Since my earlier web-posting on the unlit light and unfinished Controlled Crossings at Knaphill, which you can read in my earlier posting, I have felt rather like Alice in Wonderland, trying to understand this perverse situation.

A broad view, formed after discussion with SCC Officers, and put forward in my regular monthly column for GPCA News:

‘Big fleas have little fleas, Upon their backs to bite ‘em; And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum’

Trying to understand the delays and problems of road repairs and improvements under Surrey’s Highways Department reminds me of that rhyme. Surrey County Council doesn’t do the work on the ground itself, but contracts out to other companies. They sub-contract further. It’s all supposed to be more efficient. 

Consider, for example, the construction of the controlled crossing in the Broadway at Knaphill. This was approved in principle in November 2006. It was good news for Knaphill earlier this year that other schemes falling behind meant construction was advanced, with the idea of fitting it into the 2007/8 financial year. 

As I write, the crossing is largely complete but does not work. There is no electricity to run the lights.  Part of the pavement has to be blocked off to make sure pedestrians don’t step out trustingly onto a crossing that drivers rightly ignore. Only EDF can supply the electricity. I was told the delivery time was supposed to be within 6 weeks. I asked at Full Council in early May what Surrey could do about this failure, and was told Surrey’s powers were very limited. EDF is a monopoly, set up in the Mrs. Thatcher’s privatising spree during the 80s, and

You could ask, given the known problems with EDF, why Surrey didn’t wait until the electricity supply was on site before painting the lines on the road? This is where the fleas come in, metaphorically speaking.

 Meanwhile, something like three other companies were involved in trying to improve the drainage in the Broadway to make the path to the crossing more usable in wet weather.   This is just one of four schemes in Woking that have been held up severely by EDF. A while ago a much-needed controlled crossing was approved in principle for Denton Way , near Waitrose. When eventually the money is found to construct that crossing, there’s not much we can do except hope EDF will supply power to it.

Feedback from members of the public:

A member of the public who has been keeping me on my toes in pursuing this issue said that when he contacted EDF directly, they told him that they had now arranged a date for power to be supplied to Redding Way, but in the Broadway they were waiting for a specific piece of documentation ‘from the Council’. EDF had also maintained their blamelessness through the local press, suggesting that they had not been properly informed.

Another member of the public suggested that it would be worth checking whether there was a problem with Surrey’s payments to EDF. This did not seem implausible, since a question to Council last July showed that Surrey has had problems making  payments in the past, but I have no indication this is the case.

Someone else suggested to me that Surrey needed a much better grasp of  ‘process management’, as opposed to the ‘project management’ which it has handed over to contractors.

Most people are simply incredulous at the situation.

Further developments at the Transportation Select Committee today, Tuesday 3rd June

I am not a member of this committee, but was standing in for a colleague who was unable to be there.At their meeting on the 9^th of April the Committee had met representatives from EDF. Points I found interesting from the minutes included:

• Standards to work to have only recently been put in place by Ofgem, which has given them a year to get systems in place. At the end of the second year if the standards aren’t met fines can be imposed.
• EDF hopes to meet the standards by September.
• ‘Fixing the majority of faults in the north of Surrey is sub-contracted’ and ‘the representatives of EDF were not aware of any agreement between EDF and the sub-contractor on performance standards …’ 

 EDF said it would report  back to the Committee on a number of issues.

Item 10 on today’s agenda was a letter from their Operations Account Manager, from which I picked out the following points:

• EDF energy has a strategic partnership agreement with Murphy Limited who undertake un-metered connection activities on our behalf in the South East of England  … unable to provide details of the agreement … we are currently reviewing contract scope and performance measures in the light of recent customer feedback.’
• EDF offer regular ‘workshop’ and ‘forum’ meetings as ‘an opportunity for us to work together to improve things … Details of your officers and key contacts to ensure the correct communications process would be most welcome as we have struggled in the past to engage with the appropriate staff.’

I asked Jenny Isaac, the Head of Surrey Highways, what she thought this comment could mean, but she could make no suggestion – she said the first she heard of it was in this letter … 

This suggests to me: the root of our problem in Knaphill could be a failure of communication, and that the concept of ‘process management’ is a useful one in this context.

Having said that, I would like to add that in my opinion it would be unfair to blame Jenny for this situation. In her previous post, she was the force behind significant improvement in Surrey’s Contact Centre, and has already grasped the nettle of trying to bring order to a number of rather chaotic groups of problems in Highways.

It’s planned that further report on EDF will be back on the Transportation Committee agenda in the Autumn, probably in October. I hope by then we’ll have our crossings – and maybe, if I’m very lucky, a working replacement light in the Chobham road for one that has been out since I was a new Councillor, just over four years ago!

If you want to read the minutes and letter from EDF quoted here, you can find them with the Transportation Committee Papers for 3.6.08 on the Surrey County Council website. 

A Silver Lining for Woking?

Item six at the meeting today was a report on the ‘financial outturn’ last financial year, 2007/8. Money is delegated to local budgets to be spent on schemes like our Controlled Crossings. In 2006/7 Highways had a serious under-spend (not good, because it means we don’t get the benefit of the money available.) So last year, efforts were made to make sure money was used. In Woking this included bringing forward road schemes that were ready for construction and scheduled for 2008 / 9, where other projects had problems.

As a result, Woking was one of the four overspending areas this year, nicely balancing three under-spending areas. The Redding Way scheme was part of this overspend. The bad news is that Surrey paid upfront for the not yet complete work. The costs are part of that overspend.

The silver lining for Woking is the recommendation of the Committee to the Executive is that 2007/8 (and only that year) overspends should be written off. So if Surrey’s Executive goes with this, you could in a cup-half-full-not-half-empty way say that we’ve gained the crossings for Woking ‘free’. And its still possible that they may be completed in 2008/9, the year initially envisaged. 

(ps - sorry about the changes of font - I got rid of most of the erratic line breaks but the font change defeated me again … )