Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 28
28
Accepted
Department has not evaluated the actual impact of most local road maintenance funding.
Conclusion
The Department has evaluated only one of the 12 funding pots it has made available for local road maintenance over the last decade. The Department has also not evaluated the totality of the funding it has made available to local authorities for road maintenance, to assess whether it has led to an improvement in road conditions, or whether its assumptions about the benefits of local road maintenance have been borne out in practice.59 The Department told us that it was confident from its analysis that its local roads funding was good value for money, with its 2020 estimate suggesting £7 in economic benefits for every £1 spent, and potentially even higher at £9 from its more recent but less robust economic appraisal.60 However, the NAO report also states that this is the Department’s estimate of the benefits the funding could deliver, but it has not conducted any assessment of whether the benefits were actually delivered.61
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and plans to commission a feasibility study in 2025 to inform a monitoring and evaluation framework for local highways maintenance funding, which will be developed in 2026 to generate regular evaluation reports.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Spring 2027 5.2 To ensure the development of a robust and proportionate monitoring and evaluation framework, the department plans to commission a feasibility study in 2025 to understand the current state of evidence, evidence gaps and data collection mechanisms in local authorities. This will then help scope evaluation questions and identify appropriate approaches for monitoring and evaluating the department’s local highways maintenance funding. 5.3 Following the completion of the feasibility study and dependent on its recommendations, a monitoring and evaluation framework will be developed for operation in 2026, with the aim of generating regular evaluation reports, to help understand the effectiveness and impact of the department’s capital funding support for local highways authorities. 5.4 A key part of the monitoring and evaluation framework will be to utilise national data collection mechanisms to understand the effects of the funding on road condition. This could include, for example, data on local roads maintenance gathered through the new Integrated Settlement outcomes framework for Mayoral Combined Authorities. It could also utilise any other data shared by local highways authorities to access their full funding in financial year 2025-26, part of which is being held back until local authorities can prove that they are meeting certain criteria. The department will engage with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local government during the design and delivery of the evaluation given their responsibility for the overall funding system for local government.