UKRLG members have published a draft framework on 'defensible decision-making during major incidents and extreme events', giving authorities instructions for 'your worst day ever — and whether you and your teams are ready for it before it arrives'.
The key aim of the Suspension of Business As Usual Highway Services document, out now for consultation until the end of the month, is to help authorities make critical decisions in times of emergency, including suspending usual services that are 'defensible, proportionate, and in the public interest'.
It helps 'establish preset triggers to be applied by the on-duty Suitably Qualified, Experienced and Empowered Professional (SQEEP) without waiting for senior management availability' and a step-by-step guide to on how to respond.
'Where triggers are agreed in advance, embedded through training, and tested through exercise, the decision to suspend normal service becomes defensible, consistent, and rapid,' it states.
'Service suspension should only be formally declared once the following options have been considered and found insufficient or impractical:
- Providing additional resources using existing staff through overtime payments
- Providing additional internal resources from other highway sections
- Requesting mutual aid from neighbouring authorities or external contractors.'
The report is authored by John Lamb, chair of the UKRLG Adaptation, Biodiversity and Climate Change Board, which had responsibility for producing the document.
The introduction states: 'The pattern is consistent: authorities that have lived through a major event develop readiness; those that have not tend to plan for a repeat of what they have already seen, rather than for what climate science and operational evidence tells us is coming.
'The same principles of pre-authorised decision-making and documented response apply equally where a major incident arises from a non-meteorological cause.'
Unusually for the UKRLG, it leans fairly heavily on prescriptive instructions for what to do in certain circumstances. For instance, the specific 'triggers' are 'established based on operational experience', and states these 'are requirements, not suggestions'. Although it does add that each local highway authority should adopt them, 'adjusting thresholds to local conditions'.
For example, on 'reactive maintenance - highway safety inspections', if the available qualified resources fall to ≤50% of normal establishment then authorities are instructed to: 'Suspend programmed and 28-day reactive works. Maintain emergency (2hr) and priority (48hr) response only. Record and report to Service Director.'
It also gives key insights on situational awareness, impact assessment and defensible prioritisation, noting that following a suspension of normal services, the key question is 'where to focus the resources that remain'.
Helping with this is a five-stage rapid impact assessment process: 'The recognised methodology for consequence-based highway impact assessment is the five-stage Rapid Impact Assessment (RIA) process, developed through PIARC international research co-funded by DfT and the US Federal Highway Administration, and tested through the DfT funded FloodEx22 exercise programme. It is recognised best practice in declaring, managing, and recovering from major highway incidents.'
The framework also has sections on communications during suspension, review, resumption, and continuous improvement and SQEEP, training and empowerment. It can also be of use for the activation of the Bellwin scheme and DfT exceptional funding applications, as 'it converts operational experience into defensible, comparable evidence'.
There are also useful first-hand practical insights, and advice on tackling the issues raised, for example: 'Practitioners managing some of the most severe highway disaster conditions in the PIARC member community — including the 2021 atmospheric river events in British Columbia — have observed that response costs, recovery costs, and durations are routinely lost in the transition from response to recovery. That observation carries weight because it comes from those who have managed multi-incident, wide area events at scale, not researchers.'
Mr Lamb said on social media: 'When the storm arrives, you don't have time to write the plan. The UKRLG Suspension of Business as Usual: Plan for Highways is now open for consultation — addressing one of the most significant gaps in highway emergency management.
'Every Local Highway Authority faces a moment when normal service cannot be maintained. The question is not whether you will suspend BAU — it is whether you have a plan for doing so lawfully and defensibly.'
He stressed to Highways that the document is designed to provide a solid framework with actionable insights for those who may be relatively new to the highways service.
The document is addressed to directors of highways, heads of service, operations managers, emergency planning leads, and frontline SQEEP-empowered officers across all local highway authorities in the UK.
