Review of highways England's evaluation of its capital investment programmes benefits

The project is being commissioned to carry out a review of Highways England's processes and approach for evaluating and assessing the benefits realised from its capital investment. We are seeking services from a consultancy to carry out a review of Highways England's processes for evaluating and assessing benefits realised from its capital programme and how these processes are being implemented. The review covers three strands of Highways England's capital portfolio: 1. Major projects; 2. Smaller scale enhancements (such as those delivered through its congestion relief programme); and 3. Ring-fenced investment funds. To achieve the above objective the study should include: a) For each strand, review of: • Processes (including governance, methodology) used to evaluate and assess the benefits realised from the capital portfolio; • Highways England's implementation and delivery of these processes; • How evaluation fit within the scheme life-cycle; • The effectiveness and robustness of the mechanism for collecting and analysing data from completed schemes; • The maturity of Highways England's evaluation approach and how it contributes to benefit realisation processes; • Highways England work plan to evaluate benefits; and • Highways England's capability to undertake evaluations of projects / programmes; b) Conduct a detailed sample review of schemes which opened for traffic during 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18, the review should include but not limited to: • The application of Highways England processes; • Assess and summarise the identified benefits relative to these within the scheme's business case; • Consolidate the findings of thematic projects to assess benefits realised across the programme; and • Draw out findings with respect to the evaluation of the smart motorway programme. c) Assess: • The promotion of transparency and accountability; • The lessons learnt and how these feed back into investment decisions; and • Comparing and contrasting Highways England process for evaluating investment with other comparable projects/industries and best practice.