Road condition got worse in Scotland even during a period of increasing public spending. This was in part because roads did not get enough and actually in real terms saw funding reduce; but also, it suggests, because the available money was not spent as wisely as it could have been.
This is one of the key findings of an Audit Scotland report. Part of the problem is that there is not any information available that would allow councils to put together a business case for radical moves such as joint procurement. Indeed, councils seldom even compare the costs of their own, individual delivery arrangements with other authorities, Audit Scotland found, because different indicators are used by different councils.
This is a problem that was acknowledged south of the border by the Association of Directors for Environment, economy, Planning and Transport last summer at our Future of Local Transport Delivery conference. There is not enough information available allowing councils to benchmark the extent to which they are making the money they've got go as far as it possibly could.
Given the sharp reduction in funds from next month, this paucity of evidence on the value for money different councils offer is increasingly difficult to justify.
The Efficiency Network is the next step in Local Transport Today's campaign to bring our extensive network of professionals the essential business intelligence required to deliver more with less.
