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Canal and River Trust no longer trustworthy?


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Had my attention drawn to this from Thunderboat forum.

 

Quote.

 

 

Dear Canal & River Trust

I am writing to complain that the latest Trustee Annual Report (TAR) filed with The Charity Commission on 22 December 2020 and currently posted on your website differs from that approved by your board on 24 September 2020. The approved TAR was previously posted on your website and filed at Companies House on 12 October 2020.

Publication Data relating to heritage (as required under the Defra Grant Agreement) has been altered to hide a substantial drop in condition from previous years.

Bearing in mind -

    the communication between your Chair and the Secretary of State relating to this matter.

    the notes of the Grant Review meeting on 9 December 2020 attended by your Chief Executive and three other executives (including the executive tasked by the board for filing the TAR with Companies House and the Charity Commission).

    the replacement on your website of of the board approved TAR with an unapproved TAR.
    
    the absence of board notification or approval.

- your actions can only be seen as a wilful and intentional act to provide the public and Defra with misleading and inaccurate information.

Due to the current Defra Review into your performance, your actions put not only current but also future funding of the waterways into jeopardy due to a section 11.1.5 breach of the Grant Agreement.

Equally, if not more important, is the reputational damage that you do to yourselves and charities in general by this action. By altering your TAR, you wish to convince that you are maintaining public benefit against your charitable object 2.2.

However, according to the National Association of Boat Owners, you have refused to provide details of listed buildings you have sold over the last eight years.

As you are aware, your current attempt to sell the Grade II listed Braunston Stop House has not gone unnoticed! What possible public benefit is derived from selling off buildings you should be protecting and conserving?

Retrospectively changing information about how you are providing public benefit leads to public loss of confidence. If a charity does that, how can the public have confidence that any information contained in a TAR ot otherwise provided is accurate?

Within the next five working days please provide the following -

    Details of any other changes made to your board approved TAR.

    Details of how you intent to investigate this complaint bearing in mind the seniority of those involved in altering the TAR.

Regards

Allan Richards


From CRT’s charitable objects as recorded on the Information Commissioners Website -


2.2 TO PROTECT AND CONSERVE FOR PUBLIC BENEFIT SITES, OBJECTS AND BUILDINGS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL, ARCHITECTURAL, ENGINEERING OR HISTORIC INTEREST ON, IN THE VICINITY OF, OR OTHERWISE ASSOCIATED WITH INLAND WATERWAYS

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1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Had my attention drawn to this from Thunderboat forum.

 

Quote.

 

 

Dear Canal & River Trust

I am writing to complain that the latest Trustee Annual Report (TAR) filed with The Charity Commission on 22 December 2020 and currently posted on your website differs from that approved by your board on 24 September 2020. The approved TAR was previously posted on your website and filed at Companies House on 12 October 2020.

Publication Data relating to heritage (as required under the Defra Grant Agreement) has been altered to hide a substantial drop in condition from previous years.

Bearing in mind -

    the communication between your Chair and the Secretary of State relating to this matter.

    the notes of the Grant Review meeting on 9 December 2020 attended by your Chief Executive and three other executives (including the executive tasked by the board for filing the TAR with Companies House and the Charity Commission).

    the replacement on your website of of the board approved TAR with an unapproved TAR.
    
    the absence of board notification or approval.

- your actions can only be seen as a wilful and intentional act to provide the public and Defra with misleading and inaccurate information.

Due to the current Defra Review into your performance, your actions put not only current but also future funding of the waterways into jeopardy due to a section 11.1.5 breach of the Grant Agreement.

Equally, if not more important, is the reputational damage that you do to yourselves and charities in general by this action. By altering your TAR, you wish to convince that you are maintaining public benefit against your charitable object 2.2.

However, according to the National Association of Boat Owners, you have refused to provide details of listed buildings you have sold over the last eight years.

As you are aware, your current attempt to sell the Grade II listed Braunston Stop House has not gone unnoticed! What possible public benefit is derived from selling off buildings you should be protecting and conserving?

Retrospectively changing information about how you are providing public benefit leads to public loss of confidence. If a charity does that, how can the public have confidence that any information contained in a TAR ot otherwise provided is accurate?

Within the next five working days please provide the following -

    Details of any other changes made to your board approved TAR.

    Details of how you intent to investigate this complaint bearing in mind the seniority of those involved in altering the TAR.

Regards

Allan Richards


From CRT’s charitable objects as recorded on the Information Commissioners Website -


2.2 TO PROTECT AND CONSERVE FOR PUBLIC BENEFIT SITES, OBJECTS AND BUILDINGS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL, ARCHITECTURAL, ENGINEERING OR HISTORIC INTEREST ON, IN THE VICINITY OF, OR OTHERWISE ASSOCIATED WITH INLAND WATERWAYS

Hope you have a tin hat to protect oneself from the incoming Canal and River Trust sycophants lol

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47 minutes ago, PCSB said:

Would this not constitute false accounting?

CRT are both a çompany limited by guarantee and a charity. Thus they have to file information according to company and charitable law with both Companies House and the Charity Commission. In part, they do this by submitting a single annual report including accounts which complies with both sets of legislation. 

 

As the change made is not to the accounts part of the annual report, I don't see it as false accounting. It would be up to the Charity Commission to decide if they have broken the law by submitting a Trustee Annual Report that has not been accepted by the Board of Trustees.

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4 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

CRT are both a çompany limited by guarantee and a charity. Thus they have to file information according to company and charitable law with both Companies House and the Charity Commission. In part, they do this by submitting a single annual report including accounts which complies with both sets of legislation. 

 

As the change made is not to the accounts part of the annual report, I don't see it as false accounting. It would be up to the Charity Commission to decide if they have broken the law by submitting a Trustee Annual Report that has not been accepted by the Board of Trustees.

Thanks Allan, appreciate the explanation, either way it isn;t good.

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3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Norty - getting one set of information passed, agreed and signed off by the board, and then changing it before presenting it to DEFRA.

It's much worse than that, Alan.

 

They actually lied to Defra about the matter. Having published a heritage condition figure they then told DEFRA that they were unable to provide a figure due to Covid. As part of the Grant Agreement Publication Data (as it is known) must be provided by July 1 or Cart's chair must write to the minister to explain.

 

At a meeting with DEFRA attended by Richard Parry and three other directors CRT produced a draft letter which DEFRA agreed to comment on.

 

I still can't understand why DEFRA did not pick up on this because Leighton had already written to the minister saying CRT saying that all publication data would be provided (albeit late) as part of the Annual Report.

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20 minutes ago, Orwellian said:

I have looked at both documents and they are certainly different in the Heritage item of the Publication Data section but do you have evidence that the change has not been approved by the Trustees?

It's more a case of no evidence that it has.

 

It would need a formal resolution which would have been recorded in minutes of a following board meeting. No such resolution is recorded.

It would also require a new filing at Companies House. There is no new filing.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Had my attention drawn to this from Thunderboat forum.

 

Quote.

 

 

Dear Canal & River Trust

I am writing to complain that the latest Trustee Annual Report (TAR) filed with The Charity Commission on 22 December 2020 and currently posted on your website differs from that approved by your board on 24 September 2020. The approved TAR was previously posted on your website and filed at Companies House on 12 October 2020.

Publication Data relating to heritage (as required under the Defra Grant Agreement) has been altered to hide a substantial drop in condition from previous years.

Bearing in mind -

    the communication between your Chair and the Secretary of State relating to this matter.

    the notes of the Grant Review meeting on 9 December 2020 attended by your Chief Executive and three other executives (including the executive tasked by the board for filing the TAR with Companies House and the Charity Commission).

    the replacement on your website of of the board approved TAR with an unapproved TAR.
    
    the absence of board notification or approval.

- your actions can only be seen as a wilful and intentional act to provide the public and Defra with misleading and inaccurate information.

Due to the current Defra Review into your performance, your actions put not only current but also future funding of the waterways into jeopardy due to a section 11.1.5 breach of the Grant Agreement.

Equally, if not more important, is the reputational damage that you do to yourselves and charities in general by this action. By altering your TAR, you wish to convince that you are maintaining public benefit against your charitable object 2.2.

However, according to the National Association of Boat Owners, you have refused to provide details of listed buildings you have sold over the last eight years.

As you are aware, your current attempt to sell the Grade II listed Braunston Stop House has not gone unnoticed! What possible public benefit is derived from selling off buildings you should be protecting and conserving?

Retrospectively changing information about how you are providing public benefit leads to public loss of confidence. If a charity does that, how can the public have confidence that any information contained in a TAR ot otherwise provided is accurate?

Within the next five working days please provide the following -

    Details of any other changes made to your board approved TAR.

    Details of how you intent to investigate this complaint bearing in mind the seniority of those involved in altering the TAR.

Regards

Allan Richards


From CRT’s charitable objects as recorded on the Information Commissioners Website -


2.2 TO PROTECT AND CONSERVE FOR PUBLIC BENEFIT SITES, OBJECTS AND BUILDINGS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL, ARCHITECTURAL, ENGINEERING OR HISTORIC INTEREST ON, IN THE VICINITY OF, OR OTHERWISE ASSOCIATED WITH INLAND WATERWAYS

They let the historical items in the museum at Goole be scattered to the four winds, a nice tearoom attached. 

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Presumably the folk at DEFRA are bright enough to spot any relevant discrepancies and ask for explanations. I assume (without being interested enough to go into any detail) that CRT have tried to include only what would maximise the chance of getting a bigger grant.

If anyone expects any business these days to behave otherwise, they've not been paying attention to the economy over the past n years.

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41 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Presumably the folk at DEFRA are bright enough to spot any relevant discrepancies and ask for explanations. I assume (without being interested enough to go into any detail) that CRT have tried to include only what would maximise the chance of getting a bigger grant.

If anyone expects any business these days to behave otherwise, they've not been paying attention to the economy over the past n years.

Perhaps they've been paying attention to HMG, duplicity is the order of the day. 

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On 03/05/2021 at 09:42, LadyG said:

They let the historical items in the museum at Goole be scattered to the four winds, a nice tearoom attached. 

The museum at Goole was never part of CRT, though the area engineer in BW days, Ian White, did help them with acquiring the lease of the ground. The closure was more down to national government reducing its support to local government, who were then in the position of deciding where best to continue financial support. The museum, and its other activities, lost their aid as a result. The museum's problem was that it did not receive major funding from a single source, but smaller amounts from several, and those were the type of financial aid which were easiest for local authorities to give up.

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On 03/05/2021 at 16:56, ditchcrawler said:

Did they own that one?

I believed they did / do own the buildings at Goole, or levied the lease,  but the quoted para does not say the historical artefacts have to be owned by them. It was a opportunity to aquire artefacts, some of which might well have gone to scrap. 

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On 06/05/2021 at 16:57, LadyG said:

I believed they did / do own the buildings at Goole, or levied the lease,  but the quoted para does not say the historical artefacts have to be owned by them. It was a opportunity to aquire artefacts, some of which might well have gone to scrap. 

The buildings were built and owned by the Sobriety Project on land leased from what was then BW. They certainly acquired historical items, and I loaned them items from my collection which were returned to me when the museum closed.

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