Where it can be said or thought.
Voting for the Canal and River Trust Council starts tomorrow, 8th February. Liveaboard boater Frank Kelly, who helped to prevent BW from introducing its draconian and unlawful mooring strategy for the River Lea, is standing for election to one of the four private boater places on the Council.
The Public Bodies Bill that will enable the government to transfer BW to a charity, gained Royal Assent on 14 December and is now law. There is still time to object to the registration of the Canal and River Trust. We understand that the application to register the charity will be made very soon so there isn’t a lot of time to get your objections in.
We can bring you the full text of Waterways Minister Richard Benyon’s written statement of apology to the House of Commons for pre-empting the results of DEFRA’s second consultation on the new waterways charity, which includes the issue of whether the Canal and River Trust will be subject to FOI. Mr Benyon wrote:
Waterways Minister Richard Benyon today apologised to MP Duncan Hames for giving him an incorrect answer to his question about whether the new Canal and River Trust would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The Minister had said that the charity would be subject to the FOI Act in the same way as BW is now.
The BW Annual General Meeting is on Thursday October 13th at The Bond Company, 180 -182 Fazeley Street, Digbeth, Birmingham B5 5SE at 10.30am to 3.30pm. BW is a public body and members of the public are entitled to go. You don’t have to be a representative of an organisation. This year’s meeting will be an opportunity to ask the Transition Trustees questions, for example how the new waterways charity proposes to safeguard the rights of liveaboard boaters and protect them from unlawful enforcement, summary eviction and homelessness.
The Public Bill Committee is not likely to consider the transfer of British Waterways to charity status until after 10th October when it will examine Schedule 5 of the Public Bodies Bill and BW’s amendment (99A) to the Bill. This means there is another opportunity to lobby the Committee etc. Here are four things you can do.
1. Write to your MP.
2. Write to the 19 MPs on the Public Bill Committee – members have already considered letters they have had on other issues.
3. Submit written evidence to the Committee – members of the public can do this, and some of us have done so already.
4. See your MP at one of their surgeries.
An example letter, contact details for the Committee members, guidance on submitting evidence and how to find MPs surgeries are below.
A petition here;
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/14617
British Waterways employees were denied a pay rise last year due to ‘lack of funds’. This year some staff were awarded a £200 PA rise and were told that there was no more money to offer.
It was recently announced that as there would be a 9 Million Pound defecit at the end of this financial year
The Directors of British Waterways will be paid lump sum bonuses of up to £15,000 this year. The Chief Executive (Robin Evans) will get a £15,000 payment on top of his annual wage of £222,000. Other Directors will all receive a £12,500 lump sum payment.
The bonuses equate to one third of the whole pay pot for 0.5% of BW staff compared to two thirds of the pot being shared between 99.5% of the staff.
The signatories of this petition believe that the government should intervene and stop these bonus payments and the money should be spent on waterway maintenance instead.