As part of a regular Policy Insight update Paula Claytonsmith – Director, Government and Policy at the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) – will highlight research and insight to help councils and the private sector. In the first edition, Paula discusses a range of topics including active travel, the Procurement Bill and the Levelling Up Agenda.
As a non-profit Community Interest Company, we believe in giving the best to all our members and partners. We are passionate about the sector and about making sure we put our resources both financial and intellectual into the sector. My role includes seeking out knowledge, sharing ideas, highlighting new policy from Government, and helping to bring new ideas to our many members. We have an active management and governance board that helps drive what we do. We have detailed conversations with councils every day and it is with this backdrop and other external insight that I will be building our monthly policy insight.
As a former strategic policy advisor working with central and local government, but with a recent stint in the private sector, I am thoroughly enjoying returning to my first love of working with the public sector, government, policy makers and supply chain. In fact, my first event as I started at LCRIG was the Transport Technology Forum Conference last month where councils, innovators, supply chain and others came together to discuss technology in the sector. It was a perfect opportunity to re-immerse myself into a vibrant part of the sector.
My intention in these policy insights is not to cover areas that are technical as these will often be covered by professional organisations or associations. But I will look at areas linked to our sector or those which could have an impact that people may not be aware of. I’m sure this monthly insight will evolve – but then that is what our sector is about, evolving. Therefore, each month I’ll be curating a selection of articles, thoughts, observations, and information that I’ve been reading, researching, or seen from the world of policy and beyond. My intention is to show how these things link to the sector we all work in. I will also highlight anything I’m doing more specifically with TTF, other groups and government to show what else we’ve got going on here at LCRIG. And finally, I will always be adding a “something” different section to provoke some lateral thinking.
Government and other organisations
In May, The Government released the latest Wave 8 report and research evidence for transport and transport technology: public attitudes tracker. Although the report is from December 2021 it’s worth a quick read. The reports summarise 8 waves of research that are part of the Future of Transport programme, which aims to shape transport innovation and secure the UK’s position as a leader in the transport sector of the future. From a highways (and beyond) perspective it does allow for some opportunity to consider trends in future network usage. But does equally reinforce the future policy and practice needs for councils around e-scooter network maintenance, EV charging in less affluent areas – especially those areas within highly urbanised areas.
In our sector, data and the use of data is becoming increasingly important. The LGA (Local Government Association) has been reaching out to councils to invite them to be a part of their 2022 project of shared working to improve a better understanding and use of data in local government. This project is linked to the NESTA and LGA 2016 report ‘Wise Council Insights from the cutting edge of data-driven local government‘. The reason I point out this report is that it includes a useful Data Maturity Assessment tool in Appendix two. This tool is useful for highways services (and other organisations) and worth a look to assess your data maturity.
The Queens speech last month may seem a long time ago now but as always, these speeches list key areas that will play a major part in future government policy. One key area is the Procurement Bill which has had its first and second reading in the House of Lords and will keep moving forward into the House of Commons and then into final Royal Assent. The Bill for Transforming Public Procurement is seeking to change and improve the way supplies, services and works are procured for the public sector. At LCRIG we’ve been working on a Dynamic Purchasing Project which should also help councils procure innovation (and the rapid nature of innovation) more easily. But going back to the Procurement Bill, this will certainly be an area of change that will need careful watching by both councils and the supply chain.
As the dust settles on what the Levelling Up Agenda really means in both policy and practical terms it’s worth noting that there are 12 missions and how these will be measured can be found in technical annexes. The useful part of these mission measurements is that it is a good way to consider how highways and transportation services fit within the delivery of levelling up in local communities. Mission nine “Percentage of adults who are satisfied with their local area as a place to live” is one that will resonate most with our sector.
Active Travel
In May, the DfT held some briefing sessions on the new body “Active Travel England”. You can watch the briefing sessions here Part One (1hr 19min) and Part Two (59.3 mins). The new body will be a significant change in how councils interact with government. Active Travel England will be a significant organisation (and statutory consultee) for councils delivering many policy areas which is why I think it’s worth watching the two sessions if you’ve not seen them already. Plus, I like Chris Boardman referring to Aliens – see if you can spot which session this was in. Ongoing highways maintenance, as with any infrastructure planning change, will be an area for consideration as well other new mobility forms.
In more recent announcements the Environment Agency has published its Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy Roadmap to 2026. This roadmap is a summary of the practical actions organisations implementing the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England will complete by 2026. Given that surface water flooding is having greater impacts on how councils manage their network it’s always useful to see what the Environment Agency’s forward strategy will look like.
Something a bit different:
This month there is a bit of climate change theme to the links I’ve chosen to share.
NASA is launching an “Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation” (EMIT) to help scientists better understand the role of airborne dust in heating and cooling the atmosphere. In a staggering NASA statistic, strong winds carry more than a billion metric tons – or the weight of 10,000 aircraft carriers – of mineral dust from Earth’s deserts and other dry regions through the atmosphere. Anyone who remembers O’ Level or GCSE Geography will probably think (cloud) condensation nuclei for rain or the possible implications for human health. As an aside, in the PIARC Technical committee I’m a part of, some countries were reporting the high impact of dust in pollution and discussions on dust abatement on unpaved roads were extensive.
While scientists know that the dust affects the environment and climate, they don’t have enough data to determine, in detail, what those effects are or may be in the future – at least not yet.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/5-things-to-know-about-nasa-s-new-mineral-dust-detector
And then in my final interesting link for this month.
“Climate change is coming for your “pizza sauce” whilst this is a great headline the micro impacts of climate on our infrastructure is becoming ever more real for our sector.
Our next LCRIG event is the indoor/outdoor Innovation Festival next month, it’s a great opportunity to see live demonstrations from suppliers, bring operatives and meet DfT colleagues from various teams.
Thanks for reading this month,
Paula
If you see something interesting or think I should look at something in more detail, then please email me at paula.claytonsmith@lcrig.org.uk