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This is the Office of Rail and Road’s annual assessment of Highways England's performance and delivery of its investment plan, covering the first road period, from April 2015 to March 2020.
Key points
Highways England is the government-owned company responsible for England's strategic road network.
Laid in Parliament on 21 July 2020, the assessment of Highways England's performance at the end of Road Period 1, found that:
- In the first road period, Highways England has demonstrated a strong commitment to improving safety on the strategic road network, but must continue to work hard to meet its challenging target. In response to ORR’s probing, the company has taken action to improve road user satisfaction and shown an increased focus on meeting the needs of those users. It has met most of its performance targets.
The number of people killed or seriously injured each year on the strategic road network has reduced since the start of Road Period 1 (RP1), but Highways England must continue to focus on safety, and deliver further safety improvements. The company has met its targets to deliver better environmental outcomes, and to minimise the disruption caused by incidents and roadworks. However, road user delays have increased in Road Period 1 as traffic levels, and the amount of improvement work being undertaken, has increased. It narrowly missed its target for road user satisfaction, but has demonstrated an increased focus on meeting the needs of road users. - Highways England has successfully achieved 95% of its commitments for delivery of major improvement schemes in Road Period 1. The actual number of commitments delivered is lower than originally set out in 2015, but is in line with the revised plan it agreed with Government. Addressing concerns raised by ORR, the revised plan also reduces disruption to road users. The accuracy of Highways England’s planning of renewals delivery has improved through the road period, reflecting an increased maturity in asset management capability. Highways England has largely exceeded its planned delivery of renewals across Road Period 1.
Highways England’s delivery of its investment plan matured over RP1. The company has predominantly delivered its major improvement schemes to the latest agreed plan. It has substantially agreed changes to the programme of improvements that means it had a revised commitment to start 73 schemes by the end of RP1, compared to 112 set out in the initial RIS1. - Highways England has met its KPI target to deliver more efficiently in Road Period 1. The company has responded positively to ORR’s constant challenge to improve the evidence used to support reported efficiency.
Highways England has reported £1.4bn of efficiency in the road period supported by good evidence of actions taken. We had previously challenged the quality of the company’s top-down evidence of efficiency from unit cost movement and delivery of the RIS. This remains less robust but has improved and provides reasonable evidence of the KPI having been achieved.
Drilling down into ORR's five-year assessment
Feras Alshaker, Deputy Director, Highways, discusses ORR’s annual assessment of road period 1 at Highways UK.
Annual assessment 2019-20 and supporting documents
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- Update on Highways England's safety performance in 2019-20 - November 2020
Published 16 November 2020 - Annual assessment of Highways England's performance End of Road Period 1 - 2015-2020 (web version)
Published 21 July 2020 - Annual assessment of Highways England's performance End of Road Period 1 - 2015-2020 (print version)
Published 21 July 2020 - Press release
Published 21 July 2020
Supporting documents
- Review of how Highways England prioritises investments to improve safety outcomes
An independent review commissioned by ORR and carried out by the Road Safety Foundation to consider how Highways England prioritises investments to improve safety outcomes on the strategic road network. - Review of Highways England’s supply chain management framework in readiness for RIS2
NB: Publication copy is an executive summary. ORR commissioned CEPA and Elliott Asset Management to conduct a review of processes for affirming the readiness of Highways England’s supply chain to manage a significant increase in work during road period 2.
Also see additional scope report: Highways England’s readiness to deliver the RIS2 Designated Funds programme - Review of the effectiveness of Highways England’s efficiency measurement framework
ORR commissioned consultants Rebel to reviewing the efficiency monitoring and reporting framework. The report looks at the overall approach to efficiency measurement in RIS1, and makes suggestions for how we could improve the approach in RIS2. - Reviewing Highways England’s evaluation of its capital investment programme’s benefits
ORR commissioned Hyperion Infrastructure Consultancy Ltd to carry out a review of Highways England’s processes for evaluating and assessing the benefits realised from its capital investment programme and how these processes are being implemented. - Review of RIS1 major scheme scope changes and cost impacts
ORR commissioned Ankura to review in detail the causes of changes in the scope of a sample of RIS1 major projects, and the impact of those scope changes on project costs. - Review of Highways England’s engagement approach with local and regional partners
ORR commissioned Elliott Asset Management (EAM) to review Highways England’s engagement with local and regional stakeholders, including sub-national transport bodies, local enterprise partnerships, local resilience forums and local authorities.

Annual assessment 2018-19 and supporting documents
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- Update on Highways England's Safety Performance in 2018-19: October 2019
Published 22 October 2019 - Annual assessment of Highways England's performance - 2018-19 (web version)
Published 18 July 2019 - Annual assessment of Highways England's performance - 2018-19 (print version)
Published 18 July 2019 - Press release
Published 18 July 2019
Supporting documents
- Review of Opportunities from Highways England’s Innovation and Standards Management - June 2019
This report from Hyperion Infrastructure Consultancy looks at how Highways England manages research, innovation and standards with a view to further development in RIS2. - Review of Highways England’s asset management of road technology - Report by EAM including findings and recommendations - June 2019
ORR commissioned Elliott Asset Management (EAM) to carry out a deep dive review of Highways England’s management of road technology assets. This was to determine whether Highways England manages those assets safely, robustly, sustainably and efficiently. - Highways England’s provision of information to road users - 29 March 2019
A review of Highways England’s provision of data and information to road users, carried out jointly by ORR and Highways England. This report complements a further study of road user information – undertaken jointly by Transport Focus, Highways England and ORR – which is based on in-depth research into road users’ views of the information provided by Highways England.
Previous assessments of Highways England’s performance
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- Annual assessment of Highways England's performance - 2017-18 (web version)
- Annual assessment of Highways England's performance - 2017-18 (print version)
- Annual assessment of Highways England's performance - 2016-17 (web version)
- Annual assessment of Highways England's performance - 2016-17 (print version)
- Our first annual assessment of Highways England’s performance - April 2015 - March 2016
- Our annual Assessment of Highways England’s performance - April 2015 - March 2016 (print version)
- Our annual Assessment of Highways England’s performance - April 2015 - March 2016 (summary)
- Our six month review of Highways England’s performance - April – September 2015 (web version)
- Our six month review of Highways England’s performance - April – September 2015 (print version)
- Our infographic on what Highways England need to deliver by 2020