03 - January - 2006

Causeway Helps Ringway in Worcestershire

Worcestershire County Council has awarded Ringway Highway Services a 4.5 year, extendable to 8.5 years, Term Maintenance Contract. The Contract commenced on the 1st October 2005 and is worth in the region of £18m per annum.

To help with the contract finances, Ringway has introduced Causeway Project Accounting (CPA) as a key system in the integration process to compliment its existing use of Causeway Estimating. Causeway's close working relationship and systems integration with EXOR, the County's provider of Highway Asset Management systems, along with newly developed links to Masternaut, Ringways supplier of Vehicle tracking systems, puts CPA at the hub of the integrated solution for Ringway and Worcestershire County Council.

CPA allows Ringway to capture all cost transactions at a detailed level for comparison against the original target prices generated by Causeway Estimating. CPA also feeds financial data to Ringway's Corporate systems for higher level management of the Ringway Group. In addition CPA provides the overall financial reporting and enquiry access for the contract and is used on an open book basis with Worcestershire County Council.

This contract is an NEC contract using the Target Price and Actual Cost option. This format is coming increasingly into use in the Local Authority market place over the traditional schedule of rates. These forms of contract are forward looking and demand open book procedures and close working together to meet the strong value for money criteria at their heart.

A spokesperson for Ringway commented, "Causeway has really helped us cope with the traditional requirements of managing a large number of works orders as well as the added challenge of recording actual cost information. The solution enables much closer integration between ours and the clients existing systems, reducing duplication, increasing process efficiency and lowering administrative costs."

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Further information contact:

t: +44 (0) 1628 552063

e: tim.nichols@causeway.com