www.nhtnetwork.org/cqc-efficiency-network/home The CQC Efficiency Network is a collaborative venture between ITS researcher Dr Phill Wheat and leading performance and benchmarking company measure2improve (m2wi). Dr Wheat has used funding from the EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) to refine the tools to support m2i in developing the fast growing network. The IAA is an institutional award funded by EPSRC to help speed up the contribution that engineering and physical science research make towards new innovation, successful businesses and the economic returns that benefit UK plc.

1. Impact Acceleration
Account
HighwaysBenchmarking
CaseStudy

2. Cost,Qualityand
CustomerEfficiency
Network
A fast-growing network of local councils
is using performance benchmarking tools
developed by researchers at the Institute
of Transport Studies (ITS) to share best
practice on highway maintenance –
a performance improving initiative that
could significantly drive down costs, while
at the same time maintaining quality and
improving customer satisfaction.
Indeed, the Cost Quality and Customer
(CQC) Efficiency Network, which now
has 84 local authority members, has
already allowed participating authorities to
demonstrate they have collectively made
over £35 million of savings per annum
over their 2010 baseline. A further £100
million per annum potential ‘Scope for
Improvement’ has been identified.
ImpactAcceleration
Account
The CQC Efficiency Network is
a collaborative venture between ITS
researcher Dr Phill Wheat and leading
performance and benchmarking company
measure2improve (m2wi). Dr Wheat has
used £25,000 funding from the EPSRC
Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) to refine
the tools to support m2i in developing
the fast growing network. The IAA is an
institutional award funded by EPSRC to help
speed up the contribution that engineering
and physical science research make towards
new innovation, successful businesses and
the economic returns that benefit UK PLC.
Impact Acceleration Account Case Study:
HighwaysBenchmarking
ImprovingServices
Similar spending constraints
are also on the horizon for
Highways departments up and
down the country. Jason Russell,
Deputy Director, Environment
and Infrastructure at Surrey
County Council, who has worked
with Dr Wheat and deployed
the CQC tool, notes that the
Highways Maintenance Efficiency
Programme says that councils can
manage the network and achieve
the same outcomes at substantially
lower costs by 2020. “This is not
going to happen by changing the
way we do things slightly – it will
take a radical change in the way
we do things. CQC gives us a
tool to make that kind of radical
change ourselves by sharing best
practice,” Mr Russell said.
“What we are doing in the network
is a much more collaborative and
iterative process than the setting
of national targets. It is a tool for
them to learn best practice from
one another, to allow them to see
what good looks like, and improve
services while keeping control of
costs,” said Dr Wheat.
Indeed, the Department for
Transport (DfT) is now advising
local authorities to carry out robust
benchmarking audits against best
practice to identify any gaps in
performance. “It’s a measure of
our success that the DfT actually
cites the CQC as an exemplary tool
to use,” said Dr Wheat.
This is not going to
happen by changing
the way we do things
slightly – it will take a
radical change. CQC
gives us a tool to make
that kind of radical
change ourselves by
sharing best practice.
Jason Russell, Deputy Director,
Environment and Infrastructure at
Surrey County Council
AToolForChange
“m2i are well respected within the highways
sector for their benchmarking and auditing
work which involves surveying road
user and customer perceptions of the
services delivered by local authorities,”
said Dr Wheat. The company approached
him to see if he could develop a more
sophisticated way of comparing the
performance of different councils against
exemplary benchmarks.
“Working with Phill
and his colleagues
has given us
access to advanced
benchmarking tools
that can support
local authorities
up and down the
country to learn
from the best,” says
m2i’s Sales Director
Simon Pinkney,
whose company
has more than two
decades of experience
gauging business
performance,
measuring customer
satisfaction, and
providing the software
tools to improve both.
“There are lots of
performance benchmarking products on
the market,” says Dr Wheat. “But they tend
to measure lots of things, which results in
every authority being good at some things
and every authority being bad at some
things. What we have done at ITS is develop
a tool that cuts through the confusion and
provides local authorities with a single
reliable measure of performance that
allows them to see where they stand
in terms of cost, quality and customer
perception. That is a powerful,
collaborative tool for change.”
In developing the tool Dr Wheat drew
on the groundbreaking work he and his
colleagues – Professor Chris Nash and
Professor Andrew Smith – had done for
the Office of Rail
and Road (ORR)
in assessing the
performance of
Network Rail.
“Our research
revealed a 37%
efficiency gap
in relation to rail
infrastructure costs
and operations,
relative to
international best
practice. The tools
we have developed
for the CQC network
help us to identify
similar gaps relative
to best practice within
the highway sector,”
Dr Wheat said.
The work Dr Wheat
and his colleagues did for the ORR resulted
in annual efficiency targets being set for
Network Rail which reduced costs from
£18.2bn to £15.8bn over five years,
between 2009 and 2014. So successful
has the ITS technique been that the water
and sewerage regulator Ofwat adopted the
same tools for its periodic review in 2013.
What we have done at
ITS is develop a tool
that cuts through the
confusion and provides
local authorities with a
single reliable measure of
performance that allows
them to see where they
stand in terms of cost,
quality and customer
perception. That is a
powerful, collaborative
tool for change.
ITS researcher Dr Phill Wheat
84
LocalAuthority
Members...
2
newroles
created
...have
collectivelysaved
£35m
perannum
£25k
fundingfrom
theIAA

3. ImprovingServices
Similar spending constraints
are also on the horizon for
Highways departments up and
down the country. Jason Russell,
Deputy Director, Environment
and Infrastructure at Surrey
County Council, who has worked
with Dr Wheat and deployed
the CQC tool, notes that the
Highways Maintenance Efficiency
Programme says that councils can
manage the network and achieve
the same outcomes at substantially
lower costs by 2020. “This is not
going to happen by changing the
way we do things slightly – it will
take a radical change in the way
we do things. CQC gives us a
tool to make that kind of radical
change ourselves by sharing best
practice,” Mr Russell said.
“What we are doing in the network
is a much more collaborative and
iterative process than the setting
of national targets. It is a tool for
them to learn best practice from
one another, to allow them to see
what good looks like, and improve
services while keeping control of
costs,” said Dr Wheat.
Indeed, the Department for
Transport (DfT) is now advising
local authorities to carry out robust
benchmarking audits against best
practice to identify any gaps in
performance. “It’s a measure of
our success that the DfT actually
cites the CQC as an exemplary tool
to use,” said Dr Wheat.
This is not going to
happen by changing
the way we do things
slightly – it will take a
radical change. CQC
gives us a tool to make
that kind of radical
change ourselves by
sharing best practice.
Jason Russell, Deputy Director,
Environment and Infrastructure at
Surrey County Council
SharingBestPractice
But the biggest challenge of all –
and the one that the IAA funding
helped most in meeting – was the
need to build a network of trust
amongst different councils so that
best practice could be shared.
“There is understandable concern
that if the results of our work were
published they would be used as
a stick to beat underperforming
authorities. That is not what we
are about. This is a collaborative
benchmarking network not
a regulatory benchmarking
exercise, where we respect
confidentiality while at the same
time encouraging dialogue and
collaboration between councils.”
In a bid to reconcile the need for
confidentiality with the desire for
open collaboration, Dr Wheat and
representatives from m2i spent two
years running workshops up and
down the country, explaining the
power of the tools and the benefits
they could bring.
“The IAA money was vital for this,”
he said. “It allowed us to run these
workshops, establish a rapport
with the delegates and win the
confidence and trust of the local
authorities – which is essential to
the success of the network and the
tools it deploys. Without that buy
in, it just becomes an ivory tower
exercise with no real world impact.”
In order to communicate the
benefits of the tools to elected
politicians and officers Dr Wheat
has developed an easy-to use
model that allows council staff
to see how the tools work and
to discover the insights they can
provide. With support from the
IAA funding, Dr Wheat says he
has been able to do this while
at the same time maintaining
the academic integrity and
independence of his work and
that of the ITS which gives him
credibility among the authorities.
In addition to this, the flourishing
relationship with m2i and the
growth of the network has led
to the creation of two new roles
- ITS post-graduate researcher,
Alex Stead, who is now the m2i
Research Fellow in Efficiency
Analysis and a Network Account
Manager at m2i to help develop
and maintain the network.
“The big success of the CQC
efficiency network is that it not only
provides local authorities with the
analysis and the objective support
they need – it also strengthens the
research base and reputation of
ITS and the University of Leeds.”
Dr Wheat added.

4. Formoreinformationonthe
CQCEfficiencyNetworkcontact:
Dr Phill Wheat
Institute for Transport Studies
T: +44 (0)113 343 5344
E: P.E.Wheat@its.leeds.ac.uk
www.its.leeds.ac.uk/research
Formoreinformationonthe
EPSRCIAAcontact:
Research & Innovation Services
University of Leeds
T: +44 (0)113 343 3518
E: epsrciaa@leeds.ac.uk