A “COLLECTIVE failure” by officers at Warrington Borough Council led to a blunder resulting in a traffic management scheme that had not been approved being implemented at Bridgefoot.
This is the conclusion of interim chief executive Professor Steve Broomhead (pictured) following a detailed investigation of what went wrong.
Implementation of the scheme – which involved changed lane markings – without warning caused significant inconvenience for road users and resulted in critical press coverage resulting in reputational damage to the council, said Prof Broomhead.
It necessitated further modifications causing additional costs.
Cost of the original scheme was £25,923 and cost of modifying it was £5,006, making a total cost of £30,929.
No elected members of the council were informed of the proposed changes as they should have been, said Prof Broomhead. Once they became aware that things had “gone wrong” the leader and deputy leader of the council took decisive action to get modifications implemented – and issued a public apology.
In a report on his investigation, he said it was common knowledge the council had intended to renew lane markings at Bridgefoot. But no changes were proposed.
Those involved in the project were a project manager, The Urban Traffic Management and Control team (UTMC), the Accident Investigation Unit (AIU) and Enterprise – the council’s contractor.
There was a dialogue and e-mail exchanges between the AIU and the UTMC resulting in the AIE producing a composite plan suggesting proposed modifications to the Mersey Street and Wilson Patten Street approach components of the gyratory scheme. UTMC responded they were content with the proposals.
The project manager sent this plan directly to Enterprise for implementation.
No other more senior officers were involved although some were aware that modifications were being considered but believed them to be “minor” and did not involve themselves.
Prof Broomhead said the Bridgefoot gyratory was one of the most complex and critical set of junctions in the borough. Any modifications needed to be carefully considered with research, modelling and consultation and the clear involvement of senior officers and senior members.
The proposed changes resulted from an “almost informal dialogue” between officers in the three teams.
There was confusion about responsibilities and ownership of the proposed modifications. AIE considered the composite plan to be advisory. The project manager considered the scheme as agreed because it involved dialogue between AIE and UTMC.
“UTMC reviewed the plan but clearly didn’t give it the scrutiny I would have expected and misinterpreted the scale of the changes involved,” said Prof Broomhead.
None of the officers sought to involve more senior officers and the plan produced by AIE was clearly marked as “Not Approved.”
The project manager should not have considered it approved – a basic process and project management failure.
The scheme when implemented on the ground simply did not work. It required immediate change.
UTMC did not pick this up during the dialogue – again a failure in the process.
Alarm bells did not ring for more senior officers as they should have done – another management failure.
Prof Broomhead added: “There was clearly a lack of quality control with this project. The composite plan that AIU prepared, although of good quality, was clearly to my mind not a plan that should be used to instruct a contractor. It was marked ‘Not Approved.’
“I consider that there has been a process, quality control and a project management failure here – where a ‘draft ideas plan’, clearly marked as ‘not approved’ and not fit for purpose had been passed directly to the contractor for delivery.”
Prof Broomhead said the problems could not be laid at the door of one particular officer. There had been a collective failure.
“I do find this surprising as the Transport, Engineering and Operations service area is usually exemplary in the way it communicates and delivers projects.
“However, this case does suggest improvements that should be immediately incorporated into the practice of the service to ensure that this simply does not happen again and its quality assurance systems and decision-making processes are more robust into the future.
“I will meet with the officers to ensure that all the learning lessons are taken and applied.”
10 Comments
Collective failure should mean collective sackings and the following is this week’s joke, “I do find this surprising as the Transport, Engineering and Operations service area is usually exemplary in the way it communicates and delivers projects.”
That’s convenient.
What a complete fudge, Everyone’s fault but no-one to blame. This would not be tolerated in the private sector. Perhaps Mr Broomhead’s replacement , when they get around to appointing him or her will give the council a good shake up – including getting rid of the deadwood.
Oh I don’t know, the bloke who is the boss at G4S got away with it, as have numerous bankers and the like. I understand that UK employment law is such that it is very difficult and often costly to sack people, so often they are paid very well to resign. I’m surprised the inquiry didn’t end up blaming the motorists!
So the "project manager" – an individual – knowingly exceeded their authority and passed a plan which was clearly marked as Not Approved on to contractors and instructed them to go ahead, and this was a "collective" failure? Who is this "project manager", and why is he or she not being personally required to repay the £5000 cost of rectifying their failure?
all would be solved if a one way system was implemented -clockwise down Wilson P. street and along the midland way and down mersey Street.
simple – as the meerkats would say -or not??
Sorry graplad. There is no room for common sense in this world.
If it is so easy to spend that amount of money without question, how many other costly projects get through without question?
Perhaps whoever is over these departments should get the push or demoted to office boy/girl.
It is too simplistic to say the Bridge Foot Fiasco was a “COLLECTIVE failure” by officers resulting in the blunder of an unapproved scheme being implemented because:
• Elected members were never informed or involved in any way.
• Senior officers aware of it chose not involve themselves considering too it minor.
• It arose from informal dialogue between officers from three teams.
• None of whom was clear about their responsibilities or ownership.
• Consequent confusion exemplified by one team considering it to be advisory, and another that it was finalized
• Little or no scrutiny given to it so the extent was misinterpreted
• Project Manager considered it Approved when it was marked Not Approved
• No one sought to involve senior officers, who in any event considered it too minor.
On the face of it, it is not surprising the scheme did not work and required immediate change. It is also not surprising alarm bells did not ring with the senior officers, because they had washed their hands of it.
The label “not fit for purpose” is more properly applied to those involved in the scheme, as well as those who chose not to become involved even though they were aware of it. Surely someone had overall and final responsibility for the scheme, this is basic management practice.
Bridge Foot was not a blunder but a serious failure to grasp even the most basic principles of developing, managing and procuring a contract. Although relatively complex it was low in value, the coordination and control of the scheme was not exactly rocket science. It should have been well within the skill set and experience of a graduate Engineer. This report is an admission the chain of responsibility within WBC is so ill defined that it is too easy for individuals to avoid the liability for their own failings. This is unacceptable someone should always have overall responsibility for schemes, without that fiascos and fudges are inevitable.
Another example of the Officers leading WBC. What do we have elected members for? Its too easy to say that this has been collective failure! What is going to be done about it? Precisely nothing, I suspect. It’s time that the Leaders of the Council got to grips with the “well paid” officers and told them exactly who was in charge and put in a chain of command to ensure that this does not happen again. I usggest that this would not have happened if the tried and trusted Committee structure had been in place. We can but hope!
Why does WBC have procedures which allow schemes to be “implemented” without anyone being in overall control? Why were presumably well paid senior officers able to “wash their hands” of the scheme they knew about? Everyone seems to have been handing round the blame, like a game pass the parcel. The Council seems to have taken the chaos theory to a new level. No wonder the lengthy list of mistakes, errors and unlawful acts here and elsewhere occur and no one is ever held responsible. Giving officers any form of delegated or unsupervised (by Members) powers in this shambles of is a recipe for disaster.