Business Improvement Strategy in the Highways Agency

1. Executive Summary

Public sector organisations are the vehicle for delivery, servicing different governmental departments. Without these agencies, it will be extremely difficult for any government to live up to their promises.

This paper examines the business improvement strategy implemented by the Highway Agency (HA) in Britain. The objectives of this paper are to highlight challenges that public sector organisations such as HA faces when designing and implementing business strategies in general.

The Best Quality Service Reviews framework, European Foundation for Quality Management model and Process Hierarchy will be analysed to determine its effectiveness in implementing business improvement strategy. Suggestions for further improvement will be addressed as well. Finally, contractors and sub-contractors challenges in construction industry will be addressed. Particular interest will be focused on difficulties in this sector, which might impact on business improvement strategy.

2. Introduction

The Highways Agency (HA) is an executive agency of the Department for Transport in England, responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the nation's strategic road network. The scope consists of 9400 kilometres of motorways and truck roads, and carries a third of all road traffic and two third of all freight traffic in the country. This equates to an annual total of around 153 billion kilometres travelled.

The HA's priorities are to:

* Continue maintaining the network in good condition to ensure that it is safe and available for use.

* Maximise performance from the existing network.

* Improve the network where necessary.

3. Main Issues Public Sector Faces when Designing and Implementing a Business Improvement Strategy.

Designing and implementing business improvement strategies, has never been easy for public sector organisations. A number of factors impact on their efforts to deliver services to the public. While governments try to deal with issues of service delivery in their countries, they still need to consider external factors such as globalisation. As a result leaders need to be able to think and act both locally and globally. Below are some of the challenges faced by public sector organisations globally.

3.1. Public Sector Reform

The turn of the twenty first century has brought about a lot of changes in all spheres of life. As a result the public sector must constantly adapt and improve itself in order to remain relevant to today's societal need.

Battaglio (2010) states that, "For nearly three decades, traditional public sector management practices have been challenged by proponents of the new public management (NPM). Public human resource management (PHRM) is frequently a target of such reform efforts given the crucial role it plays in the public management function. Traditional civil service systems, based on merit and neutral competence, have frequently been criticized for their intractability, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness. The recent trend of eliminating tenure for public employees through employment at-will (EAW) policies has received considerable attention as a mechanism for improving public sector efficiency".

It is evident that if the government does not change and/or improve the manner in which they conduct business, it will be difficult for ensure that services rendered are relevant to today's needs.

3.2. Globalisation

Kishore (2010) stated that "the biggest challenges of governance are global in origin, but all the politics that respond to them are local. There are many wise leaders around the world, but there is not enough global leadership". Not having enough global leaders in our public sector create challenges with regard to service delivery. The world has become a village. It is now easier to know what is happening in another part of the world without having to travel. Our advanced communication and Information and Technology (IT) systems have made it possible for the private sector to move commodities across the world. Private companies that have embraced globalisation are now reaping the rewards. The sad thing is that, our public sector is falling behind in this regard.

3.3. Public procurement

Public procurement is a process whereby the public sector (local or national) procure goods from the private sector. The challenge is that, if policies are not properly formulated and understood by those who should implement them, corruption will be experienced. As we have seen in most governments, there are instances where government officials are being investigated for not adhering to agreed public finance governance such as the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) in South Africa.

3.4. Pay and conditions

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is often seen as a driver for economic development as it may bring capital, technology, management know-how, jobs and access to new markets (www.oecd.com). The challenge with the public sector is that, it must compete with the private sector when it comes to pay and work conditions. Public sector organisations are battling to retain skilled workforce. Working conditions in the private sector are more conducive than those in the public sector. To keep the workforce motivated and deliver government services is always a challenge.

3.5. Unions Influence

Countries where the public sectors are more organised tends to have better pay and work conditions. At the same time governments are sometimes in direct confrontations with the unions especially when their demands are not met. For example in South Africa, industrial actions threatened to derail the hosting of the FIFA World Cup and the economy was almost brought to a standstill by Transnet bargaining employees, Public Sector Association and mine workers' strikes.

3.6. Leadership and Procurement

Bauld et al. (2010) stated that "Leadership is important in the procurement context because, within an organization, procurement touches and concerns so many parts of the overall organizational operation." He also mentioned that "One can learn almost everything about an organization by watching what it needs, what it wants, what it buys, when it buys, how