Guidance

Letter to local authorities about local highway maintenance transparency reporting requirements - June 2026

Published 9 June 2026

Applies to England

From: Director General, Road Transport Group
To: Chief executives, local highway authorities in England

Dear Chief Executive,

In April 2026, I wrote to you to set out the funding arrangements for local highway maintenance for the 2026-2027 financial year, including the highways maintenance incentive element.

This letter provides further detail on this year’s local highway authority transparency reporting requirements, which form a key part of those arrangements.

Why we are launching improved transparency requirements

The government has confirmed record levels of long-term highways maintenance funding – £7.3 billion between 2026-2027 and 2029-2030 – to help local highway authorities plan ahead, adopt more preventative maintenance, and improve the long-term condition of England’s local roads network.

To ensure this increased and long-term investment translates into real improvements for road users, the department has introduced a regime of transparency reporting, annually updated ratings, and incentive funding, which was first implemented in 2025-2026.

This year, the department is strengthening its expectations on transparency to help local communities clearly understand how record funding is being spent in their areas, and to help them hold their local authorities to account. This should also support the shift from reactive repairs to more efficient, long‑term maintenance approaches.

The information provided to local people in these reports will also be used by the Department for Transport (DfT) to rate the performance of each authority’s highway maintenance activity.

This year, we have adjusted the templates:

• to help local people access the information they care about more easily
• to help local authorities express a fuller picture of their spending and activities
• to make filling in the forms and providing evidence more straightforward

The new template for the 2026-2027 transparency report has been developed in collaboration with the sector, with challenge and feedback from groups of local authority leaders as part of the joint UK Roads Leadership Group (UKRLG) / Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) Asset Management and Bridges boards, and a dedicated group formed by the Local Councils Road Innovation Group (LCRIG).

Transparency reporting requirements

We expect all local highway authorities in England to publish a Local Highways Maintenance Transparency Report.

This year the report includes 2 parts:

• the core report, which should be the primary public-facing document
• the technical annex, which provides supporting detail and technical information

You can find an updated reporting template plus guidance on how to complete it on the GOV.UK website.

To meet DfT’s incentive funding and rating requirements, you must, by 10 September 2026:

• publish the core report prominently on your website - the technical annex must also be available via the same location, but can be made available as a download or link
• submit a link to the report to DfT via roadmaintenance@dft.gov.uk

We would also be grateful if you would submit a Word (.docx) copy of the technical annex of your transparency report to DfT alongside the link.

Highways incentive funding requirements

As outlined in the department’s letter of April 2026, you will need to set out evidence within the transparency reports and as part of your submission to prove that you:

• are spending all of DfT’s highways maintenance funding on highways maintenance
• have published an updated asset management policy and strategy

Evidence requirements

Throughout the technical annex of the report, authorities are asked to describe how they would evidence the answers they have given. You will not need to provide this evidence as part of your submission, but DfT will ask authorities for a targeted sample of this evidence following publication of their reports. Failure to provide this evidence, or discrepancies between the evidence and the reports could impact on your local road maintenance ratings for 2026-2027.

Any evidence provided will be subject to the usual requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information Regulations.

Checking figures for local road maintenance ratings

As part of the process for finalising the 2026-2027 local road maintenance ratings, we will give your authority the opportunity to review the information we have collated from your transparency report.

We will contact you by email to confirm which figures we are using in our calculations and set out the timeframe for responding with any queries.

If you have any questions, please contact the DfT Local Highways Maintenance Team at roadmaintenance@dft.gov.uk.

Yours faithfully,

[SIGNED]

Antonia Williams
Director General, Roads Transport Group, Department for Transport