Failure to publish minutes

A FORMAL complaint has been made that Canal & River Trust's trustees are failing to ensure that minutes of Board meetings and associated documents are being published, writes Allan Richards.

The complaint follows the failure of the Trust to publish minutes of any of its meetings since November 2012 and other Board papers since May 2012.

Voluntary basis

It was in early 2012, before the Trust came into legal being that the trustees designate decided they would publish minutes of meetings and associated documents on a voluntary basis. At the time they were not legally obliged to do so because they were not subject to the Freedom of Information Act that requires that certain types of information to be made available proactively via a publication scheme.

However, whilst the commitment to publish has never been rescinded, the fact remains that publishing has now stopped with no minutes for over six months and no Board papers for over a year.

No senior manager

The initial response to the complaint from CaRT's Customer Service Co-ordinator Sarina Young was, 'I am writing to let you know that we are considering your complaint at the second level of our complaints procedure in the first instance. This is because there is no senior manager with overall responsibility for this area of the Trust to investigate your complaint at the first level.'

This is rather hard to believe as one would expect, unless delegated to another director, it would be the responsibility of the secretary to the Board, Nigel Johnson, to ensure that the trustees' wishes are carried out with regard to board papers and minutes.

Of course this does not relieve the Board of its responsibility to ensure that its wishes are carried out.

With up to 200 now involved in the governance of CaRT you'd think somebody might have noticed!