BW - an "asset" to be sold off ?

[NBDensie]

The Daily Express and Daily Mail are the only two 'National Morning Mid Market' newspapers, sitting between popular and quality ends of the market. Unfortunately, quality comes at the price of readership. However, as the Daily Mails circulation figures are second only to the Sun, I am quite happy at the comparison.

 

The figures given in the article are not mine but BW's provided under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

NBDensie is quite right in pointing out that the figures are not a triumph for boaters (although I do not think I made this claim!) but a complete disaster for the waterways.

 

This year BW need to spend about £130m on the waterways to stop them deteriorating. The plan, such as it is, is to spend less than £90m!

 

In my view the objective of a news organ should be to provide accurate news and informed comment. However some seem to regard maximising readership and promulgating an agenda as far more important. Fair enough as long as people dont actually believe what they say.

 

I think I see where Allan gets his 38% as the boarter contribution - he appears to take total boater income and divide it by the money spent on maintenance. Unfortunately that omits a lot of expenditure:

 

HQ and Centralised Services (£33M in 2009-2010)- I believe this will include activities such as payroll managment, HR, Public Relations (eg press releases), Legal, finance, contract management (increasingly important as more work is outsourced), purchasing, IT, reception/telephone, senior management and I am sure people with experience of large organisations will think of others. These sort of thing unfortunately are essential and must be paid for. Although there are undoubtedly savings that could be made there is the problem that each is a specialised activity often requiring reasonably well paid professionals and so is a lot more difficult to cut than waterways maintenance.

 

Property and leisure income support (£18M in 2009/2010) - Collecting leases, rents, licence fees, mooring fees, chasing up on non-payers. Again something that presumably could be made more efficient but is essential.

 

BWML costs (£6M in 2009/2010) - Again essential to get the income.

 

 

 

BWs expenditure on waterways maintenance was about £100M in 2009/2010. If Allan's analysis is correct and BW are losing £10M in government grants and £20M in property income it seems to me remarkable that the planned drop in waterways maintenance is only £10M.

Edited October 13, 2010 by NBDensie

[Allan(nb Albert)]

In my view the objective of a news organ should be to provide accurate news and informed comment. However some seem to regard maximising readership and promulgating an agenda as far more important. Fair enough as long as people dont actually believe what they say.

 

I think I see where Allan gets his 38% as the boarter contribution - he appears to take total boater income and divide it by the money spent on maintenance. Unfortunately that omits a lot of expenditure:

 

HQ and Centralised Services (£33M in 2009-2010)- I believe this will include activities such as payroll managment, HR, Public Relations (eg press releases), Legal, finance, contract management (increasingly important as more work is outsourced), purchasing, IT, reception/telephone, senior management and I am sure people with experience of large organisations will think of others. These sort of thing unfortunately are essential and must be paid for. Although there are undoubtedly savings that could be made there is the problem that each is a specialised activity often requiring reasonably well paid professionals and so is a lot more difficult to cut than waterways maintenance.

 

Property and leisure income support (£18M in 2009/2010) - Collecting leases, rents, licence fees, mooring fees, chasing up on non-payers. Again something that presumably could be made more efficient but is essential.

 

BWML costs (£6M in 2009/2010) - Again essential to get the income.

 

 

 

BWs expenditure on waterways maintenance was about £100M in 2009/2010. If Allan's analysis is correct and BW are losing £10M in government grants and £20M in property income it seems to me remarkable that the planned drop in waterways maintenance is only £10M.

 

I think you are attributing me with things I have not stated.

 

For 2010/11 (i.e. this company year), BW are working on the basis of a Defra grant of £47m and net income from the three leisure streams (as given in my article) as follows:-

 

Leisure -(mainly licence and mooring fees) - £23.4m

 

Property -(including joint ventures) - £16.1m

 

Utilities - £21m

 

That gives it a total net contribution of £107.5m

 

BW's costs in raising this money are £23.5m. Put another way it is working on a gross income of £131m and has salary and other costs which reduce this figure.

 

Although only having £107m net coming in, they plan to spend about £117m with £89m on maintenance (1223), £3m on regeneration (52), £1m on the Waterways Trust(1) and £24m overheads(197). The numbers in brackets are the number of staff involved in each activity.

 

I would stress that these are BW's figures, not mine. They were provided by Robin Evans to the board so that they could decide where cuts and efficiencies could be made.

 

BW are now underspending on maintenance by about £40m a year rather than £30m and really should be underspending by £50m to balance its books.

Edited October 13, 2010 by Allan(nb Albert)