In 2014 the County Council entered a long-term
strategic partnership with Amey for the delivery of infrastructure
services. This ground-breaking and multi award-winning arrangement
is ten years old at the end of September 2024.
Approaching this contract break-point provided a timely opportunity
for the County Council to review the highways future delivery model
and on 20 July 2022 Cabinet approved moving to a new Hybrid Mixed
Economy model to best support delivery of a renewed vision,
ambition and strategic goals for the highway service.
External analysis by Future Highways Research Group (FHRG) during
2021 and benchmarking by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance
and Accounting (CIPFA) demonstrated that the existing strategic
partnership is amongst the highest UK performers in terms of low
cost of service delivery. FHRG also validated that a new
procurement exercise would cost c£1.5M and lose months of
productive time.
Consequently, Cabinet also approved in principle an initial 5-year
contract extension to the strategic partnership between the County
Council and Amey within the new Hybrid Mixed Economy operating
model. The new arrangement is non-exclusive and subject to annual
performance review of each functional activity, meaning that if
performance is not acceptable the county council retains the
freedom to put in place alternative delivery arrangements.
Further to the above Cabinet delegated authority to the Director of
Economy, Infrastructure and Skills to agree the final details of
the revised contract terms in consultation with the Director for
Corporate Services, Cabinet Member for Commercial matters and the
Cabinet Member for Highways and Transportation.
Prosperous Staffordshire Select Committee have been engaged since
the outset in scrutinising and shaping the proposed new Hybrid
Mixed Economy delivery model and contract extension option.