Memorandum submitted by Simon Robbins
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. That British Waterways (BW) should make
it a priority to fund repairs to the "Mon and Brec"
Canal at the earliest possible opportunity, seems entirely reasonable.
2. That in order to achieve this aim, other
projects would be sacrificed and/or postponed also seems inevitable.
3. While on balance it seems reasonable
that funding repairs to an existing navigable canal should take
preference over a restoration project, it seems many stakeholders
feel that rather than working with them to deal with the challenge,
BW elected to walk away from the Cotswolds Canals project without
notice or warning, leaving the other parties to pick up the mess.
I anticipate that such allegations are ones you may look at more
closely.
4. Obviously the overall funding situation
they face makes the business judgements that BW have to make,
particularly in the wake of a major infrastructure failure, more
keen than ever. No one doubts that greater financial contributions
from government might assist matters.
5. However I do not believe that this difficult
financial situation is of itself justification for BW apparently
failing to tackle this difficult challenge in a more open and
more inclusive way than they have appear to have done.
6. I suggest it is at those most challenging
times that involvement and engagement with stakeholders has most
value and is of the utmost importance. It may have proved that
wider dialogue the outcome would have been the same. However that
is in my view no excuse for not showing some courtesy to your
partners and stakeholders when taking a decision that directly
effects them.
7. I hope this point is one that your current
enquiry will examine.
DETAILED COMMENTS
8. My interest in this matter is as a boating
customer of British Waterways and a waterways campaigner of many
years standing, but also as a witness during your enquiry into
British Waterways in 2007. My affiliations and interests are as
previously described. I remain a Council Member of the National
Association of Boat Owners, a Member of the London Waterways Commission,
a member of the Residential Boat Owners Association, the Barge
Association and an Associate Member of the Parliamentary Waterways
Group. I offer these comments solely in a personal capacity.
9. I welcome the Committee's wish to examine
recent decisions about BW's funding priorities in the context
of their other restoration and maintenance commitments.
10. What I go on to say below is also in
part intended to highlight some of the issues that I raised in
my evidence last year, issues which seem to me to be very pertinent
to more recent events.
MAINTENANCE
11. In my evidence to the committee last
year I commented that despite overall improvements in maintenance,
"The network is still fragile in places . . . "
12. Recent events on the Mon and Brec have
demonstrated this in stark and devastating terms.
13. There is also no doubt that BW subsequently
faced a difficult financial challenge when the extent of the repairs
necessary became apparent.
14. It is also no surprise, (especially
following last year's evidence to you, and the subsequent settlement
for the coming year from DEFRA), that BW apparently have no contingency
funds available to address such a significant and unforeseeable
infrastructure failure, other than to cut or postpone other projects.
15. The short term impact on other projects
is also abundantly clear in this case and one hopes your current
enquiry will increase everyone's understanding of these issues.
16. These events also seem to confirm exactly
how precarious the maintenance of our waterways remains in more
general terms, when a single catastrophic event can lead to unexpected
liabilities of the magnitude that have arisen in this instance.
17. There is of course an ongoing anxiety
about where the axe might fall in the future if there is a "next
time" or if repairs to the Mon and Brec prove to be even
more expensive than BW already estimate.
STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT
18. However it is the way in which BW appear
to have responded in this case which I find most alarming and
to which I direct my remaining comments.
19. It is sadly of little surprise to me
that all the reports I have seen suggest that BW's Senior Management
Team reached their decision to withdraw funding from the Cotswold
Canals Partnership without first taking detailed soundings from
those stakeholders most effected.
20. It seems BW did not even go so far as
to pre-warn their partners and other supporters of the Cotswolds
Canal project.
21. Ironically past experience suggests
that in the long term it may be that the Cotswolds Canals Partnership
will ultimately become stronger and more effective without BW
as an active funding partner. That at least is my hope.
22. However in the meantime many stakeholders
feel the decision making process was seriously flawed due to a
lack of stakeholder involvement and we are grateful that you may
shortly be looking at these issues more closely.
23. When I gave evidence to you last year,
in my executive summary I said, " . . . I believe British
Waterways must improve performance on Openness and Accountability".
24. I also described further on in my summary
a frustration that I detected among stakeholders, which I described
as " . . . . frustration at feeling excluded from the decision
process . . . "
25. If the decision to in part fund repairs
to the Mon and Brec, by reneging on the existing commitment to
the Cotswolds Canal Partnership, was indeed reached without consulting
widely in advance, this appears to be stark confirmation of these
concerns about poor and inconsistent stakeholder engagement on
BW's part.
26. Events also of course raise the question,
when can a promise from BW to be relied on?
27. I do not deny or doubt that BW faced
a huge challenge in the matter of funding repairs to the Mon and
Brec but complaints about the way they reached their decision
in respect of the Cotswolds Canals funding appear consistent with
what I am finding in other areas to be what I would characterise
as an increasingly arrogant and detached attitude from senior
BW managers.
28. Some of the "other areas"
were brought to your attention last year. I think particularly
of the following items in respect of national policy toward boaters,
my greatest area of personal interest.
— BW's unilateral decision to suspend
mooring waiting lists and press ahead with the Moorings Tenders
Trail, before undertaking any phase of public consultation,
— BW's unilateral withdrawal of financial
support for the Boat Safety Scheme, again without prior public
consultation,
— BW's attempts last year to forcibly
remove boaters from long term linear moorings, without adequate
consultation, nationally or with the boat owners concerned.
29. I can also offer a subsequent example
which you may not be aware of. BW pre-judged the recent public
consultation on Craft Licensing fees by promising a trade lobby
to reduce the differential paid by commercial hire boats before
the public consultation document was issued. Although many in
the inland boating community would I believe be sympathetic to
this suggestion, that does not mitigate the lack of courtesy in
not asking us before a decision was reached.
30. I must also highlight to you BW's comments
in reply to an official complaint from the National Association
of Boat Owners (NABO) and which they have repeated publicly to
others in the case of the Moorings Tenders Trail. Their letter
to NABO includes the comment:
"There may or may not be major obstacles
to an auction or tender process working successfully. We don't
believe that formal consultation would illuminate these in any
further significant degree of detail, but a trial will."
(Simon Salem BW Marketing and Customer Service Director in a letter
of 21 June 2007).
31. I personally believe that this comment
displays contempt for BW's supposed stakeholders. That BW feel
they can waive or omit steps in their published consultation guidelines
just because they anticipate (rightly or I believe, wrongly) that
they will not learn anything new from the process seems to me
an extremely risky judgement to make. It also I believe undermines
any spirit of inclusion or co-operation with stakeholders.
32. Although the examples above sit outside
your direct areas of inquiry on this occasion, I hope my concerns
about poor engagement with stakeholders are a theme you will be
able to explore further.
CONCLUSION
33. I submit that poor performance on involvement
and consultation remains an endemic problem in BW's relationships
with many stakeholders and in its business planning generally.
The way in which BW's funding was withdrawn from the Cotswolds
Canal Partnership appears to me to be a rather stark example of
what I feel is a more widespread problem.
34. I hope these comments are of assistance
and please revert to me if there is anything I have said which
you wish me to expand on.
35. May I also presume on behalf of the
wider waterways community to thank the Committee for its continued
scrutiny of British Waterways, which I, and I believe many others,
greatly value.
Simon Robbins
March 2008
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