Scheme Manager

The Scheme Manager is the person within a local authority or Developer organisation who is responsible for the project requiring a road safety audit.  

He/she is responsible for verifying the need for audit and ensuring that it is carried out in accordance with the highway authority’s defined audit procedures.  This includes, but is not limited to:-

• developing an audit brief or agreeing on a brief drafted by the design team
• checking the credentials of, and agreeing, the audit team with local highway authority in accordance with their local standards
• agreeing on the timescale for the audit with the audit team
• commissioning the audit which includes passing the brief to the audit team leader
• inspecting the draft report issued by the audit team, or receiving the final copy, depending on the adopted local procedures
• acting upon the recommendations of the audit report, i.e. instructing the design team to incorporate the recommendations of the audit report into the design
• agreeing with any alternative design changes with the audit team
• ensuring that the local authority accepts the risk associated with any problems and recommendations with which he/she does not agree, and therefore does not intend to implement, by producing an Exception Report
• passing a copy of the decisions made, as a result of the completed audit procedures, to the audit team for their future reference

If a Developer’s scheme requires an audit, the local authority needs to identify an authorised officer (HAAO) who will ensure that the above tasks have been carried out in accordance with the local authority’s adopted procedures prior to acceptance. In addition to the above, they need to liaise with the Developer’s Scheme Manager (DSM) to ensure that the recommendations of the audit are incorporated into the final scheme.  The Exception reporting procedure may also be required, and this would need to be overseen by the Scheme Manager – the Exception Report again needing to be produced and signed off by the local highway authority. The local authority will, after all, be responsible for the completed scheme once it has been formally adopted as a public highway. This is the main reason why the local highway/road authority is defined as the Client for the audit.

Note:

Authorities in Ireland have a reluctance to oversee RSA undertaken by developers. They prefer to insist that a completed RSA is submitted with the planning application. If an exception report is required this can be agreed with the local authority and submitted with the planning application.

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Prepare Audit Brief