Hostility towards organisation candidates

I'VE BEEN slightly bemused by the apparent widespread hostility towards representatives of the established boater organisations being elected to the Canal & River Trust Council and would like to offer some personal thoughts on this, writes National Association of Boat Owners (NABO) Vice Chairman Simon Robbins.

Yes, I'm one of those usual suspects, currently NABO Vice Chairman. I don't want a medal or a pat on the back for my work with NABO—that's my choice.

Don't dismiss the experience

But I do hope that people will not completely dismiss the experience of those of us who by participating in organised representative groups have over many years tried in good faith to reason with British Waterways (and other navigation authorities) for a better waterways network and the best possible deal for boaters.

Let me be the first to admit that our efforts have often not been terribly fruitful. Let me be even more blunt. In NABO we often talk about our work as being about damage limitation rather than anything else!

Variety of voices

Should the organised representative groups have a monopoly on consultation structures? Absolutely not. We need a variety of voices both collective and individual. Look no further than these pages and at Allan Richards' work, which does great service to us all by illustrating the hypocrisy of British Waterways' so called commitment to openness and accountability when compared to their reticence to disclose basic management information in the form of minutes of British Waterways governance meetings.

The same goes for Allan's scrutiny of British Waterways' commercial activities; his highlighting of the absence of transparency about how many of these activities directly contribute to the maintenance of the waterways, the suggestion that these activities appear to be more about empire building than improving the waterways as a whole.

What I find more re-assuring in all this is that some of your contributors are looking at the bigger picture. Please keep going on this front!

A red herring?

Will the new Council be a red herring? (Ralph Freeman). If it goes the same way as many other so called accountability structures, my answer has to be, almost certainly, yes. The fact is British Waterways' track record is one of (barely) going through the motions when it comes to consultation, and then doing what it wants anyway, contrary to the views of those it has 'consulted' with. e.g. Moorings Auctions, Kennet & Avon and River Lee Mooring Strategies, etc.

On paper British Waterways Advisory Forum (BWAF) presently carries out a similar function to that of the Canal & River Trust Council. It has been the scene for huge differences of opinion between British Waterways senior management and the representatives who attend.

Influenced by senior managers

Therein also lies an important point. BWAF was supposed to be a direct route to the British Waterways Board, bypassing the senior management, but in reality its meetings and agendas were hugely influenced by the senior managers, who in my view did their utmost to make sure that any original thought that representatives wished to pursue did not directly reach the British Waterways Board or if it did, only after editing and qualification by those same managers.

The new Canal & River Trust Council will perhaps take members from a slightly wider constituency than BWAF, and I have no problem with that. But will it be any more effective? I have my doubts. Orph Mable mentions the same fear that I share, that the Council will simply be another talking shop with no real power or influence.

Size if council

The size of the Council also reminds me of another problem that many of us found with BWAF—trying to reach any consensus among BWAF members was always a huge challenge, and in order to reach any consensus a huge dilution process often took place. When you got to the end of that process the outcomes were often banal and uncontroversial to the point of only getting back to where we started!

Then, as above, the British Waterways senior management typically had a go at further diluting the issue! If the experience of BWAF is anything to go by, the real work, and any small progress that was achieved was done outside the formal meetings. I hope the independent representatives are aware of this and up for making the commitment.

Good intentions

I have no doubt of the good intentions of all the independent candidates, and I wish them well. It is also vitally important that we rally around whoever is eventually elected and give them support. That is not just in terms of words and banter on the forums etc. For instance are any of us in a position to offer them support building a decent web presence?

However my fear is that the genuine enthusiasm they display for contributing to improving the waterways is going to suffer a painful reality check when they come face to face with dealing with the current British Waterways Management Team.

If not listening

I'm very much in favour of having some new blood in these structures. You can have as much new blood as you want. The problem is that if the other party (British Waterways/Canal & River Trust) is not listening to what you are saying, and is only going through the motions, it will make little difference in the end.

If British Waterways/Canal & River Trust do not have any genuine commitment to acting on what representatives say it doesn't really matter who says it.