Underspend on the underspend
A FREEDOM of Information document has revealed that Canal & River Trust is to spend £20 millions less on maintenance over the next three years than it has led Parliament to believe!
According to the Trust, its Three Year Plan (Business Plan 2015/16-17/18) ‘reflects the ambitious 10 year strategy recently published by the Trust'.
Less spend than planned
However, anyone thinking that this plan includes additional spend on the waterways is in for a shock. Over the next three years, the Trust will spend some £20m less than it originally planned on maintenance.
Back in 2012, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) select committee expressed concern at some of the financial consequences of British Waterways becoming a Trust. British Waterways responded by way of supplementary written evidence addressing the concern of the the ‘black hole' in its pension fund and by providing a funding model giving projections up to 2026/27.
As part of the funding model, projections were given for spend on ‘core waterways' and ‘major works' which together make up the amount spent on maintenance each year.
Different format
CaRT's latest Three Year Plan, uses a different format to present its figures making comparison with the projection given to the select committee impossible. However, a request under the Freedom of Information Act has resulted in CaRT providing the Three Year Plan in the previous format.
The figures, which are in the public domain (as part of Parliamentary records and whatdotheyknow.com) have been extracted and placed in the table which shows that, over the next three years, CaRT intends to spend £20,143,000 less on maintenance that it told Parliament.
Most of the reduced spend is on major works with CaRT spending £6m less this year alone.
£105m or £130m
It is now almost two years ago that CaRT were asked to explain why two directors had given completely different figures on ‘steady state' (£105m or £130m?). Even if CaRT had kept to the figures given to Parliament, it would still be dramatically underspending on maintenance.
The underspend of £20.1m on the already admitted underspend on ‘steady state' just makes matters worse!
Hiding the facts
Perhaps it thought that, by changing the way that they present the figures, they could hide it.
It is little wonder that a survey commissioned by CaRT found that only one in four boaters feel respected by the Trust.
... and it tried to hide that as well!
[Some two months back CaRT were asked to provide the total estimated cost of remedying all 59,000 defects on its waterways recorded as outstanding on 1st April 2015. It has yet to provide an answer.]