The future of funding for road maintenance was the title of speech given yesterday (7 April 2016) by Andrew Jones, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Transport. In this he announced that the results of the incentive funding for 2016/17 were now available.

 
In December 2014, the Secretary of State for Transport announced that £6 billion will be made available between 2015/16 and 2020/21 for local highways maintenance capital funding.  From this funding, £578 million has been set aside for an Incentive Fund scheme, to reward councils who demonstrate they are delivering value for money in carrying out cost effective improvements.

The Minister gave particular mention to two top performing highway authorities – those awarded band 3 (the top band) under the incentive funding for the 2016/17 allocations - Durham and Lincolnshire.  Delegates at the Road Surface Treatments Association conference heard that other authorities should look at how these two authorities are running such efficient operations.  
The other band 3 awards all went to authorities as part of their moves to a single transport grant as part of their devolution deal.

 

So what does this mean?  The future of funding for road maintenance might reward those that are most efficient, with better principles of asset management that work more collaboratively, that keep improving.  But the future also means that authorities will be rewarded for supporting the move to devolution.  This seems to be the future on offer.

Speech:  https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-future-of-funding-for-road-maintenance
Highways maintenance funding:  incentive element, 2016 to 2017:  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/highways-maintenance-funding-incentive-element