There is confusion over how local traffic authorities are expected to report on their performance in ‘keeping traffic moving’ for the latest assessment of the effectiveness of the network management duty.
The national Traffic Managers Forum chair, Mark Kemp, was hopeful before the regional workshops held by the Department for Transport and its consultant Halcrow last month, that authorities would be able to find out what information the DfT required.
However, feedback from one of the workshops seen by Surveyor suggests that traffic managers attending the events were left no clearer as to what they were expected to report.
One officer said: ‘We needed clear guidance on what was expected of us – not to be told by the DfT and Halcrow that they don’t know what they want.’ A colleague said that the day ‘simply brought home the complexity of what we are being asked to report… we need to agree a framework for doing this’.
Another told Surveyor: ‘The entire situation is completely confused… I am still uncertain about whether I need to prepare a report this year’. Many called for the provision of guidance for reporting on what was being achieved under the duty, so that councils knew what to include, and how to present it. There were fears that without this, some would fail to guess what the DfT wanted.
John Lashmar, traffic manager at Sheffield City Council, in a different region from the one where the comments were made, agreed it was still unclear what the reporting requirements were.
‘The workshops were useful in some regards, in that they made the local transport plan managers and government offices more aware of the importance of the duty, and what is involved.’ But councils still ‘have no idea of what we have to give the DfT’.
The DfT had rejected a call from the national Traffic Managers Forum for templates for reporting progress to ensure that councils covered everything that it wanted (Surveyor, 11 September).
Lashmar said there seemed to be a tension within government over whether or not the reporting burdens on councils should be eased. ‘The DfT wants more information so it can demonstrate that the duty has had an impact, but the government offices want a slimming in reporting.’ Authorities are also unclear on whether the DfT will assess councils on the information that they provide on what they have done to meet the duty within their LTP delivery reports, due by the end of the year.
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