Empire building

THE Canal & River Trust (CaRT) has come under renewed criticism following the narrowboatworld article showing that its Waterways Ombudsman scheme is a sham (Waterways Ombudsman Committee scrapped), writes Allan Richards. Whilst some boaters have given a cautious welcome to the recent initiative to improve customer service (Focuses on the customer), others are now questioning the Trust's sincerity. Hardly, surprising when it has been shown that perhaps the most important part of customer service, an ‘independent' Waterways Ombudsman scheme, is nothing but a sham.

Salem's lot

Boaters have been quick to point out that CaRT's chief executive has grabbed a large chunk of another directors empire and made it his own. Reading between the lines of the press release, Head of Boating Sally Ash, is taking the rap for the Roving Mooring Permit fiasco which led Richard Parry having to apologise to boaters who had been systematically misled for years and years.

Her departure has led to a renaming of her job to Head of Customer Services and responsibility for leisure boating, licencing and enforcement moving from Simon Salem's ‘Marketing and Fundraising' directorate to Richard's direct control.

Having already lost responsibility for moorings, Salem's lot continues to shrink. The irony is, of course, that a remaining part of his empire has had to write the press release giving the changes some positive spin!

Maintenance

Whilst Simon Salem has lost dozens of staff in the reorganisation, Operations Director, Vince Moran does not come away unscathed either. There has always been central control of both the waterways units budgets and major works (items of spend over £50,000). This control has now been extended to the planning and delivery of all engineering works.

Why? Well the answer seems to be that Vince Moran has allowed some ‘inconsistences in the rectification of outstanding work' to occur and, whilst he has given an assurance to Richard Parry that the matter has been addressed, the long term fix as far as Richard is concerned is to make him directly responsible via a central team for everything to do with engineering works.

This effectively leaves waterways unit managers, with their customer service teams, reporting to him via the new customer service manager.

Not up to the job?

Richard Parry has already taken on most of the responsibilities CaRT's ‘legal' director. Now it seems that he is poised to take on some of the responsibilities of Vince Moran and Simon Salem as well. Is it just empire building or simply a case of believing his fellow directors are not up to the job?

..... and talking of empires, is this not simply a case of fiddling whilst Rome burns? It does nothing to prevent the continuing deterioration of our waterways.