If transparency reporting is to be strengthened to improve comparability between authorities, there is a strong case for building on the established work of the CQC Efficiency Network rather than developing a new framework from scratch.
CQC has spent more than a decade addressing precisely the challenges that transparency reporting is now seeking to resolve. It already operates a mature, harmonised data framework that brings together total maintenance cost (TOTEX), road condition, and key contextual cost drivers such as traffic loading, network size, urban/rural mix, and regional market pressures. This allows authorities to be compared on a genuinely like-for-like basis, rather than on raw, unadjusted figures that can be heavily influenced by local circumstances.
Moving Beyond Cost Data: Explaining Why Differences Exist
Crucially, CQC’s approach goes beyond collecting data in isolation. It is designed to explain why costs differ, not simply to show that they do. By explicitly linking spend to condition and network challenge, the framework helps distinguish between authorities that are spending more because they face greater need, and those where higher costs do not translate into improved outcomes. This is a distinction that simple transparency metrics struggle to make.
Another important advantage is that CQC’s methodology has been developed with a clear awareness of behavioural incentives. Single-year, threshold-based metrics can unintentionally encourage short-term or cosmetic changes designed to improve reported positions, rather than sustainable improvements in network condition or efficiency. CQC’s use of multi-year trends, total cost, and normalised comparisons reduces the risk of such perverse incentives and supports longer-term decision-making.
Reducing Risk and Burden by Using an Established Model
From a practical standpoint, building on CQC would also reduce the burden and risk associated with redesigning transparency reporting. The data definitions, validation processes, and analytical methods have already been tested, refined, and accepted by a large number of authorities. Using this existing foundation would allow improvements in comparability to be delivered more quickly and with greater confidence than attempting to design and implement a new national framework from the ground up.
Finally, CQC benefits from independent oversight and academic rigour, with its methodology developed and applied by experts at the University of Leeds. This provides transparency, credibility, and assurance that the analysis is not driven by policy or funding considerations, but by a clear and consistent analytical framework.
A Pragmatic Route to Better Transparency and Insight
Taken together, this suggests that strengthening transparency reporting does not require reinvention. Instead, aligning transparency data more closely with CQC’s established standards — or explicitly using CQC analysis as the interpretive layer for transparency returns — would offer a pragmatic, lower-risk route to more meaningful comparability, better insight, and more constructive engagement across the sector.
