members of this Committee have experienced that extreme inconsistency in standards even from one provider.

It strikes me that telecoms operators in particular are not waiting for two years to see what the impact of legislation and regulation is on their business model. They are making quite assertive commercial decisions. Far be it from me to cynically suggest that any of them are gaming the system commercially in order to get on with the installations and deal with the perhaps lack of experience in the workforce, et cetera, but some of the respondents we have seen from local authorities have suggested that the limitation to two inspections is really creating a price incentive to just do the work, do it badly, move on to the next job and pay the fee—“Job’s a good ‘un!” Do you have any views on this? Should the cap to the number of inspections be lifted? Would that help?

As I understand it, we have moved from a position where there used to be unlimited numbers of reinspections to a situation where there are two and then it goes into an escalation process. The thing that we want is not for utility companies particularly to be paying fines. What we want them to do is to do a decent job the first time and, if they do not, to absolutely correct it. If they come back to do the reinstatement, they have to apply for another permit and there is a cost of doing that. They have to pay people to come back and do it. There is always a risk, as you say, that utility companies, particularly if they do not feel like they have a long-term relationship with a local authority, might try to game the system. We absolutely do not want them to be able to do that. That is not what we want to see. I do not know, Anthony, whether you want to add anything to that.

What we were seeing a few years ago has improved. We have definitely seen improvements in performance, not just because we have brought in that performance-based approach, but, just generally, there has been a lot of focus on broadband roll-out. I should observe that, in a system that is already complicated and difficult to regulate, there is, elsewhere in Government, a very big push for more broadband roll-out, which is very much linked to supporting economic growth, so there are inevitably tensions between the fundamentals of trying to make sure that roads keep running; that is also supporting economic growth, and improving and adding to the services that run through them. Broadband has probably been the poster person for that campaign, because it has been such a big push from Government centrally.

Yes, absolutely, and most people would accept that the inherent conflict there is satisfied by the sustenance of disruption in the interests of connectivity, but not poor quality of work. We are clearly talking about a broad spectrum of operators here. What I am particularly interested in is the regulatory floor that is ensuring that no operator can perform below a certain standard. On this particular issue of inspections and penalties, it is only a few hundred quid, is it not? You could just do the job badly and wait for two failed inspections. Of course, the escalation, theoretically, is the local authority carrying out the works and then recharging the reinstatement.

They seem reluctant to do so.

It is resource. That is what they have told us. They tell us that they can wait a long time for companies to repair the defects themselves. When they end up in a situation where the utility company is not repairing the defect, they just do not have the resource to go in, do it, and reclaim the cost. That is a whole other operational thing. I wondered whether there should be timescales introduced for this and a separate or more escalating penalty regime, for example, that does not rely upon local authority resource to fix the problem.

There is an escalation process already written into the regulations, which is that, after two failed inspections, there is a three-stage process, which involves committees at a local and regional level, so there can be escalation.

Forgive me, but there is no penalty in that. It is a few hundred quid if you add everything together. The cost of finding this workforce in a scarce market and making sure that the quality is good in the first place is outweighed, or underweighed, by the small penalty. Even if you go all the way through the escalator, the price does not, for example, go up every month that they have not completed the inspection. That would be quite an effective way of ensuring that the utility companies complete the repairs or the reinstatement works again successfully.

It depends on what motivates utility companies. My own experience of seeing where you have a poorly performing broadband provider that comes into your area and gets a lot of bad press is that it does motivate them to say that they are going to do something about it. You can use that escalation process to hold people to account. There might not be a fine beyond the first two payment charges for doing reinspections, but you do have to send your management team to turn up to a meeting and to account for themselves. In a better utility company, you would anticipate that senior management would see that their more junior or more local management teams were being pulled into escalation meetings, and would ask, “What on earth is going on? We need to sort this out”. Certainly, that has been the case with some of the operators that we are aware of.

So you are satisfied with the current enforcement of poor reinstatement. You think that that is good for now.

I am very willing to look at further developments, and we welcome the work that the Committee is doing on looking into this. If there are recommendations for how it could be done more effectively, we will certainly be very happy to consult with local authorities and utility companies to see whether there is a better way of doing it. That said, we already have processes. Some places use them more effectively than others. It is whether there is a need for more powers, whether it is resources to use those powers effectively, or whether it is the choices that local authorities make about where they are going to put their limited resources. That choice is for local authorities to make. In a time when we are talking more about devolution, there is an opportunity for them to do more. There are examples in particular areas of where other people have used their powers. For example, I am aware that the Mayor of London has pulled in utility companies to hold them to account when there was evidence of poor performance. That is a co-ordinating role, because, for the most part, those responsibilities are held by local boroughs. Mayors could look to do that in other areas too.

There are TfL roads as well, of course, so there are some roads that the mayor is responsible for directly, but that is a fair point. Could I just push you, Minister? You talked about the financial constraints that we all know local authorities are under. Some local authority witnesses have told us that the inspection fees that are chargeable to utility companies do not cover their costs of inspection and reinspection, and having to deal particularly with poorly performing operators. Should inspection fees be higher?

If local authorities want to provide evidence in relation to the need to increase, we have heard that. The request from the Department has been for further evidence from local authorities in order for us to look at whether that would be a reasonable thing to do. Whenever we put cost into this, it is ultimately going to end up with citizens paying for it one way or the other, either as purchasers of utilities, which most of us have no choice over, or as taxpayers. They are meant to cover costs. They are not meant to make a surplus, but they are not meant to be out of pocket for doing essential work. We need evidence that would allow that to be considered.

Can I just come in very briefly on that? Just to be clear, though, we are talking about the costs if things do not go the way that they should. In an ideal world, there would be no cost to pass on to the consumer, because the threat of the cost in a competitive market would mean that they did get it right first time. Local authorities putting up their charges would not, in the best-case scenario, pass them on to the consumer at all. Am I right in understanding that?

Inspection fees are for undertaking the inspection. You are going to have to undertake the inspection, whether you find a defect or not. They are higher if you are required to pay for more inspections.

The one thing that seems very ingenious about the new regime is that it inspects higher-performing operators less frequently. If you get it right, you are going to get lower fees in that regard.

Yes.

Thank you for clarifying.

Just to add to that point, if the reinstatement fails outside the guarantee period, it is the taxpayer who picks up the cost anyway, so there is no incentive to get it right, right at the start. Evidence shows that, where you have a utility company that checks its contractors by coring their reinstatements, it shows that that drives up performance. We have had a coring programme in Scotland for 20 years now, and there is an argument that that has driven up performance. Should we be coring more? Is it time that we had our own coring programme in England?

I saw the evidence provided by the commissioner in Scotland. He said that it is the road authorities who carry out the coring, and he operates in a co-ordinating role. There are local authorities in England that do coring, and the Committee heard evidence to that effect. There is nothing to prevent there being some co-ordination. We do not have a commissioner in England. The scale would be quite substantially different. In Scotland, the number of works in the last year was something like just over 160,000. In England, we are talking about over 2 million, and so, if you wanted to create a co-ordinating body of that sort, it would be quite a substantial investment. It would also be another arm’s length body, which we are supposed to be moving away from having. That said, there is the opportunity for more co-ordination. As we have more mayoral combined authorities, it could be that local authorities want to work together to share information about coring programmes that they are doing. There is no question in my mind that coring can be a valuable thing to do, because you are not just doing a visual inspection; you are looking at what is below ground.

Rather than expecting local authorities to do it, if I can use the word “expect” rather than “mandate”, you are encouraging them. You are also encouraging utility companies to co-ordinate their contractors’ work and to check that as well. It is encouragement rather than expectation.

In the way that the guidance is set up, it sets out how to do coring, and local authorities would understand the value of that. Anthony, I do not know whether you want to comment.

That is right. Our job is to create codes of practice and guidance that can work and will apply, but that is the role of Government, because it is clearly a very localised issue. As the Minister said, there is no reason why a coring programme could not exist today. The joint authorities group could agree to have one. There is nothing stopping anybody doing it. I suspect that the amount of coring that goes on is probably more down to resources locally, so those are local decisions. From some of the evidence that was presented I detected an aspiration that perhaps there could be funding for more coring, which is a slightly different issue. That is maybe looking to central Government to fund something and to provide resources to do it, and then you are into the difficulty of competing priorities. There are two slightly different things there, because, at the moment, there is absolutely nothing preventing a local authority from doing it. There is nothing stopping local authorities from talking to each other about how they do it, whether through HAUC or through JAG(UK). As the Minister said, with the increasing number of combined authorities looking to manage transport in a more strategic, co-ordinated and joined-up way, there is a natural place for that sort of discussion to happen. If you think about the scale of Greater Manchester or the west midlands, it is probably not so very different from Scotland in terms of works numbers. You could be talking about a number of regional co-ordinated programmes or approaches to coring, because it is not necessarily a programme of coring. It is an approach to how much of it you need and, a little bit like our performance-based inspections, thinking about where you would target it. You are not going to do it everywhere randomly, because that would not be a cost-effective way of doing it.

If you do not mind me saying, you started off saying, “We just set the framework, and local authorities work within that”. That is quite hands-off. Are you looking at that framework and thinking, “It is not quite working right. It is time to get a bit more interventionist”? Are you not at that stage in England where you want to get a bit more interventionist? You still think that it is okay for you to set your best practice and your framework, and just let local authorities get on with it. You are not concerned about performance in this area.

I would love to answer that, but the Minister probably should.

I am going to let you have a bash as well. I am concerned about performance if local authorities are telling us that utility companies are not performing well enough. The scheme that we have has developed over time precisely to do what you are asking, which is to say, “We do not think that it is performing as well as it should. What shall we do now?” Permits were introduced under the last Labour Government. The performance-based regime was introduced in 2023. These are specifically things that have been introduced to try to improve the way that the system operates. It is an iterative process. Unless I am mistaken, there is no silver bullet. It is about developing the system that we have to try to make it work better, unless someone has some radical suggestion for a completely better way of doing it. Anthony, go on. Why not have your say?

I probably mischaracterised what I was trying to say. We are not hands-off.

I was putting words in your mouth. My apologies.

The point is that we are not hands-off, but quite the opposite. There is a lot of regulation. A lot of what we do is through statutory codes of practice. They are not a leaflet about what good looks like. It is saying, “You have to have regard to this”. The specification for how you do reinstatements is in a statutory document. Government are quite interventionist. Quite a lot of what we do is through primary and, largely, secondary legislation, so there are a lot of rules that we are imposing. Performance-based inspections are a requirement, not a suggestion.

Sticking with coring, some of the data that we were showed says that, in particular local authorities, there are higher failure rates in the coring. Does that concern you? Is that down to what the local authority is doing? We talked earlier about specific contractors working in specific areas causing problems. Do you have any comment on the issue of higher failure rates in certain local authorities when it comes to coring?

I am not sure what conclusions you would draw from that. It is in the nature of almost everything to do with local roads that you get data showing you that there is different performance and different approaches. That is partly because the decisions are made locally. Why you would do coring samples in one area and find a different result to the same type of reinstatement, such as a deep excavation for water apparatus, or whatever it might be, I do not know. You would have to do quite a lot of work to get to the bottom of why that was happening and what the cause and effect was there, because I suspect that there would be a number of reasons. We went through a lot of this when we were redoing the SROH, which is one of the core statutory documents that we produced. There was a lot of discussion about detailed technical specifications for how it is done, but that is as much as we can do. We then sit and evaluate, and it is really for the local authorities, because they are best placed. They are the ones that are seeing the reinstatements. We are not out there. We are not the police, and we cannot be. There are only a handful of us doing the policy role. As the Minister said earlier, if there is evidence, in the same way that the inspection fee is not enough to cover your costs, I can absolutely guarantee that you would get a different answer 150 or 130 times—or 20 times if you were asking outside London—to that question, because every local authority runs itself differently.

That is a strength.

A challenge that we have is trying to have a single, consistent national system when there is so much difference between different utility companies and different regions.

JAG(UK), which is, effectively, the highway authorities group, called for a national coring scheme, so that there is consistency across coring testing. It would say that a wide coring scheme needs to be established. Would the Department consider a similar system to the one in Scotland?

The obvious question is about who is going to pay for it. As I understand it, in Scotland, the road authorities are doing the coring, but there is national co-ordination. In England, there are some local authorities that have coring programmes. We heard that Salford does within Greater Manchester, as does another local authority that one of your witnesses was representing, but it is not uniform across the piece. There would have to be some agreement from local authorities. You could have some co-ordination.

It was their sector group that is calling for that.

Yes, but they may be wishing that DfT would decide that we were going to pay for a national coring programme that would be over and above the funding that local authorities receive, which might be somewhat wishful thinking at this point.

That is a fair point.

There can sometimes be disputes between local authorities and utility companies. We have heard evidence especially around what I have learned are called section 81 defects. We understand that there may be some ambiguities in Government guidance. I wondered whether the Department had any plans to update that and whether you thought that the processes to resolve disputes could be improved.

I am not going to comment on section 81, because, surprisingly, I cannot pick out of my head where that is. I am going to turn to Anthony for that one.

That may be for Mr Ferguson.

In general terms, what is always very difficult to legislate for is good relationships. Where this works well is where you will have utility companies and the managers of the highway authority having regular conversations, where they pick up the phone and talk to each other. In some cases, you have people who are co-located to ensure that there is that good communication and correspondence. Inevitably, because it is quite a highly regulated system, that does also set up for there to be adversarial relationships and arguments about, “Have they or have they not done something right?” To come back to the reinstatement issue, it would not be that much of a surprise if in some cases the highway authority is saying, “This reinstatement is inadequate” and the utility company is disputing that. If you have a good relationship, developed over a period, it will probably reduce those opportunities for adversarial situations. At the end of the day, we all want the same thing, albeit there are conflicting issues. The highway authority wants its roads to be kept clear and not to have anybody interrupt its integrity. Utility companies have a job to do in terms of getting down to their utilities, fixing problems and installing new utilities. Anthony, do you want to come to section 81 while I reflect on where it is?

I would love to, because we all worry about noisy manhole covers. I have one at the end of my road. You are right that this is one of a number of tools that the highway authority has to ensure not only that work is done correctly, but that apparatus in the street is maintained. I have heard mentioned many times that noisy manhole covers are an annoyance locally, and utility companies are very slow to come out and fix them. Again, it is one of these things where it is very difficult at a national level to know what it is that we need to do. New Roads and Street Works Act gives the highway authority power to issue notices to the utility company to carry out work. To some extent, if there is the power to do that, and the utility company simply does not do it, it is a bit hard to know what more we could do. It is one of many things that we probably keep under general review. This is on a list of topics that regularly come up, because it is a local annoyance, but it is probably the sum total of lots of fairly small-scale, local issues that really are much better dealt with locally. As far as we can see, this is not a particular priority of ours to deal with, because the powers exist, so the question is, “Are the powers that exist being used and, if not, why not?” It comes back a bit more to the point about holding the utility companies to account at a local level and using all the tools that are already available to local authorities.

We have also heard that some disputes are referred to the Highways Authorities and Utilities Committee, but one of the issues is that it is a very balanced committee, with exactly the same number of utility companies and highways authorities. Therefore, they tend to side with their own side when making a decision or having a discussion. Might there be a need to put an independent person or people on that committee?

That is an interesting idea. I do not know whether it has been examined previously. They have co-chairs, precisely for the reason that you say. It is meant to be providing a group of your peers who are going to say whether you have acted in a reasonable manner or not.

What you described there in HAUC is an equality of representation. In what can be a fairly adversarial system, we would say that it is a good thing that there is this organisation that brings people together, where you can have a balanced, sensible debate. We rely very heavily on HAUC, because it produces lots of good practice guides and so on, which we think are very helpful. Whenever we develop anything of our own, we work with HAUC to make sure that it has been involved in providing us with a balanced view of what the sector wants from whatever co-ordination code or whatever else it might be. We see value in that. As a personal opinion, where sometimes HAUC comes up with a solution that is a balanced compromise, not everyone is going to be happy about it. If you are not happy about it, you will say that HAUC has leant too much one way or too much the other way, but, in general terms, the fact of having that balanced representation across the sector adds more value than it creates difficulty. We have a lot of semi-official interaction with HAUC. We are not necessarily members of the committee, but we do look to them, and they to us, because, ultimately, we are often the ones producing the code of practice or whatever the guidance document is. To some extent, we provide that independent mediating position, because, as I said earlier, in lots of examples, we are the ones having to balance quite disparate views and come to a conclusion that is fair across the board and will allow utilities companies to do what they need to do, in a way that is effective and avoids unnecessary disruption, which is our goal.

That probably leads us on to Scott’s question.

I did not realise there was another question. My apologies. I was going to intervene in this one anyway, so thank you.

We have touched on it already, but we can push on this one.

We have talked quite a lot about Scotland this morning, which is always good, of course. In my perception of working between Scotland and England, it does not feel different in Scotland in terms of how roadworks are managed. I am going to ask about the Scottish Road Works Commissioner in a second, but, as I was checking, its budget is less than £600,000 a year, which is less than £20,000 per Scottish local authority. You can see how much it can achieve with that budget, which is quite limited. You talked about quangos earlier, and it is also an extra layer between residents and Scottish Government, et cetera. Is there value in that kind of organisation to ensure that your roads authority is better regulating roadworks to try to avoid the kinds of clashes that we all experience all the time, even in Scotland with the Scottish Road Works Commissioner? I could talk at length about the ones in my constituency, but I will not be tempted to. Is there a place for it?

From the public’s point of view, you would want to ensure that there is someone managing your local roads and trying to minimise disruption on them. From a public point of view, we will probably all be in the position of sometimes being very frustrated when our road is disrupted or dug up and it delays our bus or our journey. Equally, if we have a power cut, our water gets cut off or our broadband goes down, we also have an expectation and a desire for it to be fixed as soon as possible, so there is an obvious tension that exists at all points. We absolutely want there to be someone who is holding the ring, but, in general, that should be the local authority. Unless I am mistaken, the commissioner in Scotland does not have significant powers that the local authorities do not in England, or between the local authorities and the Department. I can see why it would work in that setting, but moving from the system that we have to one of a commissioner would be quite challenging, in terms of resource, but also it is a different system. It is not a permit system in Scotland; it is a notice system. It deals only with street works and not roadworks, and we are ignoring all the disruption and potential issues that are caused by highway authorities’ own works, although in general the public probably do not notice who it is digging up the road.

From the public’s perspective, though, it is the co-ordination piece that frustrates them. The fact that there are roadworks that are just repeated in the same areas, or long periods of activity, frustrates the public.

We will come on to that. It is the dispute resolution element that some of our witnesses mentioned. As Alex said, there is equal power in the dispute resolution between the two sides, whereas the role of the Scottish commissioner, to some extent, takes that dispute resolution to that person who is independent and makes the ultimate decision. That is what we were looking at in this context.

There needs to be some escalation to an appeal body. Is that the kind of thinking?

It goes back to the point that I was making earlier: £20,000 per local authority in Scotland is not a lot of money. I would not argue against the need for the Scottish Road Works Commissioner to have more money, but where does that money come from? It would probably come from local authorities. That is the decision that you would be faced with. You would set up this huge organisation across all of England to run this service. Where would you find the money from? It would come from local authorities.

They might not be very happy about that, but there could be an opportunity for local authorities to agree, particularly at a regional or mayoral strategic authority level, not in exactly the same way as a commissioner, to set up that kind of co-ordinating role. We could look at that.

It is a point that has been raised with us, and we did have the Scottish commissioner in front of us, as you know. Let us now move on to co-ordination and planning to minimise disruption, travel disruption being the big issue that our constituents raise with us.

We know that poor notification of street works can have really disruptive consequences, impacting bus services as well as pedestrians. In particular, I am thinking of Castleton in my constituency, where the development of a cycle lane caused considerable disruption for residents and businesses; they really bore the brunt of that. How can the notification process be improved? Who bears responsibility for that?

The permit scheme was specifically introduced in order to try to minimise the impact of disruptions when there are works on the carriageways. If it is installing a cycle lane, is that roadworks undertaken by the highway authority rather than street works undertaken by utilities? The permit system is specifically set up for that purpose. As you know, there are different amounts of notice that need to be given for a permit. The difference between Scotland and England is that you are applying for permission via a permit rather than giving notice that you are going to be doing something. The local authority has some powers to have conversations with the promoter to say, “We want you to work at these particular times, or avoid working at these particular times”, in particular thinking about, “When is the busy time of the day? Can you avoid working on the bus route? What traffic management is going to be needed?” That is what the permit schemes are designed to do. In an ideal world, you would have the advance notice long before you get the permit, because, if you are going to co-ordinate effectively, the more notice that you have, the more possibility there is of that happening. We know that advance notice is not always given, but that comes back to the issue about creating really good working relationships and making sure that the highway authority is trying, as far as possible, not only to get its own works, because these things do and should work well by looking at both roadworks and street works, but also to provide advance notice so that we know when different works are going to be happening in a street in advance of getting the permits. The opportunities for co-ordination and for dissemination of information differ, depending on what sorts of works they are. For the more major works, a longer period of advance notice is required. The permit has to go in earlier and, therefore, there is much more opportunity to cascade that information to enable people to minimise the disruption arising from it.

I will push you a bit more on that point about disruption to businesses. It would be interesting to know whether the Department has provided any guidance to contractors to mitigate the costs to businesses. If street works are close to the site of their operations, are there any steps that should be taken to support businesses when disruption happens?

My instinct is that that should be part of the conversation that is happening with the local authority, which would be acting on behalf of its local residents and business owners, because you would want to minimise the impact that any works on the street are going to have to individuals, to businesses, and to the provision of public transport. Local authorities are best placed to have the conversation in relation to their own roads, because they will know the nature of the streets that we are talking about. “Where are the businesses? How do you ensure that there is good access? How do you make sure it does not stop people from travelling to or getting to the local area?” I do not know, Anthony, whether you want to add anything to that.

That is largely it. I was not sure whether your question about support meant financial support for businesses or compensation for loss of business.

Yes. Businesses are sometimes left out of pocket as a result of disruption. Is there anything in particular that could be done there?

There is a fairly long-standing principle, because we would be on a fairly slippery slope here, about businesses not being entitled to a particular expectation. A local authority—or a utility company, for that matter—would not normally get involved in compensating a business for disruption caused by works outside. What we are really into the business of is minimising disruption. It is about notification, mitigating, and planning around and trying to minimise the impact on a particular business, but there will be times when you cannot avoid excavating outside someone’s business. I sat in a café in High Wycombe trying to enjoy my breakfast while the local authority was busy planting trees, which involved cutting paving slabs. The chap who owned the café was saying, basically, “No one is having breakfast in my café at the moment, apart from you, because they are all going round the corner”. That was one of those things where there is nothing much you could do about it. They had to carry out the works, so the question is, “When are they carrying out the works?” There is a lot of negotiation and discussion that can happen around the detail of any particular work, but, if we get into the category of business support or compensation, it gets much more difficult, particularly for the local authority.

In terms of any other measures that are not compensation, is there anything else that local authorities should be doing?

Again, it is one of those things where there is always a lot more that you could do. I suspect that no one is ever completely satisfied that a work has been properly planned and notified, and that fair warning is being given to businesses, but there is nothing stopping that from happening. Local authorities and utility companies are carrying out works like this all the time. The whole issue of communication—and I do not know whether we are going to come on to that more broadly—is a difficult one, because, if there is going to be a road closure, there are processes in place in statute for how a local authority will make a traffic regulation in order to close a road. There are processes attached to that around consultation and communication, but, as we all know, consultation and communication with the public is very difficult, because people are not necessarily that receptive. Local authorities do an awful lot of communication. Whether it is received is a different matter. For my entire career, we have been struggling with the idea of how best and most effectively to communicate with people, when some get their news only from social media, and others want a leaflet through the door. There are a number of challenges, and businesses are just an example or subset of that same challenge of, “How do you make sure that you have had the proper discussion?” It all takes time and costs money, so the utility company and the local authority are having to expend resource to try to find the best way to communicate about something that is going to have to happen. The question is how, and so it is a challenge.

It is no comfort to a small business owner if their customers cannot get to them or use their business for a period of days or even weeks.

You have delicately summed up the issue about local authorities’ definition of communication, which ought to be about whether the message is being received, not whether it has been sent. On the point about relationships between utilities companies and local authorities, I would just ask you for some comment on this slightly different perspective. As a county councillor, I was called to a meeting in one of the villages in my division that had very nearly been completely cut off from both directions due to emergency works. I do not want to go into that rabbit warren just yet, but it struck me that the relationship between the county council officers on the ground and the street works operative on the ground was very strong. The challenge is that the sympathy lies with the poor team who have been given the job sheet for the day or even the week before and want to get on with their work. Do we not need some sort of penalty or enforcement regime sitting behind those relationships? Otherwise, it is just people in offices, with no stake in the ground at all, giving the problem to the people who are on the frontline.

My next question might help with that.

I just want to pick up one point. Apologies if you have mentioned this and I might have missed it. In your evidence, you mention plans to consult on a new code of practice for safety at street works and roadworks in spring 2025. We are almost into summer, judging by today’s weather. What are the main areas that should be improved to maintain accessibility in street works? Are we going to get that consultation soon?

Yes, and ensuring access for people. I listened very carefully to the evidence that was provided around accessibility and the impact it has particularly on disabled people. Ensuring that we strengthen the code of safety in that regard is very important. I do not know, Anthony, whether we have any more detail on when the timeframe is likely to be for that.

No, not specifically. I have to say that, notwithstanding the weather, we are still in spring, but it is on the list of things that we are working through over the next few months.

Did you amend your draft at all as a result of the input of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, or had you already taken all its points on board?

We work with DPTAC on everything we do, basically. The inputs to the safety code have come from all directions, because it is one of those core documents; it will have taken account of any particular coroner’s cases or whatever it may be. It is another example of where we talk a lot to industry bodies, because they are the ones with the experience of what is and is not working, and particularly local authorities, which will be observing all the time where works are not carried out to an appropriate standard.

It needs to lead to improvements for vulnerable road users and to bring the safety code in line with other DfT guidance around inclusive mobility. A number of highway authorities have, in their submissions, made suggestions for improvements. For example, temporary traffic lights should have a pedestrian phase to allow crossing when that is possible already. The code will be issued for consultation, including with groups representing people with a disability, so it will not be like, “Here it is—go!”. We will be able to further improve it on that basis. One thing that I am keen that we also look at within that is measures to protect people who are working on site. I do not know that it has come out particularly in your evidence sessions, but I am very conscious that the people who are working on the road, whether for utilities or for highways authorities, are often subject to abuse and, in some cases, to dangerous incursions by drivers. I am keen that we make sure that we remind local authorities and utility operators about the importance of keeping their workforce safe.

Yes, absolutely.

In Derby, and up and down the country, we often see examples where it is the same roads that seem to be dug up time and time again. Co-ordination between local authorities and other companies is so important. What can be done to ensure that we get consistently good co-ordination to stop that happening?

The rules are there. The local authorities have a duty to try to co-ordinate street works, and there is a duty on utility companies to co-operate with that process. The system is designed to bring people together in order to have that co-ordination happen, but we have seen that it is challenging. Half of the works that happen are minor works that are going to take three days or less, and so the notice for applying for a permit for that is three days in advance. That goes back to my answer to Ms Blundell around the importance of advance notice and having those longer-term meetings, so that you can find out from the utilities, “What are your plans for the next few months?” The opportunity for co-ordination when utility companies are doing small works at relatively short notice is pretty limited. The bigger opportunities for co-ordination are where someone is doing more major works, including the highway authority. If it is planning to do a major bit of road resurfacing, the whole point of the duty to co-ordinate is to say, “Find out information. Make sure that you are telling other people what you are planning to do. Is there an opportunity to do your works at the same time?” That is the theory. In reality, it can be really difficult. Even where there is a major work plan—and you have heard evidence to this effect—everyone says, “That sounds good”, and then they cannot make it work with their other requirements. People are working to different requirements. If you are the utility company, when you get contacted by a customer asking to get a new connection and you have to meet a timescale, it is not always possible to say, “We will delay, because we know that they are going to be doing more major roadworks in a few weeks’ time”. In theory, the whole system is built to enable that co-ordination to happen. I know how frustrating it is when you see repeated works by different companies over a period on the same road.

The evidence we heard was that local authorities are required to hold meetings to co-ordinate, but that companies are not required to attend them. Does more need to be done to require companies to attend co-ordination meetings?

The duty is exactly the same. For local authorities, it is that you should hold co-ordination meetings and, for utility companies, it is that you should co-operate. There is an expectation that they should be turning up to those meetings. For local authorities—and I would be willing to look at this—is there a question about saying, “You do not have access to the permit system if you are not co-operating with it”, or do you name and shame? You would have to escalate it to more senior management and say, “Hang on. Why are you not turning up for the meetings?” That said, there is turning up to a meeting, and there is actively participating in it and doing it in a useful way.

Just getting them to turn up sounds like it would be a step in the right direction. It is great that you are willing to look at how that can be facilitated, encouraged or enforced.

I suspect that it is variable between different places. I am sure that there will be examples of where there are good relationships—and I know that there are—where those meetings are happening. There are also examples of where local authorities and utility companies have people co-located in regional hubs, so you have people working side by side with each other, which makes that communication much stronger, rather than just the quarterly co-ordination meetings, or however often they are.

Should forward planning notices be made mandatory?

It is something that we could look at. The permits are the mandatory part of it. Given that a lot of the works are being carried out at relatively short notice, I do not know whether you would get the value out of making them mandatory, but I do not see any reason why utility companies would not be sharing their advance plans. It would be helpful to do so. I do not know, Anthony, whether you want to add to that.

We come back to the same thing that we were discussing earlier. There is attending a meeting, and there is attending a meeting. There is a forward plan, and there is a forward plan. It would already be good practice. Again, I come back to the point that most of what we are talking about here is exactly what HAUC should be trying to achieve through the guidance that it issues. The point is that there should be a standard, and HAUC should be encouraging all of its members to do everything that is, basically, in the interests of better collaboration and co-ordination, because they would all agree that that is the standard. Whether it would be better if we were to mandate something, those are the things that we are always keeping under review. The general point is that, in such a complicated system, there are always lots of things that we could do. Each one would require consultation and a lot of resource, so we have to pick and choose quite carefully which things are best done by mandate and which are better done through codes of practice or guidance notes, and just encourage the right cultural approach. If you can get the culture right, regulation becomes less important. There is always a bit of a danger, in such a regulated environment, that we move to making things rules as the first port of call, when, in fact, it should be the last port of call, because the less we have to get involved, the better. That is why it is better for the sector to work out for itself what it thinks is the right standard and then try to make sure that that works. What we can do is to reinforce and support that.

The Department’s written evidence said that more thought was needed about the co-ordination of telecommunications works in particular. In my constituency, there is an operator installing masts all over the place, with little regard for what the local authority or residents want. What is your assessment of the challenges, particularly when it comes to telecommunications works? How will you take this evidence forward?

There has been a big increase in telecommunications works, and a lot of new operators in the space, so it is about making sure that they are part of this. I do not know whether you can set out a little more clearly what the specific problems are.

Yes. It is just that there do not seem to be any restrictions on this particular operator putting masts wherever it wants to, really, without listening to what the local authority or residents want. I will not get too much into the specifics.

That sounds like a planning issue rather than a street works issue.

It is not so much masts, but the wiring that is going through the roads. One of the witnesses from the local authority side said that it is really difficult to get utilities, even in the same area, to co-ordinate. There was even an example of where a local authority had to close a road completely for six or nine months because of some bridge works, so it offered to all the utilities, “Do you need to do any work on this road? We will not charge you fees, because the road is closed anyway and it will have to be resurfaced at the end”. That was the deal. It went to all the utilities that operate in its area and either got no response or was told, “No, we do not need to do any work”. The local authority did the bridge work, reinstated the road surface and reopened the road, and then, within a year, two or three—I do not know how many—utilities came in and dug up that road. We have heard that there is every incentive in utilities not co-ordinating with other utilities, because it impacts on their insurance, their risk liability or whatever.

Commercial sensitivities.

Commercial sensitivities was the other one. Thank you. Do you have any sense of that being a concern? Can you provide any guidance or even regulation on that?

There are restrictions when a road has just been resurfaced.

I may be wrong about the resurfacing bit, but you get the gist of my anecdote.

I absolutely get the gist of what you are saying: when there appears to be an ideal opportunity for co-ordination, why does it not happen? There can be a variety of reasons. As you heard in evidence, utilities are operating at different depths. Generally, if you are talking about water companies, they are having to do deep excavation. If you are talking about telecommunications companies, it is often under the pavement rather than under the roads, so it will not always sit easily. As you know, a number of the works will be to deal with more urgent matters and are not planned a long way in advance. What we do want, where there is the opportunity for co-ordination, is for it to happen. The figures that I had around those that were actively co-ordinating and working together were small relative to the total number of jobs that there are. That might just be because it is difficult. It is really hard to say, because utilities are also having to meet other requirements set on them by regulators. If they are having to operate in particular timeframes to meet other regulations, clearly that makes it more difficult to co-ordinate at a local level when it comes to doing the street works. I do not know, Anthony, whether you want to add to that.

That is exactly the point. It is probably more than commercial sensitivities. That is one of the factors, but it is different commercial drivers. As we have already said, that is one of the fundamentals of why street works is difficult. There are plenty of things that we are doing that are enabling and facilitating. For example, as part of an improvement project we are doing for the Street Manager service, which underpins most of how the permit system works, we are updating it to allow forward plans to be added to it. The challenge for us is how much further we go beyond making it possible and simple for it to happen to then making it happen and enforcing it. As I say, that is when it gets harder, because then we are into having to specify through guidance, which is a long and painful consultative process, rather than creating the tools such as Street Manager to make it easier for everybody to do their jobs, so that they do not have the excuse of saying, “I cannot do that, because there is no way to do it”. There is a way to do it through Street Manager. The more we centralise through a single system such as that, the easier it should be to get that better consistency. As the Minister said, from our own data, if you look at the number of works where there is co-ordination, it is quite small, but that is probably just in the nature of the types of works where it is easier to co-ordinate because they are planned much further ahead. The majority of works are short-term, small works, where it is very difficult to know. Because they are managing in a live environment, with multiple gangs, they have resources that they have to deploy all the time. Everything that has flexibility as a compromise has a cost. The utility has to work through that process, and it is about, “Are we getting the incentives in the right place?” bearing in mind that they are all regulated and have targets to meet.

As I say, we did get specific evidence about the active disincentive to co-ordinate.

In my constituency, there was an example of five organisations digging up the same road over the course of a couple of months. One of the reasons for that was that the road was right next to a new-build housing estate that needed water, gas and broadband. The local authority said to me that it was unable to identify any collaboration opportunities and highlighted the fact that there were four developers building these homes. There is going to be a lot more homebuilding over the next few years. Might there be a need for particular guidance when there are new-build developments happening? Do you see this as a particular issue?

It is incredibly challenging in those circumstances that you have described. Developers will want different utilities at different times. I recall from the evidence that getting the water in might be an earlier thing than getting the electricity in. We can look at whether we could do more to ensure that developers share information with the local authority about what their plans are and the timeframes. They can get planning permission and then it can be quite a long time before they set out their schedule of works. We need to encourage that sharing of information to happen, but, ultimately, if we put more requirements on them, we will build more cost and difficulty into it. If we were saying, “You have to forward plan”, they will have to place all the orders at the earliest time. It strikes me that there is a possibility of providing guidance in that area, so that we can at least set out what good practice might look like. I do not know whether it has been looked at in relation to developers in the past.

It has, but probably not for some time. This is one example of a lot of tension. It is another perspective on street works, which is where it interacts with housing development. There are a whole series of interactions around disruption, road adoption or whatever it may be, where you have strong commercial and political drivers making things happen that come into contact with each other. They are happening in real time, so our ability to respond to that is not that straightforward. Also, it is partly about evidence. There is a huge amount of anecdotal evidence, but maybe not that much very clear-cut, objective evidence that would enable us to change policy, which we would then need to consult on, having assessed the evidence and having a definite case for change. That is the challenge that we have in responding to these sorts of problems.

If I can follow up on that, you are right that people have a lot of sympathy if it is emergency works, or things that cannot have been planned well in advance. You are right that there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that really may need to be brought together. The concern comes that, when there does seem to be the opportunity to co-ordinate, the disruption caused to residents seems to be at the bottom of the list of priorities for those involved when they are planning works. Anything that can be done to look at better co-ordination and how that can be better motivated would be really helpful. We have all seen examples of street works where it just looks like nothing is happening when you go by. Sometimes, there can be good reasons for that, but we also had a lot of evidence that said that the duration of street works often expands to fill the time given by the permit. One example was that they might fix the issue on day one or two, but not reinstate the road until day five. Other examples that could be really disruptive included road closures and traffic lights left in situ, even after the site gang is gone, because it was not their responsibility to clear that away. Is it something that Government plan to address, or is it just going to be left to companies to set out how they are going to continue their work, even at the cost of significant disruption to local residents?

Highway authorities can use permits and the permit conditions to set the duration of works and require working on particular days and at particular times, because we do not want works to be in place any longer than is absolutely necessary. There can be disadvantages. You can use permit conditions to require weekend working, if that is needed. You might do that for major works on major roads, and target those works where they are going to cause the greatest impact in terms of congestion. You probably would not want or expect there to be seven-day working on minor residential roads, and 24-hour working would not be desirable for local residents from a noise and environmental perspective. Also, the time of year will vary depending on whether you want to work in daylight, when it is generally safer than working at night. If you put on a requirement to work 24 hours or at the weekends, you are probably building in extra costs that will be passed on to customers. The other place where there is an opportunity is lane rental schemes, which can also be used to incentivise works on the busiest roads at the busiest times being completed as soon as possible.

I can understand not wanting to work for really long hours over really long periods. The concern is often where nothing is happening, just because it sits with different teams, or because they have booked it in advance to say, “We will clear it up at the end”, but the work has being done much more quickly. There does not appear to be any incentive to do it more quickly if their permit allows a full five days.

That is why it comes back to the local authority setting the permit conditions. It is a permit; it is a request for permission, and local authorities can go back and ask further questions about the length of time and the traffic management that will be required. The utility company should not just be telling the local authority. It is supposed to be something that is seeking permissions.

There might be opportunities for greater flexibility within a permit that says that, if things can be done more quickly, they should be.

We would expect them to get things out and to report that as soon as possible. Anthony, I do not know whether you want to add to that.

To some extent, it comes down to the difference between what the local authority may well know but the residents do not. As you say, when we observe an inactive site, there may be a perfectly good reason why that is the case, and the local authority may well be happy about it, because it knows about it and that is all part of the plan, but it does not help the person who is disrupted by it. Again, one of the challenges is about better communication so that it is clear why something is happening, because it will not be obvious. Why should anybody be an expert about curing concrete? They should not be. There is no need for them to know that, but it might be helpful to be able to communicate better about why a site is where it is and what it is doing. I suspect that there is a lot more knowledge behind the scenes between the utility company and the street works team in the local authority, who will have discussed the permit, and probably been on site and talked about it. That may well have happened, but, as I say, that does not necessarily then translate into information that is helpful to someone who is held up in a traffic jam. Again, it is just part of the way that the system works, as you have alluded to. There are multiple people involved in different links in the chain, and that requires a lot of very careful co-ordination and planning to maximise it and to change it. If something finishes early, you have to get another team involved to come and remove traffic lights or whatever. That sounds straightforward for one work, but, when you are managing hundreds of works in an area, it probably is not that straightforward. That is probably where the frustration comes from.

There is definitely room for improvement on communication. I understand that, if you are co-ordinating multiple projects, you need the time and resource to acknowledge when something has finished early and to make sure that you have a rapid response to alter the traffic systems that might be put in place. That is why there is some concern about whether local authorities have the capacity to ensure that these things are done quickly or whether there are other ways of enabling better co-ordination, so that, when things can be done more quickly, they are.

We are making various digital improvements through Street Manager and other things. There are two parts to this. One is minimising the amount of disruption and time on the ground: “If we can finish early, we will”. The second is to share that information in real time to the extent possible, so that, when you are looking at Google Maps and trying to plan your journey, it will tell you what is happening, not what the system said should be happening, which is not always very useful to you. You turn up and either there are no works there at all, or you find a work that was not supposed to be there. We need to get better alignment between what is happening on the ground and the information that can be shared. A lot of site supervisors will now have all that information to hand and be able to communicate it to Street Manager through an iPad. There is no going back to the office and typing things in any more. This should all be happening in real time, but that does not solve the point about co-ordination behind the scenes, which is a slightly different issue.

In the construction industry, there is the considerate contractor scheme. As users of this estate, we can see high-quality information about what will happen, when it will happen, when it is going to be finished, whether it is going to be noisy, and whether we will be allowed to use this or that route. There is clearly a standard that, as building users, we can experience. There is good practice there. It sounds as if the highways world could pick up some tips from the construction world.

There is good practice out there in the highways world. There will be places where this is happening really effectively. Perhaps inevitably, local authorities are coming to the Committee and telling you about the things that are not going so well rather those that just work and where there are good relationships.

How can we share that good practice? People will be the first to complain, although, usually, some areas will be first to also say when something is going really well. How can we try to ensure that we are driving standards upwards, so that we are sharing that good practice? Is there a role for Government in enabling that co-ordination?

One of the specific purposes of HAUC is to share good practice and guidance about what works. That is from the people who are doing it day in, day out. We rely on HAUC to provide some of that guidance, specifically as practitioners, because they can share what works and come together to agree it.

That is helpful.

I am now going to ask some questions about permit schemes, which I know will fill us all with joy and enthusiasm. Local authorities have told us that immediate permits are being overused, which can make it difficult to plan and co-ordinate works, but the Department has said that it sees no evidence of misuse. Does it concern you that immediate permits are being used in around 30% of all street works?

There has been an increase in the number of immediate urgent repairs. Inevitably, one can understand this suggestion that there is abuse of the system, but we have not been able to verify whether there is abuse. When the DfT has spoken to companies, they are not admitting that there is a tendency to do that.

They probably would not, would they?

Yes, precisely. When we look at the numbers of immediate urgent repairs, they are predominantly from highway authorities themselves, which you can understand, because we have a lot of broken roads. If you need to do an emergency repair to a dangerous pothole, you need to do it urgently. They are also from water companies. To some extent, we think that is because they are not doing proactive repairs, but rather waiting until something becomes urgent in order to do it. That might not be what we would like, and it is not good practice, but that is true of highways as well. You want preventive maintenance rather than waiting until something becomes really urgent. Pothole repairs, more bad weather and restoring connections could all be part of what has led to an increase in urgent repairs. Nevertheless, even accepting that perhaps there are more urgent repairs needed, there is more that can be done.

In that context, for a long time there have been these definitions of urgent and emergency for types of permits. Are those definitions still fit for purpose, or could they do with a review?

I have not heard any suggestion that immediate emergency, where there is a danger to life, is in need of significant change. Indeed, the percentage of works under that category has gone down in recent years, where the immediate urgent has gone up slightly. I absolutely agree that we could look at whether there is an opportunity to tighten the definition of those works. We are working with HAUC to update the co-ordination code of practice and make it clearer when they can be used. We are also looking at the timescales for submitting both urgent and emergency permit applications. At the moment, they have to be sent within two hours of being on site, but we can look at whether that should be shorter or, indeed, even in advance of them arriving on site. We have also observed that there can be delays between temporary traffic management equipment being set up and removed when works take place, which goes back to the previous question. We are considering a national permit condition that would speed up and reduce any delays in those handovers between subcontractors.

Some utility companies can go on the highway with traffic management, i.e. traffic signals, without the need for a permit. This was particularly brought to us by Transport for Greater Manchester. Should all works involving traffic management, even if they do not involve excavation, be required to apply for a permit and, if not, why not?

There was a change in the code of practice because there had been an error. The code of practice was not in line with the legislation. It has been returned to be in line with the legislation. I am struggling to find my bit of information now.

You think it might have been rectified.

There are specified works, which are the things that need to be carried out under a permit. Those were agreed with HAUC following consultation. Works that must be carried out under a permit involve breaking up or resurfacing the road, closing the carriageway or reducing lanes on larger carriageways. The works that are recommended to be carried out under a permit include the installation of traffic-count apparatus, pole testing and applying road markings. If there is an argument for further extensions to that, we could look at that. As I say, the co-ordination code of practice is in line with the legislation. If we were going to do something extra around changing that, it would probably require the legislation being amended.

The non-excavation section 50 licence is required for those that need to install traffic management on the highway but do not require any other licence. It is only needed for anyone who is not a statutory undertaker. Statutory undertakers can put traffic management on the road without seeking a permit, which certainly is a problem for Transport for Greater Manchester, particularly at weekends, if there are very high-volume football games and other things. Because a permit was not required, it was not aware and therefore could not manage the subsequent disruption. We will leave that with you for now.

Is that something you could comment on, Anthony?

It is a good example of where we should drill down a bit to the specific difficulties being created by a set of rules that apply in a standard and consistent way. That is probably where good practice guidance can be helpful. Again, this comes back to where HAUC could usefully intervene. There is a set of rules that apply that mean you can do something, but you would like to think that this is about the more local level. What you have just described will apply particularly in certain places at certain times but may not be relevant elsewhere. There is the danger that you try to change the rules to meet every circumstance, which is just never going to be possible. What you are describing sounds more like something that will apply in certain places. It probably just needs to be elevated as an issue and then we need to encourage the particular places where it is relevant to say, “In these circumstances, your first port of call should be thinking about not doing it at these times. You can, technically, but don’t, because it is not sensible”. You would have thought that, reputationally, it is the sort of thing that a utility company ought to be mindful of anyway.

We will leave that one there for further drilling down, particularly for Greater Manchester. We are going to move on to fines and charges. Stakeholders have welcomed the Government’s proposals to double the fines available to local authorities. These have remained unchanged for a long time. That is true for, we are finding, quite a few DfT charges, but these have remained unchanged since 2007. Will you commit to regularly reviewing the fines available to local authorities to ensure they really do act as a deterrent to poor practice?

In coming into the DfT, one of my concerns was in finding that a large number of fines, fees and charges had not been reviewed for a really long time. As you know, there has already been a consultation on increasing the penalties available with options to increase in line with inflation or to double. We decided to double those precisely to provide a bit more of an incentive for improved behaviour. Fixed-penalty notices have doubled and overrun charges have now been extended to weekends and bank holidays. Those charges will apply later this year. I absolutely agree. We should keep these things under review on a more regular basis.

Did you consider increasing them any further than doubling them?

That would have required us to carry out a further consultation, so we decided to act when we had the opportunity to do so.

When we are thinking about permits and fines, one thing that I hear very often from my constituents and from local councillors in Kent is that, while it is possible to fine up to £10,000 a day for overrunning works, that is only in very specific circumstances and the fines are often in the region of £200 or £250. If the condition of a permit is that you have to manage traffic live and that might cost you £250 or £300 a day, you might breach that condition for four days because it would cost you £1,000 to comply but the fine would only be £240. People feel like the incentives are out of whack. What do you think about that? How do you plan to address that problem?

The fines are a bit of a backstop position.

Ideally, we would not get to the point of fines at all.

That is not where we want to get to. There are fixed penalty notices for some offences, such as working without a permit, breaching a permit condition or late submission of start and stop notices. I would expect those to be implemented, if they are needed. They are not an alternative to engaging with utility companies and holding them to account. Local authorities are doing that. They are visiting sites and making sure that the utility companies are operating in the way that is set out in their permit conditions. Anthony, I do not know whether you want to add to that.

No, that covers it. Coming back to the cultural approach to this, we are able to collect information through Street Manager about what is going on with the number of FPNs. Again, this is data that we previously had no idea about. We would have had to do surveys, which typically would have very low response rates. We would have struggled to assemble the evidence to understand how these incentives are working rather than relying on the expertise and experience of people who have done this for a long time. The opportunity is that we have more information to understand how the system in total is working. It is always something that Ministers would want to keep under review. The changes that we have made recently are the first ones we have made for some time. To some extent, that tells its own story. This is not politically the easiest subject to get into. If you are going to think about reviewing penalties as a means of delivering better performance, you are opening a big box. That is the problem. Our approach would always be, as the Minister said, to treat penalties for poor behaviour—that is what they are there to do: to try to penalise poor behaviour—but focus most of our attention on enabling and incentivising. I know that is nirvana, but that is what drives the approach to our policymaking, rather than having a bigger array of bigger fines because that does not necessarily incentivise the local authority in the right way either.

Maybe I can ask the question more simply. Is the current fine system working well and provides an effective deterrent in the backstop scenarios that you are talking about?

We are doubling them. We will be able to look at whether that is effective. In terms of the overrun charges, £10,000 per day is significant.

That is quite unusual, though.

The power is there for the local authority to use it, if there are those overruns. I am willing to look at this again if we feel it is not having the desired impact.

For more egregious, long-term and systematic failures to perform and meet standards, local authorities can and do take utility companies to court. They have more than just FPNs as the approach to this. They have other tools in the bag.

We could consider other incentives that are performance-based. It would require legislation. We could consider not issuing utility companies with permits until they had fixed a particular long-standing issue.

I will have to go away and look at that one. I would anticipate that someone will have gone out to site and said, “Why do you not have your traffic management in place?”, and that would result in them putting their traffic management in place, especially if they have a fixed penalty notice. If that is routinely happening, that is really concerning.

Yes.

You are right. If the FPN is the cheap option, you are not incentivised to do the traffic management. What I would say is that, if you are the local authority, you are going to remember that. You are presumably going to be thinking about that the next time you get applications for permits to do jobs because the reputation of your local utility companies is not going to be a secret to you. You are going to know that. That is going to condition your approach the next time they apply for permits and you are thinking about the conditions that you might apply. Again, there are other ways of dealing with this than simply issuing endless tickets because that is not likely to shift behaviour in the right way anyway. Having the ability to do that every day might solve one bit of the problem, but I am not sure it would fundamentally solve what is really going on and what is motivating the behaviour that we are talking about.

It might, yes.

On a related note to that, Street Rates UK, some local authorities and a couple of the other people that we have heard evidence from have called for performance-based fines. If you are a repeat offender, it essentially ratchets up. That seems to me a relatively sensible proposal and might go towards the more structural effects that you are talking about. What do you think of that?

There have not traditionally been escalating fines, but we could consider that for offences or repeat offenders. As I say, the focus is on incentivising and improving behaviour, but, absolutely, if that is what we need in order to focus minds, that is something that we would be willing to look at.

One challenge that was raised, particularly in telecoms with some of the newer broadband providers, is that there are a lot of new players that come and go. That is the challenge of basing the system on prior performance. If that operator is no longer around, you then have a new kid on the block.

Yes, especially if there is less incentive to build a long-term relationship between the highways authority’s street works team and the utility companies they are dealing with. If I think about what has been described, you can imagine that happening once, but you would hope that was not going to happen repeatedly. You would be escalating it and making life more uncomfortable for them, frankly, if someone was behaving or performing in that way.

There is flexibility within lane rental schemes about how they are operated. Generally, we have had good feedback from authorities on the five lane rental schemes that are operating. The local authorities think they are effective. The utilities are often avoiding having to pay the charges by doing things in a better way. They will avoid doing things at the busiest times. If there is flexibility within the schemes, they can operate them in the way that they feel works best for their area.

Any local authority can apply to set up a lane rental scheme. We have set out some guidance on how they can do that. We have had a number of applicants. Eight bids have been submitted this year. We are expecting more later. We have recently consulted on the proposal to devolve the power to approve new lane rental schemes to mayors. That is as part of the English devolution White Paper. We will announce the outcome of that consultation shortly.

Can I just gloss on that? Your question slightly presupposed something that has not happened yet. We have consulted on mayoral strategic authorities having the ability to approve lane rental schemes, which at the moment is only done by the Secretary of State. Nothing has changed. We have consulted on the possibility of mayors taking on that role. We have not responded to the consultation yet. We have had the responses to it. Ministers have not yet taken a decision on what they want to do about that particular proposal following the consultation. My interpretation of your question was, “If you are thinking of letting mayors approve lane rental schemes, why are you not extending it? Why is it just mayors?”

Yes, I am sorry. I misunderstood.

It is one step at a time. The proposal was consistent with something that was already happening through the various proposals in the English devolution White Paper. It was a consistent suggestion, which we have consulted on. As I say, Ministers have not yet decided what they want to do about that. We would need to see what the outcome of that is first. Lane rental is still pretty new. We have only two long-standing schemes. There are a very small number that are now in operation, but they started only in the last few years. This early on, it may well be that we need to see how it rolls out because lane rental is not that straightforward to implement and it requires quite a lot of changes in utility planning and delivery. We probably need to keep this under review to make sure it is working in the way that we want it to work. It has demonstrated that it can deliver the reductions of impact that we are looking for, but this early on we would be a bit wary of devolving the entirety of lane rental down to a purely local decision, given the scale of impact it has on utility works.

If the question was whether highways authorities can apply, subject to Secretary of State approval, it is open to all highways authorities to apply to operate a lane rental scheme.

We are looking at the proposals in those applications that have already been made. We have issued guidance to highways authorities to help them develop their bids. The whole purpose of lane rental is for it to be targeted on the most congested roads at the most congested times. The point is to incentivise those carrying out the works to avoid the charges by moving the works, so carrying them out at less busy times or carrying out joint works. It is not meant to be a way of raising revenue, and it is for only a proportion of their road networks. It is a developing area. As Anthony says, we have only five at the moment. Some of those are relatively new. We will see over time how well they develop, how effective they are and how they can be developed to ensure that they work in the way that we hope.

We currently have eight applications in the latest batch that we are looking at. As the Minister confirmed, Ministers have to decide each and every one at the moment. We are doing it in two windows a year. We have just closed a window. We had eight applications. We understand that there are at least a dozen more. Lots of authorities are thinking about it. Some are thinking about doing joint schemes. I know Manchester has been discussing whether to have a Greater Manchester lane rental scheme, which would involve all 10 districts. We know the appetite is quite strong, but I would not underestimate that it does require quite a lot of work to put together the application to design a lane rental scheme and to work out where you are going to put it and how it is going to operate. It has to comply with the guidance that we have set to be successful. The appetite is there, but, as I say, local authorities are still working through the process of deciding whether it will be suitable for them. At the moment, a lot of urban authorities are thinking about it because that is where a lot of the worst congestion happens. We shall see.

We are getting feedback from those authorities that are operating it and seeing what the impacts are. Some of the existing evaluations indicate that the behaviour of utility companies and highways authorities is changing. Both are part of these lane rental schemes. They are for highways authorities doing their own roadworks and utility companies doing street works. It does seem to be changing behaviour. TfL’s most recent report finds that 98% of TfL works avoided charges while 83% of utility works avoided them. West Sussex produced an evaluation report that found more than 91% of total works avoided charges. Surrey’s report states that 84% of planned works were taken outside of traffic-sensitive times. That does provide an early indication that, in those small number of schemes that we have in place, it is having the desired effect of keeping the busiest parts of the network clear of works by both the highways authority and utility companies, which seems desirable. As it expands and as more authorities come in, we will want to continue to look at those evaluations and see whether there are any unintended consequences or impacts that we have not anticipated. As you heard from the utility companies, they are slightly anxious about the additional costs that this brings in.

I am going to return to Scotland very briefly. Right at the start of this meeting, we talked a lot about what we could learn from Scotland. Lane rental is—I will use this word—opposed by the Scottish Government. I remember writing to them when I was a councillor. They said they were not interested—I forget their exact reasons, to be honest. The Scottish Road Work Commissioner is also not a fan. To me and to a lot of residents in Edinburgh, it seems like quite a logical way to encourage utility companies to work faster and hopefully smarter to reduce disruption. Hopefully, it means it is less likely that we have roadworks that are just empty because there is a big incentive to get the works done. Everything lines up. If you do not mind, Anthony, you seem to be riding two horses on this. You are saying that you are inviting new applications to come forward and considering them carefully, but you are also saying there are only a very limited number of schemes, the evidence base is not really there, and we have to be sure it is the right thing to do. I am going to put words in your mouth. Are you saying that lane rental works but it is just a matter of fine-tuning it to make sure we have the right schemes or are you saying that there is still uncertainty about whether lane rental is the right way forward? You still seem to be talking about evidence collecting, despite also inviting applications to come forward for more schemes.

If I can jump in on this—

It was directed to you.

It was directed to me, so I thought I should. TfL have had a scheme for several years. There is a lot of experience. London is London. The set-up is different; the scale is different. Kent has also had one for the same amount of time. Kent is a useful source of evidence to us. We have plenty of evidence that shows that it can work. I am talking about continuing to gather the evidence. As the Minister was saying, it will be different in each and every place it is applied. Everyone will do it slightly differently. They will decide where their traffic-sensitive streets are. They will decide where the congestion hotspots are and how to apply it. We want to continue to optimise it. We think it can work. We think it incentivises the right behaviour. Coming back to one of the words we have used a lot today, it is thinking about how to incentivise the right behaviour. This is an example of a big central government intervention that allows a local area to apply a scheme that has very direct impacts on the most traffic-sensitive parts of the network.

It is not about whether it will work; it is about how it is going to work and how you get the most out of it.

It is more about how we will make it work. We have updated our guidance. We have learned from the schemes that we already had and the early adopters in the first wave of new lane rental schemes. We are learning from that. They are learning and sharing information. Local authorities are sharing information among themselves about how to do it. If you have never had a lane rental scheme, it is a new thing. We are providing guidance to help that. Ministers are very keen to encourage it. The evidence base is pretty solid. The data that we have seems to show that it is doing exactly what we intended, which is to avoid works happening in a way that is disruptive. The point is that we are not saying, “We have done it. That is the established policy. We are now going to just do more of it”. We are going to continue to keep it under review as we do it and finetune it to make it work even better.

We need to make sure it continues to work. Utility companies can pass on lane rental charges to customer bills. We want to make sure that it incentivises them to avoid charges. We do not want to put up the prices of everybody’s utility bills by doing this. We want them to change their behaviours in the way they carry out the street works to keep it to a minimal level.

Maybe it is time I write to the Scottish Government again.

A lot of things that the Government want to do, such as EV charging points and faster broadband, involve digging up roads and pavements. Could you outline how you are working across Government to ensure the need to manage these works well is understood?

One thing that we are doing in relation to EV charging is the proposal to allow EV charge point operators to access the permit system in order to carry out street works. That is advantageous in the sense that those works, as far as possible, can be co-ordinated alongside other works that are happening on carriageways and the highways authorities can have the degree of control that they have through the permits system. We have regular conversations with other parts of Government. There have been quite a lot of conversations with DSIT around the roll-out of broadband. There are currently trials ongoing around flexi-permits, which is where a utility company can set out a larger area within which it will be operating. Permits have to be taken for individual streets under the current permit system. I know that highways authorities are slightly nervous about the benefits of that and are worried about the implications. That is why it is really helpful that we have those trials happening right now. We are looking at whether this can be made to work effectively and whether we can deal with some of the concerns that are being raised by highways authorities and provide some comfort to broadband operators. We are keen to see the roll-out of broadband, but we do not want it to be at the expense of too much disruption on our roads. It is about having that balance, really.

Everyone welcomes the change of status for the installation of public EV charging infrastructure. Requiring planning permission for that when it is not required for mobile phone masts does seem a bit mad. It is good that you are bringing them into line. While on the subject of EV charging—I am sure you are aware of this—will you consider reviewing the cross-pavement charging issue, particularly for householders who live in street-front properties and want to be able to get a charging cable across the pavement to their home? Apparently, that needs planning permission currently. Are you doing any work on drivers who do not have the right to charge, particularly people who live in multi-occupancy flats, leasehold properties and so on? Currently, it is almost impossible for them to get the ability to charge from home. It is a bit of a diversion from this inquiry.

That is okay. On cross-pavement charging solutions, we want everyone to have the opportunity to make the switch to an EV. It is much easier for those people who have off-street parking than it is for those who do not. Cross‑pavement solutions provide a great opportunity because they enable people to use domestic electricity tariffs to charge, if they can park on the street outside their house. For all the reasons we have covered today, we need to make sure that any cuts through the pavement are done in a proper way. There are a number of companies offering different gully systems to allow this to operate. We issued new guidance at the end of last year on the operation of cross-pavement charging to help local authorities make those decisions. It will not work everywhere. It will not be suitable for every location. As I say, we have issued that guidance to local authorities. Hopefully, that will make it easier for them to set their local policies in relation to this. I get quite a lot of correspondence on this, so I know it is an important issue. On the other question, I have asked precisely that question. I happened to be at a school and a little kid was telling me, “We cannot have an electric car because our landlord will not let us install a charge point”, which is a real concern. For newer properties, that is less of a problem because we have building regulations that require charge points to be installed. It is absolutely an issue. It is not straightforward—I specifically went and asked that question—but we are very mindful of it and are trying come up with ways of dealing with that issue. It is very much in my mind and the Department is looking at it.

Certainly, as a former planner, a gully across a pavement would, to me, be de minimis. Anyway, as you say, it is the wrong area of legislation to be dealing with this stuff. It is not appropriate for planning. It is much more appropriately a street permit issue.

We want it to be easy and safe.

It is a really interesting area. We all know people who believe they have the right to park outside their house. We all know those people. I worry that this would make that worse. I worry about cables being all over footpaths. Even if you get it through the gully, there is still a cable at the other end of the gully that you have to connect to the car somehow. I have a mobility operation in my constituency. They are trialling in Edinburgh. I do not know where else they are trialling. They made the point that the people who are most likely to be inconvenienced by cables, et cetera, are people with mobility problems and disabilities. They are also the people who find it hardest to use commercial charging points. They are the ones who are going to benefit most from being able to charge outside their house. There is a bit of an equalities aspect to this for the people who are lucky enough to be able to afford a car either through their own resources or via mobility. It is a real challenge about maintaining accessibility. Permits aside, there are arguments on both sides. It is really tricky. I do not envy you.

There are some really big issues around it. There are issues around the siting of EV charge points full stop because anything that adds to what is on the pavement can, as we know, make it more difficult for disabled people to get out. There are issues around the accessibility of public charge points. There is a standard, but unfortunately we have found that it is not yet being used. We are reviewing the standard. I held a roundtable on this very issue with a number of organisations, including those that represent disabled people and charge point operators, to look at how we can make sure the standard is fit for purpose and is actually going to be adopted by the charge point industry. We know that quite a lot of disabled people have made the switch to an EV because of the Motability scheme. They have been able to do that. It is really important that we make sure we build in accessibility at every stage of this transition and not as an afterthought. We can absolutely give that commitment.

We are told that when there is not enough space for upright charge points, Royal Mail is looking at some kind of roll-on, roll-off floor-based charging, which, with a side window and access for paying, might be a solution. I do not know, but certainly it is looking at that from the point of view of tight space. Anyway, we have slightly diverted from the very important issue of street works permits and the way that the legislation is or is not working for the benefit of our constituents, businesses, pedestrians, drivers and so on, all of whom are too often inconvenienced by street works. We would like to thank you very much for coming to this final session of our inquiry and giving your evidence today. As always, feel free to write to us with anything that you feel you have not been able to cover sufficiently in your answers this morning. We have all found this very valuable. We will be considering our recommendations to you on this topic and we look forward to your subsequent response. That concludes today’s meeting.