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Council minutes, agendas and reports

Decision details

Review of Driven Carriageway Inspections during Covid-19 (2)

Decision Maker: Corporate Director of Business and Environmental Services

Decision status: Recommendations approved

Is Key decision?: No

Is subject to call in?: No

Decision:

That:

i. the transition to double crewed inspections that was enabled from 1 November 2021 (following your last meeting/discussion on this matter) continues, including consultation / engagement with Highway Officers via local management teams
ii. as part of the above consultation / engagement, where specific circumstances might preclude double crewed inspections (such as personal / underlying health conditions) and Highway Officers are in agreement, that single crewed inspections are retained in those circumstances but reviewed bi-monthly by the Highway Officer concerned and their line manager
iii. where double crewed inspections commence, the Health & Safety / Fleet / Public Health guidance contained in this report regarding mitigation and control measures is followed as rigorously as possible / as activities permit and that this is done in conjunction with any task-specific and Covid-related risk assessments
iv. provision remains in place to revert to single-crewed inspections on a wider scale if there is either a large-scale Covid outbreak amongst the workforce and/or Government guidance changes
v. the transition back to double-crewed inspections is fully concluded by the end of March 2022 unless circumstances [such as (iv)] dictate otherwise
vi. ongoing monitoring of the situation continues over the coming months and a final report is submitted to your meeting of 29 April 2022 (unless deemed necessary to be reported sooner) in order to bring this matter to a conclusion and return to Business as Usual. This would ultimately be dictated by factors such as the anticipated lifting of all restrictions and overall infection rates.

Reasons for the decision:

In order to ensure the correct balance is achieved between delivering a resilient service, acknowledging where we are in the Government’s Covid roadmap, keeping the highway network as safe as possible through our inspection regime whilst also maintaining a robust defence against third party claims but also allowing flexibility to respond to any change in Covid rates and the resultant impact on the workforce.

Publication date: 23/02/2022

Date of decision: 18/02/2022