Highways Monitor - Annual assessment of Highways England’s performance

18 July 2019

This is the Office of Rail and Road’s annual assessment of Highways England's performance and delivery of its investment plan, covering the period from April 2018 to March 2019.

Annual assessment of Highways England's performance - 2018-19 pdf icon PDF, 8,574 Kb
Published 18 July 2019

Press release
Published 18 July 2019

Highways England is the government-owned company responsible for England's strategic road network.

Laid in Parliament on 18 July 2019, the annual assessment of Highways England's performance April 2018 – March 2019, found that:

• Highways England is taking the right actions on its network to meet the needs of road users. Despite this, delays are increasing and road user satisfaction is below target.
  Highways England has helped reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on its roads over the last four years. It is clearing incidents quickly and minimising disruption from roadworks. But road user delays are increasing due to traffic levels, and the amount of improvement work being undertaken. Road user satisfaction remains high, but is below target; Highways England is delivering an improvement plan.
• Highways England is meeting its target to keep the network in good condition, and delivering major improvement schemes to a revised plan that it has agreed with the Department for Transport.
  The condition of Highways England’s roads, as measured by its key performance indicator, is good. It is broadly delivering its major improvement schemes to latest plans. However, there are risks to delivery for the remainder of the road period. It has agreed changes to the programme of major improvements with the Department for Transport which mean that it now expects to have started at least 70 by the end of the road period, compared to 112 set out in the RIS. It delivered more through its ring-fenced funds than in previous years – but delivery risks remain.
• Highways England is delivering more efficiently, but better evidence is needed to support reported levels.
  Highways England is reporting £848m of efficiency in the road period towards its target of £1.2bn by 2020. This is based on good evidence of actions taken. But broader measures capturing costs of outcomes do not fully support this level. It is vital that Highways England progresses work on capturing productivity improvements to support future efficiency reporting.