Transport Insights

Roads minister Simon Lightwood has admitted that no genuine assurance process is taking place that would justify his cover-up of National Highways’ evaluations of smart motorways.

He has responded (sort of) to another question from fellow Labour MP Sarah Champion about the 14 Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports on smart motorways that the Department for Transport (DfT) is suppressing.

Judging from Lightwood’s determination to hide these reports until he works out how to spin them, you might imagine that they show that the safety, economic benefits and environmental impact of individual schemes are not great

Asked:

what the assurance processes are under which the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) of Major Schemes are conducted

Lightwood replied:

National Highways follows its established “Analytical Assurance Framework” for assuring POPE reports, which includes fourth line independent external expert analytical assurance from DfT.

As these are complex reports it is right that my officials take the time to provide summary advice of these reports in the round and undertake wider assurance to advise me on the quality of collective findings.

The first part appears to be untrue as National Highways does not have an analytical assurance framework that is separate from the DfT’s framework, but this is probably irrelevant as Lightwood is no longer claiming that this is still happening.

Instead he has made up a completely new process under which his officials supposedly group together a whole bunch of POPE reports to summarise them and carry out a fictional “wider evaluation”. Implicitly, he is admitting that no formal assurance process is being carried out.

To be fair, he is not actually saying either that an informal “wider assurance” process is happening, just that it is right that it should happen.

Of course, the point about such a process is that concern for the “quality of collective findings” does not mean that the individual reports need any further assurance before they can be released.

We are back to the reality – that ministers are working out to spin – or bury – the bad news.