The new rates of inspections fees and TROs are as
follows:
|
Inspection Fee
|
£21.00
|
|
|
Defect Fee
|
£42,00
|
|
TRO Section 14
(1)
|
£215,00
|
£280,00
|
|
TRO Section 14
(3)
|
£90,00
|
£155,00
|
|
TRO Section 14
(5)
|
£60,00
|
£125,00
|
Payment,
invoiced monthly at £15.50 per unit, will be based on 6%
of the units in each inspection category. An undertaker
who generates less than 100 units in an area in a year
will pay for inspections of every category of all works or
for 30 inspections, whichever is less; otherwise the
number of units will be estimated on an undertaker's work
over the three previous financial years. New undertakers
will provide estimates that will be monitored and adjusted
if necessary. Samples for inspection will be selected at
random, using suitable tables or computer programmes where
possible until the computerised street and road works
register can make
Inspections
Random selections. Randomness will be monitored at
quarterly co-ordinating meetings. The street authority
inspector will complete a checklist, copied to the
undertaker, for every inspection undertaken.
Investigatory
works
A
street authority can carry out such investigatory works
(including coring, measurement of texture depth, material
sampling) as appear to them to be necessary to ascertain
whether an undertaker has complied with his duties'. The
procedure should be followed where reports of defects come
also from other than sample inspection. Where a defect is
disclosed, the authority can recover from the undertaker
the HAUC agreed fee or the reasonable costs of any
investigatory works. The street authority bears the cost
where no defect is found. The costs of a joint
pre-inspection (as to agree the condition of modular
paving) lie where they fall.
DEFECT
INSPECTIONS
These deal with individual reinstatements that do not
comply with reinstatement specifications; they are
identified as a result of sample inspection; by members of
the public; during routine highway authority inspection;
by undertakers themselves.
An
authority detecting failed works or reinstatement will
notify the undertaker and the appropriate inspection
checklist will be dispatched within one working day. The
authority may carry out necessary remedial works, if the
undertaker fails to comply with the notice, and recharge
to the undertaker its reasonable costs, explaining its
reasons.
Where
non-compliance of reinstatement creates potential danger,
an authority may make the site safe and require the
attendance of the undertaker. Where a reinstatement is
defective, the street authority is entitled to payment for
three defect inspections (but only when they actually
occur) to ensure that defects are remedied:
-
a
joint inspection with the undertaker to identify the
failure and the remedy;
-
inspection
of remedial works in progress;
-
inspection
when remedial works are completed.
This
defect inspection procedure will be initiated when a
defect is discovered after completion, and continue until
the works satisfy inspection 3, when the guarantee period
will recommence. HAUC recommends that the fee for defect
inspection should be double the cost of sample inspection.
Where
signing, lighting or guarding is found to be inadequate
the undertaker will be required to remedy the inadequacy
but if he is absent from site the authority should make
safe any potentially dangerous inadequacy (and charge
reasonable costs). The undertaker should rectify other
inadequacies within two hours.
Each
street authority should agree in the first quarter of a
financial year the annual estimated total of fees with the
relevant undertaker, to be billed and paid quarterly in
arrears. Where an undertaker's workload varies from that
expected, no adjustment will be made to that year's number
of inspections or the amount of the charge but there will
be a refund where the number of inspections carried out is
less than that estimated. The authority may, at its own
expense, inspect a larger sample of works.
Summaries
of performance
Authorities will send each undertaker a quarterly report
on his performance and are recommended to produce an
annual summary report of the undertaker's performance for
the appropriate council committee.
Improvement
notices
An improvement notice procedure will ensure that action is
taken by inadequately performing undertakers. Where, over
any three-month period, more than 10% of sample
inspections of an undertaker reveal defects, the authority
may serve an improvement notice on the undertaker. This
will record dissatisfaction and require an indication of
proposals for rectifying the position. Any service of a
notice under these procedures will be reported to HAUC.
Supplemented
by comments from the public and routine inspections,
sample inspections can follow up poor performance in three
ways:
-
a
street authority carrying out speculative inspections
of works by poorly-performing undertakers;
-
a
formal reporting procedure;
-
the
defect inspection regime.
