1.0 Membership Overview
Council Members
- 65 Council Members with highway delegation are now members.
- Another 5 Councils are due to join during the summer. We are awaiting membership forms to be returned.
- Profiles on the LCRIG website have been activated by at least 50% of the Council Members.
- Member Councils are actively supporting LCRIG’s request for confirmation of key personnel for all specialisms to enable us to facilitate collaboration between every council.
- Self-Assessment scores have been added from 9 Council Members.
- Vacancies received from 12 Council Members.
- Daily activity and requests from Council Members is increasing.
- Individuals within Member Councils are engaging with LCRIG for various reasons. These include requests for information, support from Peers, requests to receive the LCRIG Insight and requests to attend Webinars.
- Testimonials are being received regularly.
- LCRIG engages with all councils, not just Member Councils, there are another 10 councils that regularly attend Strictly Highways and other councils that attend our Technical Training Days. We hope, in time, all councils with highway delegation will become members of LCRIG as there is no cost, just a request for a willingness to participate, collaborate and communicate with the highway community.
Associate Members (Supply Chain)
- 55 Associate Members.
- Profiles activated by all Associate Members.
- Regular participation within the new LCRIG Insight.
- Utilisation of our support services for introductions and requests for information.
- Webinar service is becoming very popular.
- Associate Members are at the heart of LCRIG, it is because of their commitment and support that we can operate and provide our services.
Partner Members (Associations and Council Groups)
- 14 Partner Members.
- Profiles yet to be activated, currently the logos click through to their websites.
- Regular participation and communication.
- LCRIG also organises conferences and awards ceremonies for Partner Members including the RSTA, IHE, LGTAG and events for non-Partner Members such as the CIHT.
Consultant Members
- This membership group has just become active.
- New members include WSP, a global consultancy and Wilde Consulting Engineers, a small regional organisation based in the North West.
- Consultant Members support LCRIG in the same way as Associate Members. It is because of their commitment and support that we can operate and provide our services free of charge to Council Members, Key Organisations and Partner Members.
Additional Member Groups will be established soon. These include Key Organisations, Academia and Utilities. Once every group is operational, we will be able to support requests for Round Tables, Specification Reviews, for example, as we will have all perspectives covered. LCRIG also works very closely with the industry media.
2.0 LCRIG Insight
- Ten issues have now been circulated.
- The circulation includes members and non-members and the open rate is very high with less than one percent of un-subscribers on the first issue.
- The LCRIG Insight is not a competitive source of news, we simply share the updates and notifications, vacancies and requests for information and news of innovation on behalf of our members.
- The ‘community spirit’ of LCRIG will be developed further within this publication as we will begin to actively engage with individuals within the member groups to share their news and views proactively.
- Feedback so far has been excellent.
- The LCRIG Insight is supporting our Associate Members by successfully promoting their webinars.
- Council members are actively taking advantage of the opportunity to advertise their vacancies within the LCRIG Insight which are then also shared on social media.
3.0 Website
- The website was launched in March 2020.
- Feedback has been excellent.
- The main areas have been populated but we will shortly be re-shuffling the content to make it more efficient and user friendly.
- The recruitment section will be launching soon.
- The innovation section will be developed.
- Enhancements will be made to the Profiles.
- Contract announcements and Tender opportunities will be added in due course, along with the marketplace.
4.0 Webinar service
- 104 people subscribed to the first LCRIG hosted webinar on behalf of one of our Associate Members.
- 60 different councils were present.
- Participation was excellent (communication between the attendees).
- Excellent feedback was received.
- This service is available for all members. LCRIG will host the event and support with promotion and the distribution of invitations.
5.0 Events
LCRIG already has a long list of events to facilitate and manage for next year, all of which were postponed this year. These include:-
- RSTA Annual Spring Conference
- LGTAG Annual Presidential Conference
- IHE Annual Presidential Conference
- Amey/Staffordshire Safety Stand Down Day
- IHE Annual Mercia National Awards
- CIHT Yorkshire and the Humber Awards
- CIHT East Midlands Awards
- HAUC (North West) Innovation Day
- LCRIG Technical Training Day (York)
- LCRIG Strictly Highways
Updates and dates/timings will be provided in due course.
6.0 Strictly Highways – Postponed
- We had 300 confirmed attendees.
- The sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities were fully booked within two weeks of announcing the event.
- The DfT Special Recongition Awards were increased from 4 categories to 7 categories to include ITS categories.
- All attendees have been notified of the event being postponed.
- We are now trying to organise a new date for September 2021. This is a little tricky as we need to ensure we have two hotels fully available to us and to ensure the venue is available for the conference and that we can confirm the dates with our Keynote Speaker, Steve Berry. We are hoping to confirm dates as soon as possible.
- We have asked our council members whether they would like us to hold a ‘virtual’ Strictly Highways later this year. The responses have been positive so far. A decision will be made very soon.
7.0 Governance
- We are in the process of establishing LCRIG as a Community Interest Company (CIC). As we provide all our services free of charge to councils and key organisations such as attendance at our Technical Training Days and Strictly Highways, it makes sense that we do this as we more than meet the legal requirements and as a CIC we will be able to provide so much more.
- LCRIG now has a Board consisting of individuals who represent the public and private sector. These include our two Chairs, Bill Manby, York City Council and Sean Rooney, Oxfordshire County Council. More information about the Board will be shared shortly.
- With Martin Duffy as our new Chief Executive we are excited at the prospect of being able to deliver and share new contracts, such as the Project Amber Framework Contract and the RAMS Framework. Martin has a wealth of experience with contracts, standards, innovation and he has an extensive network of contacts and huge respect from within the industry. Martin’s appointment has been a major step forward for LCRIG
- Will Britain, Head of Highways, Blackpool Council is the President of LCRIG. Without Will’s vision and determination LCRIG would not exist. Will is constantly striving to improve communication and collaboration and to open the door to let the innovation into LCRIG and the wider highways community. We will have more to report from Will very soon.
Ends
Published 05/08/20