The visitors scandal

ROBIN Evans joined British Waterways in 1999 as Commercial Director and became its Chief Executive in December 2002, writes Allan Richards.

The ambition

The 2002/3 annual report which only covers the first three or four months of his office quotes his ambition as saying 'I want to substantially increase the number of visitors to the inland waterways in the next decade…'.

This is reinforced elsewhere in the report with him saying 'Our ambition is that by 2012 we will have created an expanded, vibrant, largely self-sufficient waterway network used by a significantly larger number of people than today. Our network is, once again, being regarded as one of the nation's most important and valued assets'.

That ambition became what we now call the '2012 vision'.  It is still the current, and can be found on British Waterways' website, albeit with slightly different wording which says  'Our ambition is that by 2012 we will have created an expanded, vibrant, largely self-sufficient waterway network used by twice as many people as in 2002…...'

Important

So why was it so important to double visitor numbers?  The answer lies in part of a directive given by government (Scotland directive differs) to British Waterways which includes as its third priority 'Delivering a range of additional public benefits'.

How do you measure something as nebulous as public benefits?  Well according to British Waterways' latest corporate plan (2011/12) it is measured by visitor numbers. The plan says 'Increasing the number of visitors (people) using the waterways is an important target for us, not least in assessing the level of public benefit that we are delivering'.

Put simply, public benefit is measured by increased visitor numbers. Double visitor numbers and public benefit is doubled.

Dr George Greener

Dr George Greener, British Waterways' previous chairman, was suitably impressed with his new chief executive's ambitions, and set him yearly targets to demonstrate increased public benefit.  The targets were expressed in terms of visitor numbers as given by a rolling telephone survey.  The surveys 2002/3 output of 3.6m was used as a base line and yearly targets set from 2003/4 leading to a doubling of that figure in 2011/12 (i.e. by next April).

It is important to note that, whilst these targets were set for the chief executive, they should also be considered as corporate targets.  Indeed, the targets are one of British Waterways' key performance indicators (KPI's) which are used to determine how well it is performing.

Greener was shortly followed by Tony Hales.  That the 'doubling targets' were kept is certain because they were mentioned by him in the 2009/10 annual report.  He managed to  twist the figures in order to make a totally false claim that British Waterways had increased its visitor numbers by 48%.  Absolute nonsense!

Achievement

We will not bore you with yearly achievements against targets. Suffice to say every target has been missed.  Indeed, performance has been appalling with visitor numbers nowhere near the yearly targets and many below the start point of 3.6m.

Indeed, British Waterways' latest annual report shows that visitor numbers were just 3.8m (Page 10) against the years  target of 6.9m.  Sadly, after eight years British Waterways' visitor numbers has made no real progress despite spending over £4m a year on marketing.

Magically reduced!

But is this monumental failure fairly reported in BW's annual reports.  No it is not! Not only do we have Tony Hales twisting the numbers in the 2009/10 report, but those who actually take the trouble to look at a page 10 of British Waterways' latest annual report (2010/11) will be astounded to find that the target set for Robin Evans has magically reduced from 6.9m to just 3.5m.

This is a fairly graphic demonstration of how British Waterways attempts to hide its appalling performance from both public and government. British Waterways has reduced its 2010/11 target to less than it actually achieved, simply in order to mislead us into thinking that it is delivering on public benefit.

No shame

It seems that British Waterways has no shame with regard to its performance measure on providing public benefit.  The numbers come at us thick and fast.  The latest are the dodgy figures for Manchester as reported in narrowboatworld.  Before that it was transition trustee, John Dodwell  talking about 13 million walkers, dog walkers, joggers, anglers, cyclists etc.

It is all rather meaningless when you consider that it hides long term failure.

Sacking offence?

But is this a sacking offence?  Is it a reason that all executive directors should go? Should those directors, including Tony Hales, who are also transition trustees go?  Quite simply, long term performance against these very important targets says yes.  The attempt to hide the failure and mislead both public, government (and probably some transition trustees as well) just reinforces that.

They are all responsible. They should go and government should bear the cost.