2012 ANNUAL REPORT

Key Performance Indicators

	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	Ref
% of our commitment to customer service delivery	89%	89%	94%	66
% satisfied with our overall performance	97%	97%	95%	67
% community satisfaction with complaints handling	68%	62%	80%	67

Introduction

Our aim is to be recognised for a culture of collaboration, transparency and responsible decision making. Our community and stakeholder engagement objectives include building strong strategic collaborative relationships through ensuring all key stakeholders are well informed and provided with factual, accurate and regular information. Objectives also include identifying and addressing stakeholder, community and industry concerns and managing the impacts of our operations in the communities in which we work. These objectives are supported by our Community Engagement policy which clearly outlines our key principles and commitments. As a result of the policy, we have developed Guidelines for Community and Stakeholder Engagement to assist any staff undertaking community engagement in their project. A checklist provides a simple outline to help us identify our key stakeholders.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Strategic Review

A strategic review is currently underway on our community engagement program to ensure it meets the current and future needs of our community and stakeholders. This review includes:

• Evaluation of our goals
• Utilising new technologies
• Internal restructuring possibilities to effectively implement and manage community engagement initiatives
• Re-evaluating our corporate KPIs and aligning these to our stakeholder's needs.

Value Assurance Review: Our Internal Project Review Process

These reviews, implemented as part of the RO & DS methodology, are conducted internally on each major strategic project, with a budget of $10 million or more, to ensure that projects are meeting both internal project management objectives as well as external stakeholder expectations. A Value Assurance Review can be conducted at each project phase or when it is felt that an assessment is warranted. This approach is utilised to ensure consistency over projects, risk mitigation and gap analysis. We average around five reviews per annum using accredited personnel.

Reviews are either planned or underway for the following projects:

• South Metro Connect – Roe Highway Extension
• Gateway WA – Airport and Freight Project
• City East Alliance – Great Eastern Highway Kooyong Road to Tonkin Highway Upgrade
• Great Northern Highway Project
• Fremantle Traffic Bridge
• Mitchell Freeway Extension Community Working Group
• South Street Interchange
• Esperance Port Access Project
• Stirling City Centre Alliance
• Managed Motorways Project

We consider the project cost, timeframe, progress, stage and risk when conducting the above review.

RO&DS / Gateway Review: Our External Project Review Process

We have brought onboard Sinclair Knight Merz's community engagement and strategic relationships capability to undertake an independent review of our RO&DS Methodology and the Department of Treasury's Gateway Review. This is to ensure that the delivery of community engagement aligns with key project management methodologies and that the Gateway Review meets the whole-of-government priorities.

The Value Assurance Review process and community engagement initiatives are reviewed to ensure they meet the objectives of their processes.

A key initiative that will stem from this review will be the development of a relationships policy that will identify and build long-term mutually beneficial relationships. Main Roads is in the process of implementing a new consultation paradigm through the support of the Minister for Transport that aims to develop these key relationships.

Ministerial Community Working Groups: A New Consultation Paradigm

Through the endorsement of the Minister for Transport, we are tasked to undertake a new consultation approach that aims to align commercial, government and community interests in developing effective road transport solutions. This engagement model is proposed to be adopted on strategic assessments triggered by State and Federal Government.

There are currently two ministerial initiatives that are implementing this long-term strategic, integrated approach which include the Mitchell Freeway Extension Community Working Group and the Tonkin Highway Extension Community Working Group.

These Community Working Groups work in partnership with Local Government to bring on board input from: high level government, industry bodies, community opinion leaders, residents and local commercial industry to determine the correct infrastructure requirements for that region. This consultation process is transparent and accountable, conducted via a strategic Value Management Process and endorsed by the Centre for Excellence for Infrastructure Delivery. The outcome of this consultation process will be a preliminary business case with recommendations that will list the cost and benefits of each option to allow Government to better engage with communities and make decisions thereby delivering effective transport solutions.

Advisory Groups

To ensure that our operations are open, accountable, fair and flexible, we collaborate with our customers and stakeholders. We obtain essential input from a range of specialist Advisory Groups which includes the required frequency of meetings each year in brackets:

• Customer Service Advisory Council (4)
• Cycling and Pedestrian Advisory Group (3)
• Disability Advisory Group (12)
• Environmental Advisory Group (2)
• Western Australian Road Construction and Maintenance Industry Advisory Group (4)
• State Road Funds to Local Government Advisory Committee (3)
• Traffic Management for Works on Roads Advisory Group (4)
• Traffic Management for Events Advisory Group. (4)

Customer Service Achievements

Customer Service Strategy

We have a history of delivering excellent customer services supported by strategies such as Excellence in Roads. Our vision for 2020 is to deliver even better services to our customers. This means being customer centric in all our actions, decisions, planning and communications. We are currently developing our new Customer Service Strategy, 'Delivering Better Services' which is based on feedback from customers, internal and external stakeholders and reviews of our operations using The Australian Business Excellence Framework and the International Customer Service Standards. This new strategy, supported by excellence in operational customer service, will deliver improved services to our customers.

Customer Service Excellence

Our commitment to customer service and our vision 'to be recognised for excellence in customer service and world-class road access' was acknowledged on 26 October 2011 when Main Roads was announced the winner of the WA State Government Category in the Australian Service Excellence Awards.

This was reinforced by the improvements shown in an independent assessment of our practices against the International Customer Service Standards. Comments from the assessors of this independent assessment were: “It is appropriate that as an industry leader in the application of the International Customer Service Standard, Main Roads is among the first organisation to be certified against the new ICSS 2010–2014 at the Integration level”.

We were also recognised nationally for our Customer Service Charter in the Australian Service Excellence Awards where we were named as finalists. Reviewed and relaunched in 2011, our new Customer Service Charter introduced an approach that saw us moving away from customer transactional activities to focusing on a whole-of-organisation approach.

Customer Charter Index

An index consisting of 27 measures assists us in assessing our commitments to customer service delivery and how we as an organisation align to these commitments. These measures, grouped in categories based on our values, are created based on our Customer Service Charter to ensure that we are performing satisfactorily in the standards of service which is expected of us.

As part of our commitment to accountability and transparency, the results are published on our website each quarter. For 2011-12, we achieved a 93.5% target towards our commitments to customer service.

Community Perception Survey

The Community Perception Survey (CPS) has been conducted annually for 17 years and tracks a wide range of issues such as our overall performance on congestion, road safety and maintenance of the road network.

The survey is a key source of information which is used to identify improvements and contributions to our business planning cycle. It highlights areas of focus and helps us to ensure the needs of the wider community are addressed. For more information, and to obtain a copy of the full 2011-12 results, please visit our website.

In December 2011, we completed qualitative research around the CPS which involved dialogue with our customers to better understand what drives their satisfaction. This research has resulted in a revised survey which now measures 96% of what drives overall satisfaction. Previous surveys only measured 35%.

This revised survey was conducted in April 2012. Some key points from the 2012 survey report include:

• Overall satisfaction of 95%, a slight decrease from 97.1% last year.
• Our Corporate Performance Indicators show strong and relatively stable performance in the areas of Road Safety and Road Maintenance. However, there is a long-term, gradual decrease in satisfaction levels.
• There is a significant decrease in performance in providing cycleways and pedestrians facilities and work is being done to identify why the significant decrease has occurred.
• New questions in the 2012 survey revealed that 42% of community members perceive their journey times to be taking longer than last year and 39% of the community feels more stressed travelling than this time last year.

Customer Feedback

As an organisation we use customer feedback, including complaints, to improve our business practices. Employees who join the organisation are trained in our Complaints Handling Policy and Procedures as part of their induction and we analyse and report on complaint trends and customer interactions monthly to Corporate Executive.

Feedback received is analysed and reported to our Business Improvement Committee where improvement actions are allocated to individual Executive Directors. Remedial actions taken to address feedback received are monitored in a closed-loop reporting cycle introduced in 2011 by the committee.

The following shows the types of feedback that we
have received:

Feedback Type	Total
Complaints	1,783
Compliments	154
Customer Requests	336
Business Improvements	100

Whilst this table shows the top five areas for complaints:

Category of Complaints	Percentage (%)
Traffic Signals	12
Planning Issues	10
Safety Issues	9
Road Works	6
Road Condition/Quality	6

Our policies and procedures are supported by a monthly quality assurance check using the complaints handling survey. This assesses customer satisfaction with the complaints process and how complaints were handled. For the quarter ending 30 June 2012, 80% of people interviewed indicated that they were satisfied with how their complaint was handled.

Online Services

In recognition of the growing demand for the provision of information in an electronic format, we have committed significant time and effort to enhancing our online services. Our website is currently undergoing a redesign which will enable more pertinent information being provided to our customers in a timely manner. Our traffic camera service is also being upgraded and a further focus is concentrated on enhancing our social media presence to deliver more effective customer services.

Twitter

Twitter continues to be a successful method of communication for the delivery of incident and traffic information on the Perth road network, which is unmatched by any other road agency in Australia. The Perth metropolitan Twitter account now has more than 10,000 followers. Due to this success, a WA Roads' Twitter account has been created to provide regional traffic information, which is seeing steady growth in its number of followers. In just six months, this account has acquired almost 750 followers.

Customer Service Advisory Council

Established in 2006, the Customer Service Advisory Council has supported our improvement in service delivery and challenged us to extend and broaden our thinking in our operations and projects. This year the council has agreed to increase its meetings from three to four per annum. It takes a strategic view of our operations and has input into improving services to our customers.

During the year, the Council provided feedback and direction on the following activities:

• The Customer Service Strategy
• Night works at Reid Hwy and Alexander Drive Interchange Project
• Variable Message Signs Policy Development
• Event Management – The Freeway Bike Ride.

Customer Information Centre

The Customer Information Centre (CIC) provides a 24 hours a day, seven days a week service to the Western Australian community. It provides information using a range of communication tools catering for diverse community needs.

The CIC continues to play an important role in State-wide incident management by providing information to the public and stakeholders. Several cyclones kept the CIC busy in assisting communities and travellers in the cyclone affected areas along with bushfires and other major incidents across the State including during CHOGM.

Emails continue to be a major communication method of choice by customers with the CIC responding to an average of 1,500 emails per month. All emails are responded to within 24 hours of receipt with 80% of email queries being answered at the first point by the CIC team.

(The Customer Information Centre was renamed from the Customer Contact Centre in November 2011)

Customer Contact Statistics	2010	2011	2012	Variance
Telephone Calls	183,140	239,782	208,140	-31,642
Email Enquires	13,292	16,014	18,104	+2,090
Perth Twitter followers	960	3,670	10,516	+6,846
Perth Tweets	755	2,155	6,266	+4,111
WA Roads Twitter Followers*	N/A	N/A	748	N/A
WA Roads Tweets*	N/A	N/A	324	N/A

*Commenced in January 2012

Disability Access and Inclusion Plan

Main Roads launched a revised Disability Access and Inclusion Plan (DAIP) in 2012. Our new plan's main objective is achieving the State Government's vision for a better quality of life for all Western Australians. The DAIP has been produced in recognition that people with disabilities, their families and carers have the same rights to access our services and employment opportunities as any other member of the community. The Plan will add further emphasis to the significant progress that we have already made in addressing the needs of people with disabilities since its inception in 1995. The DAIP provides a framework that outlines a suite of implementation strategies designed to enable us to achieve the following seven outcomes during the lifetime of the plan. The Plan focuses on the principles that people with disabilities:

• Have the same opportunity as other people to access the services of, and any events organised by Main Roads.
• Have the same opportunity as other people to access the buildings and other facilities of Main Roads.
• Should receive information from Main Roads in a format that will enable them to access the information as readily as other people are able to access it.
• Should receive the same level and quality of service from the staff of Main Roads as other people receive.
• Have the same opportunities as other people to make complaints to Main Roads.
• Have the same opportunities as other people to participate in any public consultation by Main Roads.
• Have the same opportunities as other people to access employment at Main Roads.

For further information on all the desired outcomes and progress on the DAIP please visit our website.