Katherine Vanloo

Warwickshir

3 County Counc/jl
22™ December 2017

Communities Group
Monica Fogarty,
Joint Managing Director

Mr John Buckley PO Box 9, Shire Hall

Assistant Coroner Leas °
monicafogarty@warwickshire.gov.uk

Newbold Terrace www.warwickshire.gov.uk

Leamington Spa

Warwickshire

CV32 4EL

coronerofficer@ warwickshire.pnn.police.uk

Dear Mr Buckley,

REPORT TO PREVENT FUTURE DEATHS: KATHERINE VANLOO INQUEST

| am writing in response to the report which you issued on 2 November 2017 to explain
what action the County Council has taken and proposes to take in order to speed up the
time it takes to repair potholes once they have been identified and to track the progress of
works orders that have been sent to Balfour Beatty Living Places (“BBLP”). | am the Joint
Managing Director of the County Council and my responsibilities include the highways
functions of the County Council. | confirm that the County Council has no objection to this
letter being published in full by the Chief Coroner and being disclosed in full to the
Interested Persons at the Inquest.

Our actions relate, firstly, to the period between a pothole being identified by a Safety
Inspector and a works order being issued to BBLP and, secondly, to the period after a
works order has been issued. We have not changed the target times for repairing potholes
(and no criticism was made of them during the inquest) but have aimed our actions at
ensuring that works orders are issued promptly and that any slippage by Balfour Beatty is
quickly detected and pursued.

Ensuring Prompt Issue of a Works Order

The Highways Safety Inspectors now use one of six handheld devices to create details of
potholes that they find (co-ordinates, photographs, categorisation, etc.) and upload them
directly into the County Council's database in the EXOR computer system. The database
is known as the “defects pool”. The defects pool contains records of all kinds of defects
and so we have introduced measures to enable safety defects found by Inspectors to be
readily distinguished from other defects that do not present an immediate safety concern.
This is done by assigning a letter to each of the handheld devices (A, B, C, D, E or F)
which prefixes the reference number of any safety defect when it is uploaded to EXOR
(e.g. B9678).

BBLP have agreed that the Inspectors should upload from their handheld devices at the
end of every inspection day. This reduces any delays in defects entering the pool and
ensures that safety defects do not accumulate into clusters that become a backlog. A
senior Inspector at BBLP is also taking responsibility for checking with our Highways teams
at the end of every day that each Inspector has successfully uploaded their data for that
day.

We have introduced a target to issue a works ordér within no more than five days from a
safety defect being uploaded to EXOR. The letter prefix means that safety defects in the
defects pool can be easily collected and organised for review within the database. Our
Delivery Teams in Highways are now required to review the defects pool on a daily basis
and the review includes the following objectives:

(i) fo check whether there is any reason why a Category 2 defect cannot be repaired
within 28 days and, if there is such a reason, to arrange for an emergency
temporary repair;

(ii) to identify any safety defects that were uploaded more than five days ago and
prioritise them for an immediate works order.

The introduction of a letter:prefix also-means that it is quicker to find and attach the correct
photograph to the job pack that is issued to BBLP with the works order and the risk of error
is reduced.

Action has also been taken to speed up the preparation of job packs by agreeing with
BBLP that it will deliver all traffic management forms to one central Highways office on
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The traffic management forms set out any
arrangements for managing traffic that will be necessary whilst defects .are being repaired
and they are an essential part of each job pack. Although this was not mentioned at the
inquest, discussions with BBLP about improving processes identified that traffic
management forms were being delivered to either the northern sector office or the
southern sector office where they were scanned and put into either a northern sector or a
southern sector file. This caused delays if forms were delivered to the wrong office or a
length of road straddled the boundaries between the sectors. The responsible team at the
central office now scan the forms inio a single countywide computer file which can be
accessed by both the northern and southern offices.

Although it is not mentioned in the Regulation 28 Report, whilst giving your narrative
verdict you expressed the hope that Inspectors would in future record the depth of
potholes at the time of inspection. An instruction to do so has been issued to BBLP to be
implemented from the start of January 2018.

When a works order is raised and a jobs pack is sent to BBLP by the County Council, it is
entered into BBLP’s Confirm computer system. It is the intention of the County Council
and BBLP to develop their systems further so that safety defects in the defects poo! can be
automatically transferred to Confirm. However, | am afraid that we are unable to put a
timescale on achieving that.

Monitoring Works Orders :

The County Couneil did have a system for checking the paperwork returned by BBLP after
it had carried out works orders and also a system for carrying out quality audits on a
proportion of randomly selected completed repairs. (see paragraphs 61-62 of the Statement
ea However, the inquest heard evidénce that the system was overwhelmed
when the number of repairs being carried out quadrupled following the introduction of the
Find and Fix programme and records of repairs completed were being returned by BBLP
intermittently in massive batches.

The inquest_also heard evidence from | our Programmes and Delivery Manager,
and = the Head of Operational Improvement for BBLP, that the Find and Fix
programme has now been discontinued and about the introduction of the Confirm system
in the first half of 2017 (see in particular paragraphs 27-28 of EY statement of 30
June). The leader of a team sent by BBLP or its sub-contractor to carry out works orders
is now issued with a GPS linked handheld device which carries all the information in the
job pack, including GPS co-ordinates. When the repair has been completed, and
photographed, records of that can be uploaded directly into the Confirm system from the
Site (if there is no 3G coverage at the site the data is uploaded when 3G connectivity is
available).

No system can wholly eliminate the potential for human error or deception but this system
very substantially eliminates the possibility of the correct location not being found by the
repair team and of any miscommunication about what work has been carried out and
where.

igways team have direct access to Confirm as well as BBLP (at the moment only
me: Highways has access but access will be provided to all the relevant team
eaders in January 2018). Confirm displays a “dashboard” which automatically displays
details of any works orders which have gone “red”, meaning that they have not been
carried out within 23 days of the date of the works order. Allowing up to five days for the
works order to be issued after inspection, this effectively sounds an alert that the 28 day
target is at risk of being missed. These works orders are then prioritised for urgent
completion.

At present, the County Council are working co-operatively with BBLP to target overdue
works orders and will keep under review whether joint monitoring and action on a
collaborative basis is proving sufficient to ensure that repairs are being effected on time or,
in a small number of cases very shortly thereafter. However, inspection of the Confirm
dashboard on 19 December 2017 showed that only 14 safety defects were at or beyond
the 28 day target across the whole county.

Conclusion

| hope that this letter, which mainly describes actions that have already been taken,
provides reassurance, most especially to the family of Ms Vanloo, of how seriously the
County Council takes the safety of people on our roads and that the processes which we
and BBLP operate have been significantly improved in practical and effective ways for the
future. If you would like further detail or information, please do let me know and | will do
what | can to help.

Yours sincerely

Joint Managing Director