Is maintenance backlog now £117m?
DESPITE Canal & River Trust (CaRT) being a statutory navigation authority charged with maintaining its waterways for navigation it pretends not to know the cost of remedying its maintenance backlog.
On the 7th August, CaRT was asked to ‘supply the total estimated cost of remedying all defects recorded as outstanding on 1 April 2015'. However, 10 weeks later the Trust has yet to provide a figure or provide a reasonable explanation as to why it is unable to do so.
'Not held by us'!
Whilst the Trust has confirmed that the number of defect reports has jumped from 50,579 to 59,133 in the last financial year, it states that it unable to provide an estimated cost remedying outstanding defects stating 'In relation to your request for the total estimated cost of remedying all defects recorded as outstanding on 1 April 2015, this information is not held by us'.
Pointing out that that an exact figure was not required, the Trust was again asked to provide a figure or an explanation as to why it was not held.
This produced a response from CaRT's legal department!
The explanation
Julie Smith, Principal Solicitor, confirmed that the information was not held adding, by way of explanation:
'We do not attribute a cost to a defect until we reach the point at which we intend to rectify that defect. Defect notifications cover a huge range of tasks from potholes to lengths of bank protection or rebuilding of a by-wash, which will clearly cost very different amounts to fix. Therefore our approach is to develop detailed estimates in the planning year before the works are due to commence. This means that at any one time there will be many defect notifications for which no estimate is available and as such it is not possible to calculate a total estimated cost. For this reason we are unable to supply the information you have requested'.
Put rather more succinctly: ‘Our explanation for being unable to provide you with an estimated cost is that we don't have an exact cost'.
Oh dear—Let's try again!
Estimate using known costs
Dear Julie Smith,
As I believe you are well aware I requested an 'estimated cost'. However, your response indicates why you can not provide an 'exact figure.
I rather take exception to you explaining to me why you cannot calculate an 'exact cost' when that is not what I asked for!
It would appear to me that CaRT would, as a matter of course, hold the 'estimated cost' of remedying outstanding defects and update it each year. It could for example be calculated by—using the known costs of high priority defects fixed during the preceding year as a basis for the estimation or calculating the cost of a random sample of defects to provide an average cost per defect or applying an uplift to a previously known figure.
Can I ask you to provide a more considered response which actually addresses my concerns?
£59m?
Eventually Julie Smith replied:
'I now understand that you would be happy to be provided with an approximate cost of repairing the outstanding notifications based on an "average" cost of repairs. A calculation of this type gives an approximate cost of £59 million should all the defects be repaired during this financial year. This is based on an average cost per defect of £1,000'.
No Julie, the question you were meant to answer was why the Trust claims it does not hold the estimated cost of remedying outstanding defects and update it each year!
Previous cost information
Unfortunately for Julie Smith, previous cost information is already in the public domain and indicates that the backlog is double the figure she gives.
In May, Chief Executive, Richard Parry, told CaRT's Board of Trustees that last financial year CaRT repaired just 3307 defects at a cost of £6m. A further 680, at a cost of 1.9m have been carried over to this year.The calculation is as follows -
(6+1.9)/(3307+680)* 59133=£117.1 million
A few seconds
Bearing in mind that it takes just a few seconds to calculate an estimated cost of repairing outstanding defects from existing data, there is absolutely no reason to believe that CaRT do not hold this information.
... and of course, the reason given for not holding an estimated cost is simply ludicrous!
[CaRT has been asked to confirm that £117m is a reasonable estimate for the cost of rectifying outstanding defects. An explanation as to why they do not already hold an estimate is still awaited.
Defects only form part of CaRT's maintenance backlog which was estimated by British Waterways to be around £200m in 2008 and believed to be between £300 and £400m today...]