IanD

Huge, pressing and intractable problems -- you mean, like CART has? Robin Evans was right, the canals would probably have been better off if they'd stayed in the public sector. The problem was that he didn't seem to recognise the canal problems (massive maintenance backlog, getting worse in future due to underfunding) and wore rose-tinted glasses about where future funding might come from -- which turned out to be utter pie-in-the-sky... 😞 None of which gets us out of the mess we're in today, but blaming Richard Parry for this is pure scapegoating, which it seems is largely coming from people who don't want to admit that the government they believed in and their "flog-it-off-get-it-off-the-books" policies is really where the responsibility lies -- as in so many other areas... 😞

Well they should have been, if they hadn't been wearing rose-tinted glasses... 😞 The problem with things like this is that it's easy to fall into a "groupthink" position, where everyone convinces everyone else that it's all going to be wonderful, and any naysayers are squeezed out or told to shut up. Just look at lots of things the last government did (or didn't do), or Brexit... 😞

Both of which were ludicrous targets -- the first for the obvious reason that unlike the NT there are simply not that many people bothered about the canals, and the second because this would have meant sorting out all the maintenance problems which would have needed several hundred millions of pounds (for the backlog) and much higher income per year (where from?) to do. If the board think this is Parry's fault they should sack themselves, they're *all* responsible (together with the government) for this... 😞 I can't help think that you're blaming Parry to avoid the blame falling on the government that's been in power almost the entire time since CART was formed, who I know you strongly support... 😉

No evidence that I can see, except that this was what @Allan(nb Albert) claimed. I agree with your second paragraph -- according to many people (but not some on CWDF) he's made a good try at a challenging job, knows what he's talking about, hasn't personally become ultra-rich as a result, and probably wants to either retire or let someone else struggle with the fundamental problems which have not been fixed and look likely to worsen in the future.

Kicking the can down the road is the easy way to look good in the short-term, which is precisely why so many companies do it. In the private sector this is driven by shareholder profit and fat executive bonuses, though it's less easy to see how Parry could have got rich this way -- I'm sure he could have done far better elsewhere if money was what was driving him. "Simplistically" is often the problem, people (not you!) looking for simple answers to complex problems, and often jumping to conclusions when they don't have all the information... 😉 "Common sense" doesn't work in cases like this -- I've been involved in deciding which way to go several times in the past, sometimes outsourcing looks to be the best solution *and is* (even though "common sense" says otherwise), sometimes it turns out to be a bad idea and you bring the work back inhouse. Again, not clear which way CART should have gone even with hindsight, but I expect a lot of people with access to a lot more information than we've got made the decision. And before saying "As we know" about nationalised industries -- yes there is definitely some truth in this, but it ignores the fact that exactly the same is true about many private companies too (I've worked in some of them). The problem with asking the private sector to build/maintain infrastructure or provide services is that their primary aim is to make profit, not to provide the best service or long-term invest in infrastructure -- which is why the water companies and many others are in the mess they're in today, because the quickest way to increase profit is to cut costs and the easiest way to do this is not to spend money which won't show any benefit for many years.

You might be correct, but the problem is that this is all speculation, there's no evidence -- as opposed to ideology -- either way. When organisations need to save money or balance the budgets, selling off assets (including property and equipment) to make short-term gains is common, in fact it's been the way that most of the UK has operated this century, flogging off the family silver to boost short-term income, and moving away from inhouse labour to contractors. The received wisdom -- certainly, in Tory circles -- is that this saves money and is more efficient, though short-term planning/finance taking priority over long-term investment is also part of the problem. And in some cases it is more efficient, but in others it gains in the short-term but loses in the long-term. Which is bad, but being under short-term financial pressure many organisations do just that... 😞 I'm not convinced that it's obvious even with the benefit of hindsight whether CART did the right thing or not moving to this model -- but I'm sure that a lot of people with a lot more insider knowledge than you or I thought it was the best thing to do... 😉

Nope -- IIRC the basic funding/operating parameters for CRT were set before Parry joined, then afterwards he had to come up with the infamous "Ten-Year Plan" to try and deliver them. The fact that this was unrealistic (and didn't even address the maintenance backlog) doesn't make it his fault -- what else could he have done? Told the directors they were in cloud-cuckoo land? How would that have gone down coming from somebody new to the job? In recent years Parry has been making it very clear where the problems with the canals lie, especially regarding funding -- and with not-so-subtle comments about why CRT have appeared to be prioritising non-boaters (because that's what DEFRA and the government want them to do, hence all the KPIs). I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the real reason he's been kicked out -- assuming you're correct and he was pushed rather than jumped -- because the parties involved don't like it being pointed out in public where the real blame lies... 😉

Please provide actual evidence for your claim that inhouse labour is cheaper than using contractors in this particular case. Just because contractors make a profit doesn't mean inhouse would be cheaper, for example inhouse means you have all the capital costs of expensive equipment only needed some of the time which contractors can share across multiple customers. Monitoring to do "preventative maintenance" only works if you have the budget to do the monitoring and the maintenance, so what this really means is that the (huge and increasing) maintenance backlog needs reducing -- which it does and would be great, if only CART had a few hundred million quid lying around to do this. How do you propose this should be done without the money to pay for it? All you're doing is dumping the blame onto Parry for the funding gap that was there when CART was set up (>£100M maintenance backlog before this happened IIRC -- 2006?) and has been growing ever since (increased costs, reducing DEFRA grant in real terms) and will get worse in the future. Sacking him might vent your spleen and make you feel better, but it isn't going to do a damn thing to help get the canals out of the mess they're in, and might well make it worse... 😞

Given that it's now obvious that the financial projections made when CART was set up (before Parry joined, IIRC) were totally unrealistic, especially the pie-in-the-sky projections of massively increased donations, plus the static/falling in real terms DEFRA grant, and the huge maintenance backlog they inherited which has been growing ever since -- how is it Parry's fault that he failed to deliver the impossible, which is a better result for less money in spite of increasing costs? How do you suggest anyone else could have done better, given the same constraints? Why do you think replacing him will help in future, given that the financial gap will only get worse as the DEFRA grant starts to fall (even faster in real terms after inflation)? All you're doing is making him a scapegoat for something he didn't propose and couldn't fix -- and going by what has happened many times in industry, replacing the head of an organisation without changing the fundamental cause of the problem doesn't succeed, in fact it usually makes things worse due to costs and upheavals at changeover... 😞 And if the board have done this and blamed him and pushed him out for "failing", they should be sacked -- because *they're* ignoring the elephant in the room, and hoping to distract from it by performative politics -- or maybe they want to replace him with somebody less vocal about the problems the canals face and the reasons behind them, which he has been pretty clear about in recent years... 😉

Does that include poisoning innocent people in foreign countries with Novichok because you don't like someone who criticises you? Sorted... 😞

And if you put forward an opinion that others disagree with -- for example that Trump is in no way similar to Hitler -- then expect to get some pushback if your opinion doesn't match reality... 😉

Anyone figured out who he is yet? I can think of several candidates, all unpleasant...

You could indeed say that, and shouldn't then be surprised if other people come down on you like a ton of bricks, because your opinion is a fantasy with no factual basis behind it -- exactly the opposite.

You know, like Trump -- stuff that spews out with no facts to back it up or that is simply complete fiction. Several other posters do the same (or were banned), I wonder if this one is a sock puppet for one of them?

Hang on -- new member, 6 posts, throwing out provocative non-fact-based right-wing opinions. I spy with my little eye... 😉 He can go and join the others on the naughty step...

So what are you suggesting -- that Parry is a thief, or corrupt, or just useless. Go on, spit it out... 😉 You said "good riddance" but seem unwilling to give any real (you know, with some factual basis...) reasons why, except that you seem to dislike the guy intensely...

So about half the level the article is making a (possibly justified) fuss about then. More guilt by association... 😞

Which is salaries above £400k. How much does Parry get? Why? Nobody's saying he's an "endlessly wonderful godhead", just that he's a decent bloke who seems to be interested in and knowledgeable about the canals and is doing the best he can given the resources available. Do you disagree? 😉 If you think a visionary can "sort it all out" without more money, I have a bridge you might want to buy. Lastly -- if that's who the executive recruitment agency say is the best man/woman/whatever for the job, why not? The recruitment agency is being paid (a fortune!) to try and find the best candidate for the job -- let's wait and see who they pick before complaining about it. And if that turns out to be somebody who boaters like even less than Parry -- well you moaned about him and now he's gone, you got what you wanted, get over it... 😉

IIRC the answer is that they're not allowed to do this, they can only do things which ensure the safety of everyone else... 😉

Yes there are, especially where promotion is based on "time served" or "who you know" not merit -- I've seen plenty who knew f*ck-all about the business and weren't fit to manage a whelk stall... 😞 However this is classic "guilt by association" -- I can see little or no evidence that Richard Parry is one of these ignoramuses, if anything the opposite seems to be true.

Because there's a big difference between knowing about the business that you work in and knowing how to run that business; promoting from within the ranks is not always a good idea, see the Peter Principle -- as I've seen in action several times over the years... 😞 If the recruitment agency does their job properly they should consider both internal and external candidates, and choose the best person for the job. That's what they're supposed to be paid for... 😉