Blog Archives

Increase in performance failures 'satisfactory under the circumstances' claims C&RT

30/3/2018

With C&RT's financial year ending, comes confirmation that the the charity will fail to achieve targets for at least six Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) . The first sign of failure was an admission, just four months into the new financial year, that the the Trust would be unable to meet its 2017/18 year end target of 28,500 'Friends'. Allan Richards takes a look at recently published figures that give the position as of January, some 10 months into C&RT's 2017/18 financial year.

First up, a look at the problematic issue of 'Friends'. C&RT's aspiration was to recruit and retain 100,000 'Friends' over its first ten years. To achieve this, at the end of year six it should have about 60,000 'Friends'.

The target it set itself was rather more modest - just 28,500. However just four months into its sixth financial year it admitted that even 28,500 could not be achieved by year end. By the end of January its acheivement of 23,500 was still 5,000 short of its 28,500 target and and a massive 36,500 short of where it needs to be to recruit 100,000 over ten years.

In financial terms, it means that, for the sixth year in a row, C&RT will make a loss on charitable giving. Hopefully, that loss will be slightly smaller than in past years. Taken together with C&RT's recent admission that none of its Waterways Partnerships had managed to obtain third party funding for their Three Year Plans, one is left wondering what the financial advantages of C&RT being a charity really are ...

C&RT operates a traffic light system for measuring its KPI's against interim and year end targets -

    - Green indicates that the KPI is ahead of target
    - Yellow indicates that the KPI is behind target (possibly recoverable by year end)
    - Red indicates that the KPI target cannot be achieved (unrecoverable by year end)

'Friends' has been red since month 4. By month 10 another five KPI's had joined it -

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Is a new logo enough to close C&RT's financial black hole?

24/3/2018

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Why does Canal & River Trust appear to be floundering and making changes which begin to look a lot like desperation? Just five years in, it is changing everything from its internal structures to boat licences and even selling off marinas – to say nothing of yet another corporate identity. Peter Underwood has been taking a long look at what lies behind the incessant urge to change.

The Canal & River Trust was born out of a Tory Prime Minister's urge to create what he called a 'third sector solution'. The problem he was 'solving' was government's financial responsibility for a national asset of global importance – the British waterways.

David Cameron wanted to privatise the waterways but could not go as far as selling them to commercial interests as there was no private sector appetite for sustaining them as navigations. His solution was to pass them to a charity, not a proper charity, but one created by government and unaccountable to members or users.

In the preceding decade, under British Waterways, there had been unprecedented investment in the waterways, often with lottery cash, that saw major restorations like the Rochdale and Huddersfield canals.

Yet, with the active help of British Waterways executives, who argued that it would be even easier to access lottery funds and local authority cash and the alternative was ever-shrinking budgets within the public sector, C&RT was established. It was a sort of low key tribute to the neo liberal view of economics that wanted to avoid tax money going to public sector work.

The sweetener was an annual grant from Defra of £40m a year with an extra £10m if C&RT met certain targets.

The sting in the tail was that that additional £10m starts to decrease year by year after 2022 and the grant itself ends in 2027 with no guarantees there will ever be any more cash from government.

Five years on, and 2022 looks alarmingly close and 2027 not that far away – and that is what underlies all the frantic management efforts to re position C&RT in the public mind.

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C&RT boss won't reverse unjust removal of Northern Reaches adoption

20/3/2018

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Canal & River Trust's interim waterways manager for the North West, Steve Higham, is adamantly refusing to reinstate the Owd Lanky Boater's adoption of the Tewitfield lock flight – despite admitting that he can't justify the ending of the agreement by his predecessor Chantelle Seaborn just before her departure from the Trust.

Steve Higham agreed to speak to The Floater's Peter Underwood and the interview was recorded in a busy bar at Liverpool Marina.

He began by introducing a claim that Owd Lanky's Colin Ogden, who has been the most succesful advocate and restorer of the Lancaster Canal's Northern Reaches had failed to report an accident in which a volunteer's ankle was trapped – the first time any such allegation had been made in this context.

When challenged he swiftly moved off the topic, and a telephone call to Colin Ogden later revealed that the incident didn't occur on C&RT land, there was no serious injury and a C&RT official was made aware of it. Colin said: “My wife had been admitted to hospital at the time, but I knew C&RT were aware of it from others and the person concerned assured me he was OK and not to worry.” Steve Higham also claimed Mountain Rescue teams were called in but, in reality the injured man called on his friends in Mountain Rescue who took him to his car and his wife took him for a check up.

Steve Higham went on, during the interview to admit that he didn't really understand why Chantelle Seaborn cancelled the adoption but stubbornly refused to change his decision to support her actions.

The Floater is taking the unusual step of making the whole interview, with just two minor edits to remove extraneous material, available to Floater readers.

Listen to it for yourself. The recording is in mp3 format and it runs for about 40 minutes

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The C&RT bonus culture

18/3/2018

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A Gender Pay Gap statement issued on 8 March shows that the Canal & River Trust is still operating a bonus culture, writes Allan Richards.

The statement, whilst demonstrating a clean bill of health on gender pay, reveals that more than four in ten staff received one or more bonus payments in the 12 months to April last year. The statement is confirmed as accurate by the Trust's Chief Executive, Richard Parry.

Changes in legislation mean that, from 2017 onwards, private and voluntary-sector employers in England, Scotland and Wales with 250 or more employees must calculate their gender pay and gender bonus gaps as they are on 5 April each year. The information generated must be published before March 30 the following year.

Acas (who provide information, advice, training, conciliation and other services for employers and employees) and GEO (the Government Equalities Office) suggest that the data is published as soon as possible. However, this advice appears to have been ignored by the Trust who waited almost a year and then provided a press release linking its delayed publication to International Women’s Day.

Employers are required to publish six figures;

1. average gender pay gap as a mean average

2. average gender pay gap as a median average

3. average bonus gender pay gap as a mean average

4. average bonus gender pay gap as a median average

5. proportion of males receiving a bonus payment and proportion of females receiving a bonus payment

6. proportion of males and females when divided into four groups ordered from lowest to highest pay.

It took just a few seconds with a calculator to find that a high number of the Trust's workforce is being paid bonus.

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Waterway Partnerships cost £800,000 a year and failed to raise ANY cash

16/3/2018

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C&RT’s reorganisation grinds on. It appears to be aimed at shedding senior managers by decentralising many of the functions centralised by Chief Executive, Richard Parry, just a few years ago. Evidently, the Trust is trying a ‘new broom’ approach, with the old broom still in charge. Allan Richards delves deeper into one of the reasons for reorganisation - Waterways Partnerships failure to attract funding.

Ten Waterways Managers will be replaced by six Regional Directors (What will become of the Waterways Managers?) and ten Waterway Partnerships chairs replaced with six Regional Advisory Board Chairs (Regional Advisory Boards replace Waterway Partnerships). At the same time, the Trust intends to rebrand itself replacing its ‘swan sanctuary’ logo with a new one - at a cost of £2 million, if disgruntled staff are to be believed.

A month ago, The Floater reported that a serious complaint had been made to the Information Commissioner (Complaint to Information Commissioner over fake document as C&RT blames junior member of staff), which could potentially result in court action against the Trust and one or more of its employees. That complaint has been fast-tracked, with a senior case officer now awaiting a response from the Trust before deciding how to proceed.

The information request that led to the complaint also asked for financial information relating to Eat Midlands Waterway Partnership Three Year Action Plan. This was because C&RT’s Trustees were informed:

’Partnerships are working on the assumption that they will have to secure funding for projects in their Action Plans. With local knowledge and contacts they may be able to forge new partnerships and secure significant grants to fund their projects. However, the Trust may choose to provide match funding for strategic initiatives on a project-by-project basis. Work is in hand to establish the costs of the Action Plans at a macro level, for the guidance of Trustees, and indicative funding sources. These estimates will be part of the SWP [i.e. the ten yearStategic Waterway Plan].’

Based on that, C&RT were asked to provide details of funding secured by East Midlands Waterways Partnership for Action Plan projects, match funding provided by C&RT and any other funds provided by the Trust.

C&RT’s initial response was that the East Midlands Partnership had secured no funding itself over three years but that it had provided the £189,000 of match funding over the three years of the plan. Fairly obviously, if East Midlands WP had secured no funding for Action Plan Projects then C&RT could not match fund this with £189,000!

C&RT eventually admitted, that the £189,000 was not match funding but was 'other funding' provided to the Partnership to carry out its activities. Furthermore, these activities were not necessarily linked to to the Partnership's Three Year Action Plan published in 2014.

Other requests, have now resulted in figures for all Waterways Partnerships being provided, and they make disturbing reading: -

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C&RT license hike plans alienate all sides

15/3/2018

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It seems that Canal & River Trust has managed to upset both friends and foes with it chaotic licensing review and selective use of the confused findings – just as many boaters predicted when it was first announced. Peter Underwood reports.

Having sacked its consultants after the first two phases of the review, when it was clear it wasn't getting the answers it wanted, and hiring yet another expensive consultancy at a cost yet to be disclosed, it seems C&RT has managed to impose changes on boat licensing that annoy almost everyone – and renege on the promises that the result would be both 'fairer' and 'cost-neutral.'

The Inland Waterways Association, long advocates of punishing those without a home mooring, was quick to announce that it: “.. regrets that Canal & River Trust has failed to take the opportunity to produce a modern licensing system that addresses the problems it inherited on its creation in 2012.”

IWA was miffed that – as it sees boating life – C&RT “...missed opportunity to solve some of the issues caused by the current licensing system, and in particular the effect of the continuous cruising option introduced by the British Waterways Act 1995 as an alternative to having a home mooring.”

It also questions the cost: “After spending a significant amount of resource on a major review and consultation, it is disappointing that so little has come of it.”

According to the IWA, the review does nothing to address two of it’s key concerns; the increasing use of widebeam boats on what it calls 'inappropriate waterways' to the detriment of other waterways users, and ensuring that boaters without a home mooring cruise an 'appropriate distance', 300 miles in the IWA's estimation.

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Boater cleared of assault on rowing marshall

13/3/2018

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A still from the video filmed during the confrontation

A boater labelled a ‘Hammer-Wielding Bird Lover’ by the media has been cleared of an alleged assault after a a group of rowing marshalls claimed he had attacked them.

The National Bargee Travellers Association reports that James Deane, a disabled Cambridge boat dweller who says he was attacked by a group of rowing marshals and then arrested for alleged assault on one of them, was found not guilty of all charges at Huntingdon Magistrates court.

The District Judge declared that Mr Deane had acted lawfully and with ‘less than reasonable force’ to defend himself and his houseboat from the attack.

NBTA says that the Judge agreed that the marshals had acted unlawfully and without authority, effectively taking the law into their own hands by seizing the man’s boat and falsely claiming that the boat dweller was navigating in the authorised area of the race on 3rd December 2016.

It says: “Rowing Marshal Tony Nelder appears to have coerced the police into arresting Mr Deane and then instigated a slanderous media campaign against him. Nelder, a former policeman, is alleged to have dragged James Deane off his boat.

“The hammer was shown to have only been used as a barrier to prevent further attack by the marshals and at no point came into contact with anyone, although the marshals and the media implied that it had been used as a weapon.”

Following the incident James Deane faced widespread national condemnation at the hands of the media, who labelled him a 'hammer wielding bird lover', as well as abuse from local boaters directly associated with rowing clubs.

NBTA says Mr Deane was, in fact, performing an important public service by clearing the river of bicycles and shopping trolleys that had been thrown in at the Tesco footbridge and taking them to the water point at the entrance to Stourbridge Common.

George Wills who defended James Deane in court, argued that the President of the City of Cambridge Rowing Club, had overall responsibility for ensuring accurate notification of the race location, which was shown on the Cam Conservancy website as taking place between Chesterton footbridge (Green Dragon) and Baits Bite lock, at least 300m away from where the his client was navigating.

Tony Nelder, the race marshall at the centre of the incident, eventually accepted that the man he allegedly attacked was in fact navigating completely lawfully in an area outside of the race location advertised on the river authority's website, according to the NBTA. The website is the only method of notifying other river users of race locations.

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Is C&RT selling BWML to pay off £13m loan?

9/3/2018

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Canal & River Trust has decided to throw in the towel with its BWML marina subsidiary and sell it. This will allow one of BWML’s larger competitors, or a new competitor, to expand massively by acquiring 18 marinas and over 3,000 berths. Allan Richards delves into BWML’s history.

BWML came into being in 2004 after the trade accused British Waterways of anti competitive practices with regard to the operation of its larger marinas. British Waterways Marinas Ltd as it was then, was set up as an arms length subsidiarity company with BW providing both directors and equity. BW and C&RT have always claimed that it treats BWML no differently from any other marina operator.

In 2006, BW decided to encourage private building of new marinas to cope with a shortfall in berths and expected increase in demand. It set up a New Marina Unit and published an ‘Inland Marina Investment Guide’. The guide stated ‘During the past two years,British Waterways subsidiary marina company (BWML) has raised its prices significantly above the rate of inflation and has perceived no resultant reduction in demand.’ Elsewhere, the guide stated 'Our demand forecasts point to the need for up to 11,700 new marina berths by 2015. This could be met by the creation of 47 x 250 berth marinas.’

This initiative introduced the Network Agency Agreement (NAA) which compelled new marina operators to pay the navigation authority nine per cent of mooring fees assuming 100 per cent occupancy. It also led to a policy for closure of one online mooring berth for every ten created in a new marina.

Suffice to say, by 2015 less than half the 11,700 marina berths originally projected were built. However, in many parts of the country, supply far exceeded demand leading to under occupancy. BWML has suffered along with other Marina operators in this respect. It’s occupancy rate was quoted in its last annual report as 77 per cent. This is unchanged from 2012!

Its flagship marina, Sawley, has been reported to be even worse off with one in three berths empty. On a positive note, the vast majority of its marinas are not subject to standard NAA agreement which is financially crippling some competitors.

In 2011, BW Financial Director and director of BWML, Philip Ridal suggested to the BW's board that they should take advantage of competitors misfortunes. He proposed that C&RT’s investment in BWML be increased from from £6.2m by up to £4m. This extra equity was to be used to buy failing marina businesses at advantageous prices and further develop existing sites including conversion to a high proportion of residential berths. He called it 'expansion by acquisition'.

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Canal & River Trust tries to mitigate HS2 impact

7/3/2018

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The Canal & River Trust is trying to persuade politicians to change existing plans for the new high speed rail link North of Birmingham, the section that runs from the West Midlands to Crewe will impact on the Trent and Mersey Canal in three places, and may mean canal closures over many years, as Alec Wood reports.

The Trust has submitted its formal petition against the High Speed 2 Phase 2a Hybrid Bill to the House of Commons Private Bills Office, identifying a number of areas where it would like changes made to the Bill to mitigate the effects of HS2 on the Trent & Mersey Canal, both during the construction phase and when the trains are running.

Peter Walker, national infrastructure services manager at the Canal & River Trust, explained: “Phase 2a has three particular locations along the Trent & Mersey Canal that we’re concerned about and want to work with HS2 to make changes.

“We’re not against HS2, but it’s really important that the impact on the canal network is minimised. We want the best deal for the waterways and think HS2 could work harder to mitigate the impact than their plans currently propose.”

The main areas of concern are:

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Higher costs for wide boats but no CCer penalty - yet

7/3/2018

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After claiming it wanted to simplify the licensing system the Canal & River Trust has now announced it is about to make it more complicated and expensive for some. It also seems to have quietly abandoned it's earlier claims that changes would be revenue neutral, as Peter Underwood reports.

It now seems the purpose of the consultation was 'to ensure the financial contribution made by boaters towards the cost of looking after the waterways is spread fairly across the boating community' according to C&RT.

It intends to achieve that by an additional charge, of up to 20 per cent, on wider boats, to be phased in over the five years, with three pricing bands for boat width, in addition to the existing bands for boat length, which remain unchanged.

It is also slashing the prompt payment discount and making dark threats about 'undertaking further work to develop a fair means of reflecting the benefits experienced by boaters without home moorings who remain in the most popular places like London'.

Despite that C&RT has backed off any attempt to charge boats without a home mooring more than those with – but not before splitting the boater community down the middle.