MIdlands Highway Alliance

The Midlands Highway Alliance (MHA) is a well established partnership of 13 authorities (nine from the East Midlands, one from the East, one from the South East and two from the West Midlands) and the Highways Agency, this successful model is realising efficiencies and improving the design of capital schemes and is now being adopted by other RIEPs with the EM's support.

The medium schemes framework is saving £100k per scheme on procurement costs alone, with savings of up to 9% on contract values also being achieved. An existing professional services partnership is also being extended to all MHA authorities and a third work strand surrounds consolidated commodity procurement. In the latter work stream, for example, a road salt framework is expected to realise savings of £700k for MHA authorities.

A skills training academy has been established with framework contractors and supply chain organisations and a requirement for 30 Apprentices will probably be supplied by the EM IEP Local Authorities Apprenticeship Agency, in partnership with the National Apprenticeship Service. Additional DfT funding is supporting the harmonisation of design standards/processes between all MHA authorities and improved approaches to asset management/data management.

The MHA has already delivered cashable savings of £14m and is predicting that over five years £32m savings will be delivered.

The Midlands Highway Alliance's savings have been independantly reviewed in the following report:

Highways Agency - East Midlands Framework Contract: 
Outcomes from Review
Enhancing Regional Collaboration