Cavendish provides planning and strategic advice.
Background
Since 2021, Cavendish has had a team embedded in National Highways supporting the planning and delivery of communications for the future pipeline of projects for the next Roads Investment Period. The team is also responsible for customer and stakeholder correspondence for the pipeline (which consists of 30+ projects), some of which have substantial public interest.
Our work was to develop a strategy and stakeholder engagement planning guidance which would support all the projects while aligning with the National Highways campaigns of ‘Roads for Good’ and ‘Safer Roads’ and wider government policy.
Strategy
With numerous Tier 2 suppliers delivering the individual project communications, it was crucial to instigate cohesion and to develop a whole raft of guidance to support the overall programme. Our embedded team members led the betterment of internal processes relating to communications and correspondence, creating several guidelines and process documents, alongside training for new team members, all of which has led to improved quality of deliverables.
As potential future investments, the projects we supported were, in general, of political and local interest, meaning high scrutiny and involvement from DfT. Cavendish developed a National Highways forward look process which was shared with the DfT, highlighting any MP meetings and media announcements. We have also developed briefing notes for communication events, such as consultations, and Ministerial visits, in line with DfT templates and guidance.
The
results.
Numerous systems developed by Cavendish have been adopted across all the RIS3 schemes as Best Practice and we continue to work with National Highways across the workstream.
The benefits of streamlining the system have led to significant efficiencies, such as the correspondence team now hitting their KPIs with a 95+% score. In addition, when new schemes enter the pipeline, the Tier 2 suppliers now have a wealth of resources to hand, meaning better mobilisation and improved delivery.
+95%
KPI score.
