A Review of the Delivery of the Road Safety Strategy - UCL Report

Appendix 2: Central and local government policies, targets, and performance indicators

The Department for Transport's road safety strategy and the targets contained therein is the Government's primary road safety target but there are other Central Government Departments with targets and performance indicators set by their own Ministers which are synergistic with the DfT's. These are outlined below.

A2.1 Other Central Government Policy

A2.1.1 The Home Office

The Home Office is responsible for Policing which includes enforcing road traffic law and the setting of penalties for offences.

Whilst the Home Office does not have a PSA target for casualty reduction it has for its Police Forces, a Best Value Performance Indictor (BVPI 132) relating to road safety - Number of road traffic collisions involving death or serious injury per 1,000 population of the police force area.

However, the extent to which this is monitored is unclear. The levels to which police forces record road traffic accidents is relevant here. If there is a change in recording policy this could influence whether the target is reached. The BVPI may also be seen to be out of the control of police as such a measure is influenced by a multitude of factors in addition to road policing. Of greater use would be specific measurable indicators tailored to police enforcement.

A.2.1.1.1 Enforcement
The main role for the police in road safety is in enforcement, but they also have involvement in other relevant areas, including engineering (providers of accident data, assistance in safety schemes and audit); and education, training and publicity (e.g. education in schools). The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO 2002), in their recent document Modern Road Policing: A Manifesto for the Future focus on 4 key areas: enforcing the law; promoting road safety; investigating incidents; patrolling the roads.

It was suggested in Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) report (1998) that Chief Constables should involve 'service deliverers in the development of their strategies, and negotiate formal partnership strategies with other agencies.' HMIC proposed that the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) should monitor and evaluate the implementation of these road policing strategies and traffic policies.

In practice the main areas of enforcement that have a significant impact on road safety are speeding and drink-driving. In the case of speeding, the arrangements which allow netting of fines from safety cameras have led to an increase in their use. This has had the effect of increasing awareness of the problem of speeding but we do not know to what extent it has had an effect on enforcing the law in areas where there are no speed cameras.

In the area of drink driving, the Government's consultation paper Combating Drink Driving: Next Steps, (DETR 1998b) included a possible option to introduce road side evidential breath testing instead of having to take offenders to the police station to give an evidential breath test on a machime there (Para 26). This would allow the whole matter to be dealt with at the roadside thus reducing the amount of police time. This is dealt with in Section 2.3.

A.2.1.1.2 Penalties
The Home Office (in association with the Lord Chancellors Office and DTLR) conducted consultation on a Review of Road Traffic Penalties in December 2000 and a report issued on the response to consultation in July 2002 (Home Office, DfT Lord Chancellor's Office).

The reform of penalties for traffic offences is partly caught up in a wider Home Office review of penalties for offences partly because primary legislation is required for many of the changes and this is delaying changes that would reduce traffic offending. In the meantime, because it does not require legislation, strengthened Guidance has been issued to sentencing authorities.

A2.1.2 The Health and Safety Executive and Health and Safety Commission

In the strategy Revitalising Health and Safety (DTLR & HSE 2000) the Health and Safety Commission has targets to be achieved by 2010 however these do not specifically relate to driving whilst at work.

Section 2.10 deals with the role of the HSE an the employers in reducing work related casualties.

A2.1.3 Department of Health

In its White Paper Saving Lives; our healthier nation, The Department of Health (DH 1999) set national targets for England to reduce by 2010

• death rates from accidents (of all kinds including road traffic accidents) by at least one fifth; and
• the rate of serious injury by at least one tenth.

The definition for serious injury used by the Department of Health is those requiring a stay in hospital of four days or more.

The White paper announced the setting up of an Accidental Injury Task Force which presented its report Preventing Accidental Injury - Priorities for Action to the Chief Medical Officer (DH 2002). It was endorsed by five other Government Departments including DfT. Road traffic accidents are the leading cause of child death. The priority groups for action were identified as children and young adults, and older people. Inequalities in injury occurrence within these groups was identified as a priority area. The report recognises that integrated action across Departments and disciplines is needed to reduce injury and concluded that the DH is best placed to steer cross-Government action.

Little has happened since publication of this report. Accidental injury has slipped down the agenda and no implementation plan has been developed. In the case of road traffic accidents the DfT has the policy lead but there is much the NHS can do, especially at the local level in terms of advocacy and information sharing between local highway authorities and hospitals.

A recent announcement indicated that NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence, 31 March 2003) is to develop guidance on reducing accidental injury outside the home. The meaning of this has not yet been clarified but it is understood that it will include road accidents in some form.

A2.1.4 The Treasury

The Treasury published its 2002 Cross-Cutting Review Tackling Health Inequalities in which it set out a long-term strategy what is a national priority area for Government. The major health inequality in the transport field is child pedestrian deaths where children in social class V are five times more likely to killed in a road traffic accident as a pedestrian than are children from social class I. Other inequalities in transport relate to difficulty in accessing health, education and leisure services.

The Department of Health has a PSA target which includes life expectancy in which the Treasury sees contributions toward reaching it coming from environmental improvements such as preventing road traffic accidents especially among old and young road users.

A2.2 Local authority role in delivering the road safety strategy

Local Traffic Authorities have an important role to play in delivering the road safety targets through their Local Transport Plans (LTPs) at the local level. In setting local targets Local Traffic Authorities should have regard to the PSA target set out in the Road Safety Strategy (DETR 2000a) and most have adopted the 40 percent reduction in KSI casualties and 50 per cent reduction in KSI casualties for children. The measures implemented at national level by Government and motor manufacturers and contributions from the National Policing Plan are all expected to contribute to the Local Authorities casualty reduction efforts.

The fact that most Local Authorities have adopted the national target locally is not unreasonable as it is a percentage change and not a number of casualties to be reduced. If the best performing authorities were coming to the end of their highly cost effective road safety engineering schemes, then the resources needed for them to reach a target of 40 per cent might well be better used elsewhere and in this case there would be a case for a different target. But as the list of highly cost-effective schemes in even the best authorities is long, it is unlikely that any will run out of good casualty reduction programmes before 2010.

In addition, the DfT has recently (April 2003) issued Guidance to local highway authorities which requires them to submit a statement in their Annual Progress Reports to their LTPs showing how they intend to tackle the casualty problem in deprived areas and to state in future reports how the relative rate of casualty reduction in deprived areas has compared with the rest of their LA area.

A2.2.1 Local Authority Best Value Performance Indicators for Road Safety

Best Value Performance Indicators are set by Central Government in order to ensure that local authorities can demonstrate they are improving services. Each year a best Value Performance Plan needs to be submitted.

The delivery of road safety by a Local Authority is measured by Best Value performance Indicator (BVPI) BV99 which requires annual calculation of the number of road accident casualties per 100,000 population broken down by nature of casualties and road user type. This is a statutory requirement on Local Authorities (Office of the Deputy prime Minister (ODPM) 2000).

• The casualty categories are: killed or seriously injured, slight injuries
• The road user types are: pedestrians, pedal cyclists, two-wheeled motor vehicle users, car users, and other vehicle users

Maltby (2003) in her review for PACTS of Best Value, Local Transport Plans and Road Safety gives a summary of the impact of these on Local Authority practice and the reader is referred to her report for the detail. The report notes that the performance indicator does not relate to the headline national casualty reduction targets. The fact that it is different from the national target may at first seem confusing to some but it is in the same direction as the national target and it does allow population based rates to be compared with other authorities of different size.,/p>

In addition to BV99 Local Authorities are able to set their own local PIs and many of these have been set relating to speed reductions, child casualties, accident involvement of young and old drivers and accidents in relation to distance travelled (Maltby 2003).,/p>

This exercise is helpful, along with Best Value inspections for keeping LAs abreast of progress in other places. However, at this stage we do not have a clear idea of why some authorities function better than others and a current DfT study is beginning to address these points.

Local Authority performance on key indicators related to road safety should be benchmarked against similar authorities. This process allows direct comparisons to be made between the best in a group and the rest.

A2.2.2 Local Transport Plans: human resource constraints on implementation

The changes to Local Authority funding in the form of five year Local Transport Plans announced in the Integrated Transport White Paper have had a fundamental effect on the delivery of services locally, and this includes road safety. The second major change was the introduction of the Single Capital Pot (SCP) which requires Local Authorities to produce Asset Management Plans (AMPs) and capital strategies (CS).

The SCP was introduced in April 2002 and is a new method for allocating capital support which replaces previous separate allocations to Transport, Housing, Education and Health by a single sum which should encourage authorities to take a more joined-up, cross-departmental approach to capital investment (DTLR 2001).

Local Transport Plans are designed to focus on local transport needs after consultation with the local community. The LTP contains a five year strategy with a bid to central government for the capital funds to deliver the programme. The LTP is the key to delivering casualty reductions at the local level. As each plan is tailored to the needs of the local community through consultation, they do not conform to a single standard throughout the country (DETR 1998a).

A recent announcement from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (March 2003) states that Authorities that have been judged as "excellent" by the Audit Commission as part of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment are to be exempt from the requirement to submit most plans, including LTPs (DfT 2003b).

Each year the highway authority is required to produce an Annual Progress Report in which it submits its targets and progress towards achieving them. The Authorities judged as "excellent" will no longer need to submit a full Report. However, they will still be required to report on progress towards national and local targets, the delivery of their programme on the ground, together with the effectiveness of their spending programme (DfT 2003b). Given that this is a new requirement it is noted here that its effects on road safety will need to be monitored. It is interesting to note that one of the "excellent" authorities is not within the top 25% for road safety according to its Best Value Inspection.

In addition to the introduction of LTPs, Best Value and the Single Capital Pot, there has been Local Government reorganisation and the introduction of Unitary Authorities. According to the Atkins (2003) report for the Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) transition to these new arrangements together with frequent local elections, have slowed the progress in fully implementing the LTPs. Within this, road safety is no exception.

The Akins report is primarily about the identification of key obstacles that are hindering delivery of LTPs, which in turn affect delivery of the 10 Year Plan. CfIT has already called upon the Government to take a new look at funding and delivery of projects (March 2003). However the report points to several issues that are hindering progress that are relevant to road safety.

• There are widespread staff shortages at senior levels and lack of career path with appropriate training and this is hampering LAs' ability to spend their allocation. Some authorities are buying in consultants to be able to maintain progress.
• Within LAs there appears to be more of a political will to tackle road safety as it is seen to be less controversial than some of the more "difficult areas" of congestion and demand restraint. However, there is a tendency amongst several authorities to shift money previously allocated to road safety to other areas such as housing and education under the SCP arrangements.
• Traffic calming, amongst other issues, is not universally popular, although it has its supporters in many authorities.

"Authorities struggle to 'marry up' polarised views and few had the resources or political strength to justify decisions to opponents. This means that schemes are delayed or even abandoned because of opposition - often from a vocal minority."(para 7.30)

This latter point is part due to severe lack of skilled staff at all levels and part due to the length of time consultation takes. Staff are paid from revenue funds and the large increases in capital funds through their LTPs does not immediately help the situation. Maltby recommends that there should be far more flexibility to use capital funds on staff costs and more funding for better training in the new skills required to operate effectively under the LTP regime. Lack of skilled staff is seen as the biggest threat to delivering the casualty targets. This issue was also dealt with in Section 2.

The University of the West of England's Unit for Transport and Society is examining the issue of the short term skills gap in local authorities for the County Surveyors Society (CSS) and is expected to provide recommendations for good practice to address the short term skills gap.

In a response to the shortage of skilled workers in the transport industry, the Home Office have included Traffic Engineers in their list of 'shortage occupations'. This recognises the acute shortages of qualified workers in this field, and exempts a UK employer from having to advertise a vacancy in order to prove that they could not recruit from within the European Economic Area.

A2.3 References

Association of Chief Police Officers (2002). Modern Road Policing: A Manifesto for the Future. Association of Chief Police Officers.

Atkins (2003). Local Authority Survey: Final Report. Commission for Integrated Transport. London.

Commission for Integrated Transport (2003). Press Notice: Councils not spending money on transport delivery CfIT 10 March 2003.

Department for Transport (2003a) Tackling the road safety implications of disadvantage. April 2003.

Department for Transport (2003b) Guidance on LTP Annual progress Reports (third edition). March 2003.

Department of Health (1999). Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation. The Stationery Office.

Department of Health (2002). Preventing Accidental Injury: Priorities for Action. London: TSO.

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1998a) A new deal for transport: better for everyone. London: TSO.

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1998b). Combating Drink Driving: Next Steps. DETR: London.

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (2000a) Tomorrow's roads - safer for everyone: the Government's road safety strategy and casualty reduction targets for 2010. London.

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and Health and Safety Executive (2000). Revitalising Health and Safety: Strategy Statement. DETR: London.

Department of Transport (1987) Road safety - the next steps. London.

Department of Transport Local Government and the Regions (2001) Local Government Finance - Capital Finance. London.

Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary (1998). Road Policing and Traffic: HMIC Thematic Inspection Report. Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary.

Home Office (2002). The National Policing Plan 2003-2006. London.

Home Office, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Lord Chancellors Office (2000). Road Traffic Penalties: A Consultation Paper. London.

Home Office, Department for Transport, Lord Chancellors Office (2002). Report on the Review of Road Traffic Penalties. London.

Health and Safety Commission and Department of Transport Local Government and the Regions (2001). Reducing at-work road traffic incidents. HMSO: Norwich.

HM Treasury and Department of Health (2002). Tackling Health Inequalities: Summary of the 2002 Cross-Cutting Review. London.

Maltby, C. (2003). Best Value, Local Transport Plans and Road Safety: Listening to and Learning from the Profession. PACTS: London.

National Institute for Clinical Excellence (2003). Press release: NICE to develop guidance on treating eczema, support programmes for parents dealing with children with conduct disorder, use of statins for heart disease, and when hysterectomy is appropriate. 31 March 2003 NHS.

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (2000). Best Value Performance Indicators for 2001/2002. London.

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