National Highways press ahead with launch date of new Accident reporting tool despite supply chain concerns.
National Highways have announced on 16th November that they intend to press ahead with the launch of the new Accident Reporting Tool on 17th January despite persisted supply chain concerns.
The original launch, which was scheduled for the 8th November, was aborted at the 11th hour following concerns raised by senior leaders within the supply chain.
Despite the delay, Safer Highways have learned that there are still major concerns around the new launch date given the fact that individuals within the government owned company have admitted on industry safety groups that the system is still "not perfect".
Speaking about the new launch date, National Highways Project Sponsor, Stewart Evans, said:
“The support of our people and supply chain colleagues is essential to ensuring quality reporting of incidents and helping to get people home safe and well. We have listened to feedback around the switch to the new platform and decided to launch the upgraded system after the Christmas break.
“This will avoid bringing in a change ahead of Christmas holiday but will also enable more training to take place and give people time to familiarise themselves with the system through all of the training material we’ve produced and ensuring the switchover goes smoothly.
“It is important that we update the 10-year-old Airsweb platform to the new simpler, modern day system which supports our Digital Roads strategy and we’re also ensuring people are adequately supported as we make those changes. We’ve already received positive feedback on the new system and on our training materials.”
However, despite the delay certain concerns around the new system still exist, not least the fact that the whole implementation has been carried out with minimal consultation with the National Highways supply chain and that despite an instance to the contrary there has been a distinct lack of transparency until a series of recent communications.
Expressing their concerns one individual, who sits on the Highways Hub, and is not a part of the Safer Highways leadership team felt compelled to contact us, as they were deeply worried about the system and the implications, they said,
"Having been passed the information via a member of my own organisation following, what can at best be described - politely, as a botched presentation around the subject I still have a number of concerns.
"Chiefly, that despite the work of a number of National Highways led groups, this has been ignored and as such the new system is no more than a wallpaper over the cracks of a decaying system which, as a supply chain, we have known was not fit for purpose for a long time.
"This feels like - yet again, National Highways have scored an own goal, and we as the supply chain, will be forced to pick up the pieces."
Amongst the supply chain there have been a number of concerns - chiefly around the fact that the system has been developed within the silo of National Highways and with no recognition of the evolvement of the safety culture outside of the client organisation, echoed by a second anonymous source who said,
"When will National Highways learn that they are not the fountain of all knowledge and that by engaging with their supply chain they had the chance to make real advances in the reporting of incidents.
"We are proactively looking at incidents which pose fatal risk to our employees and how we mitigate those and yet the client simply wants a reporting tool - how does this enable us to become a client-led learning industry.
"All this drives us to do is to simply find a third-party alternative and then have our own people report into another system, meaning there are significant costs to us, as a result of having to double report, ... how is this promoting efficiencies in the supply chain."
A third source added, " This is the passport scheme all over again, a total missed opportunity - something others may call a serious mistake by the client - and we are now facing a situation where we are forcing something through which is, still, not fit for purpose.
"Still we await the changes to GG128, none of which have yet been, to my knowledge, published to the supply chain for consultation."
Safer Highways has not been a part of the consultation on GG128 or HART and so as such the comments of individuals quoted should not in any way be attributed to the views of our own organisations but instead be taken as the views of individuals we have asked for comment.
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