The area 3 contract is the third Asset Support Contracts to be awarded, which keep roads safe and well maintained while delivering best ever value for taxpayers’ money.
The contract will cover most of the Agency’s roads in Hampshire, Berkshire, parts of Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and parts of Dorset.
It will go live from November and is worth £700m over the course of its five-year term.
Mike Wilson, the Highways Agency’s acting Network Development and Delivery Director said: “ASCs are more outcome based and less prescriptive, enabling our suppliers to be more innovative about the way their services are delivered.
“The key point is that the roads they manage on our behalf continue to be maintained to high standards and that we are able to achieve substantial savings – making an important contribution to the national budget deficit.”
Dave Wright, EM Managing Director said: “Having successfully delivered our current portfolio of MAC contracts to a high standard, consistently featuring in the upper quartile of the Highways Agency’s performance metrics, I am confident we can make this latest ASC contract an exemplar.”
Key features of ASCs
- maintenance standards which are ‘outcome based’ and less prescriptive about how and when work is delivered
- affordable levels of service, with appropriate quality but no reward for over-delivery
- incentives for innovation and efficiency, including the opportunity for contract extensions
- simplified pricing mechanisms with a ‘year on year’ cost reduction mechanism
- a higher cost threshold for works to allow more procurement through the ASC rather than by separate tender
- managing technology maintenance and improvement works through the main contract for more efficient and joined up delivery.
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