Self-assessment using the IAM Toolkit

The Highways Agency in the UK (now named Highways England) made it a contract requirement for its asset support contracts for the contractor to undertake a competency assessment against the requirements of PAS 55 (a Publicly Available Specification published by the British Standards Institution (BSI)) in order to assess asset management capability. In the first year, the contractor is required to achieve maturity level 1 and after two years maturity level 2. The approach uses the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) self-assessment methodology and toolkit.

The level 2 assessment takes the following form:

• A gap assessment of the current competencies through interviews with key staff and a review of relevant documentation
• A report with recommended actions against each of the requirements in PAS 55 using the IAM assessment tool
• A final review of the actions undertaken through furthered structured interviews and a final report assessing the maturity level
• The outcomes of this approach will be a set of asset management competencies and an action plan to achieve level 3 maturity.