Could you confirm the total number of road bonds called-in over the last 3 years for S278 and S38 agreements?
Two
What are the individual elements that your Authority includes within their bond requirement for all highways work for S278 and S38 agreements?
All works within the agreement, sometimes statutory undertakers’ diversions, and commuted sums are included.
Could you provide an average value for bond provision for S278 and S38 agreements?
Devon County Council does not record this information in a manner that can be easily extracted from our systems. In order to provide an answer we would have to undertake a manual interrogation of each agreement. We estimate that to carry out this exercise per individual agreement would take 5 minutes. Therefore to conclude this exercise for all several hundred agreements would take over 18 hours to complete.
Under the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 public authorities are not obliged to comply with requests which exceed the cost limit of £450 (equating to 18 hours of time). For this reason we believe that Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act applies (cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limits).
Would you consider using the developer obtained tender value for calculating the bond provision for S278 and S38 agreements?
Yes, but we usually use our term contract rates.
Could you confirm your inspection fee or percentage applicable relevant to the bond provision for S278 and S38 agreements?
S278 – 7%
S38 – 6%