A ‘double header’ presentation by Central Bedfordshire Council and Amey, delivered at the 2012 National Road Safety Conference, will consider the merits of outsourcing road safety education, training and publicity (ETP).
Since Central Bedfordshire Council took the decision last year to outsource its ETP service to Amey, there has been a 30% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured in road accidents. Amey’s Jon Shortland (left in pic) and Central Bedfordshire’s Basil Jackson (right in pic) will discuss how and why the two organisations came together to implement a pioneering contract which, as well as reducing the number of KSIs, is 10% cheaper than when the service was delivered in-house.
The presentation will feature in the ‘Getting results & new ways of working’ session on the afternoon of Wednesday 14 November.
Jon Shortland, account director of Amey, worked for Northamptonshire County Council for 19 years, including 15 years in road safety. His work here helped the council being awarded with a ‘Beacon Status’ for road safety.
Basil Jackson, assistant director for Highways and Transportation, Central Bedfordshire Council, is a chartered civil engineer and transport planner. Prior to his current role, Basil was the head of a nationally acclaimed transport service in Cambridgeshire County Council, where he developed successful partnerships with bus companies and local businesses and attained a Beacon Status for Better Public Transport 2004-2005.
The National Road Safety Conference is being hosted by Road Safety GB London Region at the Britannia International Hotel, Canary Wharf, 14-15 November. The event is co-sponsored by Colas, RedSpeed International, Alcolock UK and AA DriveTech.
The cost of attending the two-day conference starts at £85 plus VAT per day for day delegates and £295 plus VAT for residential delegates (Road Safety GB members). More than 190 people have currently registered to attend.
Click here for general information about the event, click here for delegate registration, and click here for information about the exhibition that runs alongside the conference.
I corresponded with Jon Shortland in June when their results were first published. As always, a few numbers do not give the full picture.
KSI in Beds had increased each year on year in both 2009 and 2010 (fatalities jumped from 7 to 13 in 2010). Given the recession and the reduced traffic volumes, it was hardly surprising that KSI fell in 2011.
Mr Shortland was unable or unwilling to provide any information on what Amey did differently and I surmise that most of the improvements were due to statistical trends and nothing to do with the outsourcing.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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The implication in the second paragraph that new policies following outsourcing of this work, and the observed fall of 30% in KSI’s, were cause and effect, and the later explicit claim that they led to reduced numbers of KSI’s, cannot possibly be justifed in the context of the small and inherently volatile numbers in one third of a County over only one year.
Nor is it remotely conceivable that 30% of drivers on mid-Bedfordshire’s roads (many of whom live elsewhere and merely pass through mid-Bedfordshire – have even been aware of the “education, training and publicity” in question, let alone influenced by it to such an extent that they avoided serious crashes they would otherwise have had.
The evidence that Dave Finney (surely tongue-in-cheek) asks for therefore cannot exist and I can only hope that on the day the audience will make that clear to them.
Idris Francis Petersfield
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There are laws preventing “misleading” claims when a private company sells products or services. I would hope that, if Amey state there was a 30% KSI reduction after their services were purchased, they can provide evidence that it was their services that led directly to the 30% KSI reduction.
In this recession, taxpayers need to see value for our money (and outsourcing may provide this) but a more important concern may be raised if this is actually the privatisation of law enforcement. Justice is expensive, but injustice becomes, in the long run, more expensive.
Dave Finney – Slough
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Should be a good conference with these companies telling an audience of mostly road safety officers that not only can we do a better job than you but we will do it for 10% cheaper!
supplied
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