About Us
Midlands Highway Alliance Plus (MHA+) was formed from the merger of three regional efficiencies groups, the Midlands Highway Alliance, the Midlands Service Improvement Group and the West Midlands Highway Alliance. The new Alliance (July 2020) has a membership of 36 local highway authorities from across the Midlands and beyond.
The groups had common aims and objectives and strengths that were complementary. The key drivers from the Government Construction 2025 strategy and Constructing the Gold Standards are intrinsic in the preparation of the MHA+ business plan and objectives. Information about the three groups are provided below.
Midlands Service Improvement Group (MSIG)
MSIG was formed in 1997 as the Midlands Regional Best Value Group, to deal with matters concerning Best Value and Performance Management, initially with 13 members. It became MSIG in 2003, better reflecting the purpose of the group, which was to act as a beacon of good practice and service improvement. The MHA+ service improvement groups (SIG) has 16 task groups that meet regularly to look at and discuss specific areas of highway and transportation provision.
MHA+ SIG offers a website with a wealth of reference documents, benchmarking data and presentations – as well as providing real-time online discussion boards – for each service improvement group topic area.
West Midlands Highway Alliance (WMHA)
The West Midlands Highway Alliance (WMHA) was established as an unincorporated, local authority led body originally consisting of 14 local authorities which was created to orchestrate and oversee a programme which would accelerate the achievement of value and efficiencies within the region. Out of this, a need for professional services framework was identified and two framework contracts were let:
WMHA Term Service Professional Services Contract (Worcestershire & Telford & Wrekin) and the WMHA Professional Services Framework (Solihull, Warwickshire, Coventry).
WMHA reformed itself and had 10 local authorities as members ; as well as offering a networking environment, monthly newsletter and website for sharing resources
Midlands Highway Alliance (MHA)
MHA was formed in 2007 originally with 10 members – but grew over the years to 24, at the time of the merger. The alliance was seen as an exemplar by the National Audit Office and was used as a template for similar alliances across the country. By procuring collaborative frameworks, based on the New Engineering Contract for the design of and construction of major highway schemes; delivering savings for its members of about £4million a year. It also developed a number of platforms to enable information sharing and collaboration as well as a Learning Management System to support its members in getting the most of the frameworks.
Leicestershire County Council acts as the host authority for the alliance, and provides support in the areas of financial management, procurement and communications. It also employs six of the seven MHA+ staff, namely the alliance manager, performance and finance officer; framework manager, executive support, skills and development manager, project support manager. The fifth member of the team is the MHA+ Service Improvement Group (SIG) Coordinator, who is employed by Derbyshire County Council.
The alliance is managed by an Executive Board, to provide strategic direction, and a Programme Board, which gives a technical overview of the work of the groups.