As English local highway authorities prepare this year's transparency reporting, contributing to the local ratings system and Incentive Fund allocations, Nick Smee, Causeway Technologies' senior vice president for highways, gives his top tips on how to turn things around for those in the red zone.

I was recently listening to a head of highways the other day explain how his county's road maintenance programme had been transformed. He kept coming back to one key point: a single source of truth. The result? Amber for road condition and green for spending under the new local road maintenance ratings.

It made me think about the authorities currently sitting in the red zone and the £300,000 peer review programme the Department for Transport (DfT) has established to help them improve – independent sector experts and senior highways officers will visit councils, review operational leadership and asset management practices and provide practical recommendations.

If I were involved in one of those reviews, my starting point would be simple: most red-zone authorities see a pothole problem, but they really have an information problem.

Because let's face it, nothing happens in a vacuum. Highways leaders are balancing resident expectations, member priorities and financial pressures every day. Trusted information gives them a stronger foundation for those conversations.

And when you look at the DfT's new requirements for the 2026-27 Incentive Fund – (see pages 6-7) the conditions authorities must meet to access their full allocation of highways maintenance funding - every one of them depends on having trusted information.

Where would I start?  

1) Establish what you already have

Most authorities rely on asset management systems, inspection, street works and permitting systems, finance systems, contractor systems and a growing collection of spreadsheets sitting somewhere in the background.

The question isn't whether you have enough technology and information, but rather whether you can take it all on board. I'd want to know how many versions of the truth exist across the organisation.

2) Make your data work together

Once you have a complete picture of all your assets, the next step is connecting them. Different systems often perform their individual functions well, but they don't communicate effectively with one another. Leadership teams receive conflicting reports. Performance becomes difficult to evidence. Planning is harder than it should be. But when the dots are connected, people stop asking whether the data is correct and start asking what action they should take.

3) Don't treat transparency reporting as a compliance exercise

Assess how the report was prepared – if it took weeks of manual intervention, multiple spreadsheets and extensive reconciliation between departments, you need to learn lessons for next year.

And remember, the strongest reports won't just show how much was spent. They'll show what treatments were chosen, why they were chosen, and the outcomes authorities expect to achieve. 

The easier it is to explain, the easier it becomes to build confidence among residents, elected members and government.

4) Be able to evidence every pound

The DfT has been clear that highways maintenance funding should be spent on highways maintenance. Again, the challenge is not simply doing it but rather proving it. Authorities should be able to demonstrate a clear line between funding allocations, decisions, completed works and outcomes.

5) Shift the conversation from defects to outcomes

For years, highways teams have often been judged by the visibility of defects, but the DfT is now placing greater emphasis on long-term stewardship of the network.

That means understanding whole-life costs, considering future conditions rather than current complaints. And it means making investment decisions that extend asset life rather than simply responding to failures.

The authorities likely to improve their ratings quickest won't necessarily be the ones spending the most money. They will be the ones making the best-informed decisions.

6) Take preventative maintenance seriously

One statistic from the DfT stood out for me: 38 authorities had no preventative road surface treatments planned for delivery during 2025-26. That fact should give highways leaders pause for thought.

Preventative maintenance remains one of the most effective tools available to local authorities, yet many organisations still struggle to intervene early because they lack confidence in their information, condition data or forecasting capability.

Moving out of the red zone is helped by making preventative maintenance a core part of the strategy.

7) Finally, invest in people

The best-performing authorities are those where asset management principles are understood across the organisation, where teams continually develop their skills.

Professional learning is rightly part of the DfT's Incentive Fund requirements, because when everyone is working from the same trusted view of the network, better decisions follow. Which brings me back to my highways head of service and creating ‘a single source of truth'. With around 3,000 miles of highway, a large rural geography, 69 wards and members, and a highways team of around 400 staff, the full service he looks after is, in his words, ‘a big old beast'.

Over four years, the authority focused on connecting reports, inspections, repairs, imagery and asset information into a single operational view of the network.

The result? Public reports have increased from around 24,000 in 2022 to around 52,000 reports a year, with no additional resource. Despite that increase, the team is achieving a 92% response rate.

Better information might not solve every problem faced by a highways authority, but what it certainly does do is help them make better decisions.