Extra staff hired as contractor misses repair targets

10 December 2008

Contractor Carillion is not meeting targets under a road maintenance contract with Derby City Council, with the number of outstanding repairs up by 50% from 3,000 to 4,500.

Now the council is being expected to find up to £1M to hire more crews to get rid of the backlog. Behind the scenes, staff are outraged that problems with the contract were made public at a meeting of the authority’s audit and accounts committee – and the council has moved to play down the problems.

Jonathan Guest, director of regeneration and community, said: ‘The contract with Carillon has experienced some teething problems, and there is a repairs backlog which we are working in partnership on to assess the true extent. ‘We are also working jointly on mechanisms to improve productivity. All of this will be fed into the council’s budget review process before we can confirm the funding which will be made available to tackle it.’

But the audit and accounts committee revealed that to clear the repairs backlog, it was estimated that between £750,000 and £1M would be needed on top of £3.3M already budgeted for road maintenance.

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