Issued: 27 November 2003
Utilities Performance Criticised
The performance record of some of the public utilities has been criticised by Angus Council.
The public utilities, now known as statutory undertakers, are the gas and electricity suppliers, telecommunication companies, Scottish Water and the cable television companies which carry out works on public roads.
Despite there being a small improvement in the reinstatement of road and pavement surfaces the convener of the council's Infrastructure Services Committee David Selfridge expressed his disappointment in the insufficient measures taken by some of the statutory undertakers to address the quality of workmanship. “Although each of the companies achieved the minimum required pass rate for visual inspections, the number of inspections which the Council is permitted to carry out is limited to 30% of their reinstatements.
“The more detailed coring results, where material samples are taken, revealed a 41% pass rate which is below the national average of 45% and less than half of the national performance target of 90%.
“The performance of Scottish Water and BT were particularly poor with 86% and 75% respectively of their road surface reinstatement work falling below the expected standard, albeit marginally. Whilst no immediate remedial work is necessary we will continue to monitor the affected sites to see if any longer term problems arise which require action.
“Despite Scottish & Southern Energy achieving the highest pass rate in the coring programme they also had the highest rate of major non-compliance with 11% of their work needing to be rectified.”
The instances of major non-compliance by the statutory undertakers operating in Angus were limited to 4% of the overall cores taken and the two culprits Transco and Scottish & Southern Energy have agreed to rectify the work identified.
New regulations regarding the specification of materials to be used for road surface reinstatement and the standard of work expected were introduced in October with a view to updating and improving the quality of utilities reinstatement work on the country's road network. In the meantime the national coring programme will continue next year as an additional means of monitoring the statutory undertakers' standard of work.