Driving devolution: why transport strategies and assurance frameworks matter

United Kingdom | 29 January 2024
Reading Time : 3 minutes

Central to unlocking government funding, statutory transport strategies provide a roadmap for mayoral combined authorities to use transport and infrastructure to deliver on social, economic and environmental priorities. As well as providing the necessary governance and control to ensure public money is spent efficiently, assurance frameworks alongside these strategies can help accelerate delivery of local transport infrastructure projects.

A strategy should contain a vision for transport across the combined authority’s region. It also needs to provide the evidence base, policies and scheme package that underpin future investment in transport. The Transport Act requires the strategy to be accompanied by an implementation plan. This should include, among other things: a list of schemes, a programme for their delivery, a cost estimate, a plan for internal resources to manage the delivery, and a delivery partner (contractor).

Author

Ian Baker

Director, Transport Planning

United Kingdom

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Transport strategies and assurance frameworks are key requirements of mayoral combined authorities’ devolution deals. With them in place, authorities can access funding, for instance from the second round of the government’s City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS2), which will see mayoral combined authorities in city regions receive a total of £13.85 bn, to be spent between 2027 and 2032 on sustainable transport infrastructure and services. The funding is tied to specific investments, which authorities will be expected to deliver – albeit with flexibility over how they allocate funding within this set programme.

Aligning transport strategies to government policy

A combined authority, or any other transport authority for that matter, will be more successful in securing funding in competitive bidding and funding programmes if their transport strategy is aligned with specific fund objectives and government transport policy. They need to show how it will help government departments achieve their priority outcomes. They will also need to demonstrate how any schemes, or the overall package, can achieve high value for money, as well as being affordable, commercially viable and deliverable, and have broad stakeholder support. These are key in our experience supporting funding bids as well as successfully developing outline business cases.

While established combined authorities have experience of creating strategies and implementation plans, newly forming authorities will be starting from scratch. Fortunately, guidance and expert advice are available: WSP is already supporting four combined authorities to produce their transport strategies.

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Making an assurance framework work for you

Under the devolution deals, mayoral combined authorities are also required to develop assurance frameworks before they can access funding. These will typically set out how the combined authority will assure and scrutinise their own transport and investment proposals below a certain size, with central government assuring larger and more complex schemes.

Assurance frameworks usually adopt and incorporate existing methodologies from the Department for Transport, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and HM Treasury. They typically run to around 20 pages. This means that they are not overly onerous to produce, but they do have to be in place and confirmed by central government before mayoral combined authorities can access their first round of funding (which includes CRSTS).

Assurance frameworks do, though, need careful consideration to ensure the process they set out will enable projects to be completed quickly enough. Going through three stages of business cases (strategic, outline and full) could result in a scheme taking five years just to reach the construction stage. And yet CRSTS2 schemes must be delivered within five years. We’ve seen in our work with combined authorities that accelerating a programme may be possible by modifying assurance processes. This requires both an in-depth understanding of the risks and getting buy-in from all parties.

Early effort put into transport strategies and assurance frameworks can pay significant dividends down the line: they are the foundations on which a combined authority’s reputation for successful delivery is built. As we head into a new unprecedented era of devolved government, both will be a critical enabler in delivering positive outcomes in regions across the country.

Ian Baker is a Director at WSP and specialist in infrastructure and transport funding and business cases. He advises local and regional authorities on business cases for major infrastructure, as well as supporting authorities to secure central government funding for capital projects and programmes through devolved funding programmes.

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