Highway Maintenance Incentive Fund
The Department for Transport Incentive Fund rewards local authorities who can demonstrate they deliver value for money and continually look to improve their service in a cost-effective manner.
Authorities that spend money on roads efficiently are rewarded with extra funds to keep up the good work while those with a history of inefficiency will receive comparatively less money.
The proportion of funding allocated to well-performing authorities will increase year by year while at the same time the proportion of funding an authority receives if it is performing poorly will lessen year by year.
In order to establish the share of the Incentive Fund they are eligible for, each local authority in England (excluding London) will be invited annually to complete a self-assessment questionnaire against a number of criteria including:
- asset management - whether the authority takes a long-term view of road maintenance repair or waits for problems to develop before taking action
- customer satisfaction - whether the authority is listening to road users and responding to their views
- collaboration - whether the authority is working with its neighbours to share resources and good practice
These are the key values of the Incentive Fund. It is not designed to provoke competition between local authorities but to encourage collaboration and to reward good practice.