CRT Commission

[IanD]

19 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting.  As is the case everywhere else, more desirable and possibly serviced (water, elsan, bins) cost more so boaters would choose what worked best for them 

 

Personally I'd allocate them as first come first served at a fixed price rather than auction a very limited number of moorings as is done currently - add an element of luck and awareness rather than just the deepest pockets getting their own way.

 

Unfortunately for CART that also adds an element of raising less money for them to repair the canals with... 😞 

 

When fairness and finances come into conflict, guess which usually wins?

[Ian Mac]

7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Without going back and checking I seem to remember that part of the planning definition of a houseboat is a permanent connection to utilities (sewage, water and electricity).

The provision of services is another bag of worms. It was the responsibility of the local authorities to ensure that boaters had a clean and wholesome supply of water and that the boats were fit places to live. It was not the canal co's problem. This was done via the Public health act, and the local authorities registered the boats and inspected them. The Registered at Rickmansworth No. 1919 on the side of the boat being part of that system.

Some of that legislation was rescinded in the 1980's  but not all of it, I wonder which bits are left, and if the provision of water remains.
It was also that legislation which meant that people living on a registered boat when not of no fixed abode, and also had a right to have Royal Mail delivered to them.

[MtB]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

Although it is just a tick in a box the 'Contrinuous Cruiser' licence does effectively exist. 

 

I pointed out quite a while ago that the migration of the words 'Continuous Cruiser'  from colloquial slang used by boaters and the navigation authority to official wording on government websites was the beginning of big changes. 

 

Looks like it is just that. 

 

Too many people doing it = regulatons change to stop the growth. 

 

I wonder what actual problem has been identified as a likely outcome if nothing was changed. 

 

Is it just canals turning into linear housing estates or something more serious relating to larger number of people living non conventional lifestyles without the normal connections to society? 

 

I think this could be part of a slum clearance policy. 

 

 

 

Yes. I remember when we got slung off our moorings in 1980, the local press was full of local councillors congratulating themselves at how responsible they were in "saving" us boaters from having to live in such awful, unygenic, freezing conditions. We were clearly seen by authority as barely better off than living in tents or slums.

 

I suspect the same attitudes still prevail amongst politicians and there is growing concern amongst TPTB about the burgeoning numbers of people living aboard.

 

And I suspect the fact that almost none of them pays £2k-£3k a year in council tax like they did when they lived on the bank has absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing at all....

 

[Alan de Enfield]

 

 

And of course, once you liveaboard does the boat and mooring become subject to Council Tax, and, the value of the boat added to the value of the mooring to calculate the Council Tax band ?

 

When does the boat stop being a chattel ?

 

From the VOA manual :

 

Summary of Policy

The policy that the legislation is intended to achieve can be summarised as follows. Although this specifically refers to boats and moorings the same principles apply to caravans and their pitches.

a) If a boat which is someone’s sole or main residence is moored “permanently” at a mooring, then the mooring is domestic property, and both the mooring and the boat are subject to Council Tax.

b) If a boat which is someone’s sole or main residence stops at a mooring and moves away for a sufficiently long period (see 6.2), and it seems that when next in use that mooring will be used by that same boat or another boat which is someone’s sole or main residence, then the mooring is domestic but the mooring only is subject to Council Tax.

c) If a boat which is someone’s sole or main residence is moored at a mooring and moves away, and it seems that when next in use the mooring will be used by a non-sole or main residence boat, then the mooring is non-domestic and subject to non-domestic rates.

d) If there is a mooring with no way of telling what sort of craft will be moored at it, then it is non-domestic and subject to non-domestic rates.

Whether the value of the boat or caravan can be included with the pitch is a matter of fact and degree.

 

As a general rule, where a dwelling boat or caravan occupies a mooring or pitch for a substantial period of time - such duration would usually be for 12 months or more - it should be included in the band value, even if it moves away for brief periods of say 2 to 4 weeks, provided it then returns to its original mooring or pitch. The question to be asked is whether the occupation can be characterised as that of a ‘settler’ or a ‘wayfarer’. If the latter, then only the mooring or pitch should be valued.

To be clear, this paragraph refers only to the treatment of the chattel value, not to establish whether a dwelling exists – that is the established mooring or pitch.

 

A caravan does not have to be in place on a recognised pitch for 12 months to establish the pitch as a dwelling, nor does a boat have to be moored on a recognised mooring for 12 months to establish the mooring as a dwelling.

 

Even if the sole or main resident of a caravan or boat does not have exclusive rights to a particular pitch or mooring if, in practice, the caravan or boat occupies the land with sufficient permanence it will be included with the mooring as domestic property, and the value included in the Council Tax banding.

Edited December 17, 2024 by Alan de Enfield

[ditchcrawler]

They need to get Sir Adrian Stott back on the case, he had some interesting ideas for more income.

[IanD]

17 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

They need to get Sir Adrian Stott back on the case, he had some interesting ideas for more income.

 

Were those ideas likely to work in practice, or flying-pink-pig ideas like raising huge sums from donations from "Friends"?

 

Genuine question -- it's all to easy (and common!) to float ideas around which sound great -- like "efficiency improvements" or "higher productivity" or "reorganisation" -- but which turn out to very often not work in practice, because there simply aren't hundreds of expensive people sitting on their ar*es doing nothing. Doesn't stop the government (of all parties) repeatedly proposing this though, because it's easier to blame people for being lazy or useless (e.g. civil servants, teachers...) then to admit that the real problem is lack of funding, which would make it the government's problem/fault... 😞 

Edited December 17, 2024 by IanD

[Alan de Enfield]

11 minutes ago, IanD said:

Genuine question -- it's all to easy (and common!) to float ideas around which sound great -- like "efficiency improvements" or "higher productivity" or "reorganisation" -- but which turn out to very often not work in practice,

 

I see in the news today that the DWP has had to employ over 500 new staff to process the 'means testing' claims for Pensioners who have had the fuel allowance cut - appaently so far, over 50% have been refused.

 

500 extra staff at (say) £30k pa adds £1.5 million to the direct labour costs (plus of course benefits, pensions, holiday pay, BUPA etc etc)

[ditchcrawler]

Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I see in the news today that the DWP has had to employ over 500 new staff to process the 'means testing' claims for Pensioners who have had the fuel allowance cut - appaently so far, over 50% have been refused.

 

500 extra staff at (say) £30k pa adds £1.5 million to the direct labour costs (plus of course benefits, pensions, holiday pay, BUPA etc etc)

That is why it wasn't means tested in the first place

[IanD]

Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I see in the news today that the DWP has had to employ over 500 new staff to process the 'means testing' claims for Pensioners who have had the fuel allowance cut - appaently so far, over 50% have been refused.

 

500 extra staff at (say) £30k pa adds £1.5 million to the direct labour costs (plus of course benefits, pensions, holiday pay, BUPA etc etc)

 

Indeed, and consequential costs like this as a result of policy changes are very often not considered or ignored because they're SEP (or in a different budget)... 😞 

[Arthur Marshall]

3 hours ago, StevieN said:

Except for the fact that most leisure moorings are just that - for people to moor their boats to use occasionally. Most have little to no facilities that a liveaboard boater would need - access to water/elsan/electricity etc. Those are few and far between.

 

You will know, having seemingly admitting you avoided it for years, that a residential mooring requires you to pay council tax.

Making someone homeless is a bizarre statement to make and certainly does have to do with CRT when it comes to a liveaboard boater, and as I allude to, this is possibly an area that the Commission will be looking at with regards any legal complications and implications.

I'd stick to talking about what you know, if I were you, instead of making rather odd assumptions.

Back when I lived on, there was this thing called poll tax. None of us paid that, either. There again, nobody asked us to. Just like nobody asks people living on leisure moorings to pay CT.

A mooring is a mooring. Where I was we had water, elsan on site. But you may have noticed (or maybe not) that boats can move. Facilities are rarely far away - from my current one water, diesel, pumpout or elsan etc are 40 minutes potter away. I realise you may not ever shift your boat, but it doesn't mean you can't. You can also get electricity from the sun, amazingly - there are even things called generators. Or, even, do without some of the power hungry stuff you've got on the boat. It's a boat, not a house. There's no human right to a giant TV, washing machine, microwave, freezer... I lived quite happily for a couple of years with none of it.

There is absolutely no reason for any liveaboard boater to be made homeless if they obey the law, is there? If councils want boaters living permanently in their area to pay tax, it's up to them and the government to sort out how to do it. Planning permission? That gets changed fast enough when it's convenient for the building trade so there's no reason it can't be amended to cope. CRT just supply a mooring, undefined as leisure or residential. Let the relevant authorities sort their own agendas out.

The fact is that there are hundreds of people living permanently all over the country on what are not defined as residential moorings, and have been for years. Discriminating against them has always been daft, especially when a cash strapped CRT can just define another couple of hundred miles of towpath as relatively cheap moorings for the current CCers who don't move much, and rake in the money.

33 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I see in the news today that the DWP has had to employ over 500 new staff to process the 'means testing' claims for Pensioners who have had the fuel allowance cut - appaently so far, over 50% have been refused.

 

500 extra staff at (say) £30k pa adds £1.5 million to the direct labour costs (plus of course benefits, pensions, holiday pay, BUPA etc etc)

The civil service has had such huge staffing cuts for so long that it's almost terminally inefficient. Even when I quit thirty years ago I was doing what used to be three people's allocation of work, which meant virtually nothing got done properly, and certainly not quickly. There was a concept that computers would take up the slack, which makes as much sense as subcontracting to the monkey house at the zoo would gave done.

I'd be interested to know if these people were new employees, rather than what usually happens, just transferred from other jobs for the purpose - just adding to the inefficiency of their previous department. Somehow, I doubt it. The source of the "news" would be interesting, too.

[MtB]

8 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

That gets changed fast enough when it's convenient for the building trade

 

Oh now whose making incorrect assumptions!!!

 

I know a few professional developers, some of them pretty big and getting PP is the bane of their lives....

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

11 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I'd be interested to know if these people were new employees, rather than what usually happens, just transferred from other jobs for the purpose - just adding to the inefficiency of their previous department. Somehow, I doubt it. The source of the "news" would be interesting, too.

 

It is being reported across various media I don;t know where it originated from - this is from the BBC

 

Those who apply before 21 December will receive backdated payments of both pension credit and the winter fuel allowance, and the DWP has deployed 500 extra staff to handle claims for the benefit.

 

The Department for Work and Pensions has issued a crucial Pension Credit update as claims for the benefit continue to soar. DWP data shows applications have surged by nearly 150 per cent but only 42,500 claims have been successful during this time.

This represents less than 5 per cent of the 880,000 eligible individuals the government identified as not receiving the benefit back in July.

 

Winter Fuel Payment: Pension credit applications rise but many rejected - BBC News

[Cheese]

'Deployed' is not the same as 'employed' (which you initially claimed). I suspect most have just been temporarily taken off other tasks.

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Cheese said:

'Deployed' is not the same as 'employed' (which you initially claimed). I suspect most have just been temporarily taken off other tasks.

 

Fair point.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I see in the news today that the DWP has had to employ over 500 new staff to process the 'means testing' claims for Pensioners who have had the fuel allowance cut - appaently so far, over 50% have been refused.

 

500 extra staff at (say) £30k pa adds £1.5 million to the direct labour costs (plus of course benefits, pensions, holiday pay, BUPA etc etc)

So what they are actually doing is processing claims for pension credit as if people get that then they automatically get the winter fuel allowance 

[Momac]

51 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Those who apply before 21 December will receive backdated payments of both pension credit and the winter fuel allowance, and the DWP has deployed 500 extra staff to handle claims for the benefit.

 

 

This is really very good and fair since people have not been claiming benefits when they were eligible for it.

I expect its a short term matter. Once the backlog has been cleared the number of  new claimants will diminish.

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

So what they are actually doing is processing claims for pension credit as if people get that then they automatically get the winter fuel allowance 

 

I believe so, but if the applicant is £1 over the savings / income limits they get nothing.

 

When Labour were in opposition and the Tories were looking at dropping the Winter Fuel allowance, the labour party review claimed that stopping the payment would result in almost 4000 additional pensioner deaths.

 

The Labour Party is being urged to take note of its own warnings that thousands of pensioners could die if winter fuel payments were slashed.

Analysis published in 2017, when Sir Keir Starmer was in the Shadow Cabinet, warned that Conservative plans to cut the fuel allowance for ten million pensioners would increase excess deaths by 3,850 that winter.

 

The proposal, put forward by Theresa May’s government, was dubbed the “single biggest attack on pensioners in a generation in our country”.

The report has resurfaced just weeks after Rachel Reeves announced that older people not in receipt of pension credits or other means-tested benefits will no longer receive winter fuel payments from this year onwards.

 

The analysis by the Resolution Foundation think tank was commissioned by Labour in the run-up to the 2017 election.

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said at the time that “removing the winter fuel payments from millions of pensioners could leave thousands of the most vulnerable at even more risk this winter”, adding that pensioners would struggle to heat their homes if the allowance was scrapped.

 

What short memories they have !

 

Anyway - its getting political.

 

Back to C&RT ........................

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Anyway - its getting political.

 

Back to C&RT ........................

Yes it is

[IanD]

Given that the commission isn't going to report anything until September 2025, any speculation about what they might come up with is kind of pointless -- though I'm sure that won't stop the usual suspects putting the boot into CART, or anyone who suggests that perhaps license fees need to be higher... 😉 

[adam1uk]

4 hours ago, magnetman said:

 

 

Is it a fluke this is happening under Labour? Is there a Labour bigwig somewhere looking at a favela on their favourite bit of towpath? 

 

I suspect the reason it’s happening now is that CRT was hoping a new Labour government might be more sympathetic to increasing funding.  But it’s become clear that (even though they might be more sympathetic) there’s no actual money to be handed over.  So CRT is stuck with the settlement from the previous government, which means coming up with ways of raising money.

 

incidentally, as the government spending review is concentrating on things that contribute to growth, you’d hope CRT would be emphasising the contribution of the waterways to the economy — with a whole range of businesses across leisure and tourism, as well as small scale manufacturing.  That report that said spending on CRT was a good investment could be crucial to avoid further funding cuts.

[David Mack]

14 minutes ago, Momac said:

This is really very good and fair since people have not been claiming benefits when they were eligible for it.

I expect its a short term matter. Once the backlog has been cleared the number of  new claimants will diminish.

But if this results in more successful benefits claims, the saving in winter fuel payments could be significantly offset by the other benefits now to be paid out. So whilst it might be a "good thing" in wider policy terms it won't have the same financial impact the government was looking for.

[Arthur Marshall]

27 minutes ago, David Mack said:

But if this results in more successful benefits claims, the saving in winter fuel payments could be significantly offset by the other benefits now to be paid out. So whilst it might be a "good thing" in wider policy terms it won't have the same financial impact the government was looking for.

I think this particular government is looking for both financial savings and fairer distribution of benefits. If it encourages those who are entitled to them to claim their full entitlement, it will reduce pensioner poverty in the long run. I suspect the whinging has largerly  been done by those not so needy but who think they should still get handouts.

[Mike Todd]

4 hours ago, magnetman said:

 

i had a Boat on a residential mooring below flats from 2012 to 2022. It was interesting to investigate the original planning permission. It specifically included a requirement that no smoke or dust was emitted from the Boats. All 3 Boats had multifuel stoves. We emitted more than a small amount of smoke and nothing happened. 

 

How would you select where people were allowed to moor? 

 

You seem to mean allowing people to occupy specific parts of the towpath for £10 a day. Its obvious this would cause a bias and when I say 'entitlement' I mean the attitude that it is their piece of towpath to the exclusion of others and difficulty removing them if and when policies change or they stop paying. 

 

You seem to be advocating creation of a lot more permanent moorings on the towpath. Interesting idea but how exactly do you prioritise who gets the best moorings ? 

 

 

 

I think a better approach would be to close the towpath moorings and create more marinas where people can live on their Boats. 

 

I know this is an old BW policy but it is actually quite sensible. People annexing part of what is in fact a permitted public right of way and blocking the mooring / view of the ducks is not in the interests of most canal users. Most canal users want to see Boats moving and wildlife. Not endless lines of moorings..

 

By all means do more offside moorings but the towpath is a public amenity not a housing estate. 

 

The towpath is actually quite a precious public resource especially in urban areas. 

 

This assumes that there is land available in the particular area. Marinas are a quite 'inefficient' use of land with most only used a water (ie for manoeuvring). In places like much of London, I suspect that most available sites could be used to generate much greater profit by putting buildings on them than boats. Of course, this is where zoning in planning controls is meant to come in but we are currently heading in entirely the wrong direction on that matter. New, especially 'affordable' housing is always to be given preference.

[Ronaldo47]

I well remember that when the pensioners'  fuel allownce was introduced, it was said that the administrative cost of  means testing,, would have been greater than the cost of giving it to everyone.. The original decision seems to have been sound.

 

As I have mentioned elsewhere on this forum, during my time as a civil servant, I learned on a course that ministers usually decide policy first, and only look for data to justify it afterwards, metaphorically putting the cart before the horse. By the time it turns out it doesn't work, they can usually come up with excuses,  or else a new government will be in charge. 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2024 by Ronaldo47
Typos, correcting misplaced moved text blocks.

[Mike Todd]

4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Without going back and checking I seem to remember that part of the planning definition of a houseboat is a permanent connection to utilities (sewage, water and electricity).

I thought we  were talking about mooring moveable boats - but I realise this thread is covering a lot of aspects!

4 hours ago, Ian Mac said:

The provision of services is another bag of worms. It was the responsibility of the local authorities to ensure that boaters had a clean and wholesome supply of water and that the boats were fit places to live. It was not the canal co's problem. This was done via the Public health act, and the local authorities registered the boats and inspected them. The Registered at Rickmansworth No. 1919 on the side of the boat being part of that system.

Some of that legislation was rescinded in the 1980's  but not all of it, I wonder which bits are left, and if the provision of water remains.
It was also that legislation which meant that people living on a registered boat when not of no fixed abode, and also had a right to have Royal Mail delivered to them.

I wonder how that might translate into Czech?