The IPWEA is working with the Local Government and Shires Associations of NSW to streamline the application of Road Maintenance Council Contracts (RMCC) in NSW regional areas.
NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay announced the Road Maintenance Reform Program Management Office in late October in an effort to improve road maintenance delivery.
“We want to achieve a road maintenance solution that provides value for money and optimum service outcomes from the NSW state road asset by involving the private sector in the delivery of maintenance and setting clear and demonstrable performance outcomes, as opposed to outputs,” the Minister said.
“In the regions, we are working with councils to investigate options to improve road maintenance delivery. In the near to mid-term, we are concentrating efforts on improving how RMCCs and existing RFS arrangements (exclusively Alliances) are delivered.
“We are also working with the Local Government and Shires Association to identify regional councils that want to form a cluster of councils and trial two larger contracts across a larger region as a means of improving resource utilisation, improving procurement leverage and minimising administrative costs.”
Mick Savage, the Manager of IPWEA NSW’s Roads & Transport Directorate, confirmed that discussions with the Local Government and Shires Associations on the future of Road Maintenance Council Contracts (RMCC) were underway.
“Dialogue to date has centered on how the current RMCC administration can be streamlined to the benefit of both parties to the contract,” he said. “There has also been action taken to establish a uniformity of approach to managing these contracts across the RMS Regions.
“Future debate will focus on the details of acceptable accounting standards to be applied to administration of the contracts as well as the value to regional communities of the local employment delivered by the current arrangements.
“The possibility of establishing regionally based RMCCs has been raised by RMS as a possible cost saving measure and this approach will be explored in future discussions.”
Gay added that consulting firm Evans and Peck would run the Program Management Office.
“Over the coming 12 months, Evans and Peck will work with RMS to roll out road maintenance contestability across the Sydney metropolitan region,” he said.
“There is a private contractor currently engaged for maintenance work in the north of Sydney and we want to see a staged rollout of the remaining two Sydney zones (west and south Sydney). We are targeting having at least one contract in place by July next year.”
IPWEA works to streamline NSW road maintenance delivery
Gay said that it was time that NSW “caught up” with the other Australian states by adopting road maintenance contestability.