Jump to content

Is C&RT's Boat/Location Logging System Fit for Purpose?


Tony Dunkley

Featured Posts

Apparently they are now sending the RAF to bomb the oil slick - hope they have more success than they did with the Torrey Canyon.

 

On 28 March 1967 the Fleet Air Arm sent Blackburn Buccaneer strike aircraft from RNAS Lossiemouth to drop forty-two 1,000 lb bombs on the ship. Then, the Royal Air Force sent Hawker Hunter jets from RAF Chivenor to drop cans of aviation fuel to make the oil blaze.However, exceptionally high tides put the fire out and it took further effort by Fleet Air Arm de Havilland Sea Vixens from RNAS Yeovilton and Buccaneers from the Naval Air Station at Brawdy, as well as more RAF Hunters with liquified petroleum jelly (not napalm, as HMG denied that the UK forces had stocks of napalm) to ignite the oil

 

After 2 days of bombing the BBC news reports :-

 

"..........the RAF and the Royal Navy have dropped 62,000lbs of bombs, 5,200 gallons of petrol, 11 rockets and large quantities of napalm onto the ship".

 

There was then an enquiry as :

 

The RAF and the Royal Navy also came in for ridicule, as of the initial 42 bombs dropped on the stationary target, 25% missed their target.

Edited by Alan de Enfield
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was a lot of diesel on the sunken boat, not quite so much as Naughty Cal said, but not far off. Yes the diesel booms were sinking with the amount they soaked up, don't ask me how or why, but they were. There was several CRT, EA and Contractors staff there throughout the afternoon, evening and night. They were still there when I left at 11:00pm.

 

Regards,

Lockie.

Edited by Lockie Junior
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was a lot of diesel on the sunken boat, not quite so much as Naughty Cal said, but not far off. Yes the diesel booms were sinking with the amount they soaked up, don't ask me how or why, but they were. There was several CRT, EA and Contractors staff there throughout the afternoon, evening and night. They were still there when I left at 11:00pm.

 

Regards,

Lockie.

The material used in what may look like some sort of Absorbent Boom can absorb water (and sink) if the "booms" are really intended for dry land use to retain or hold back spills running down such as gullies or to divert spills from drains or watercourses. It may be that the correct gear was not available at that time, and they were using whatever was to hand, on the 'anything may better than nothing' principle

Edited by tony dunkley
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was a lot of diesel on the sunken boat, not quite so much as Naughty Cal said, but not far off. Yes the diesel booms were sinking with the amount they soaked up, don't ask me how or why, but they were. There was several CRT, EA and Contractors staff there throughout the afternoon, evening and night. They were still there when I left at 11:00pm.

 

Regards,

Lockie.

I would suggest nowhere near as much. I think you all got a little excitable, and exagerated the facts a little.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When you think about the diesel boom sinking, the diesel is lighter than water, but it's not lighter than air. The diesel-soaked boom will displace as much water as it weighs, which will make it partially submerged.

 

 

Nice clear logic....clapping.gif .....if the boom floats on top of the water dry it will 80+% submerged when full of oil

 

 

ETA moving the emoticon from where it was to where it should have been!!!

Edited by John V
Link to comment
Share on other sites

From speaking to the owner there was quite a lot of diesel on the boat. As I said, not as much as Naughty Cal states but not far off.

 

Regards,

Lockie.

 

Why let the facts get in the way of the idiots having a dig though hey frusty.giffrusty.giffrusty.gif

The S.G. of diesel (gas oil) is around 0.83 .... that's why it floats on water .... the quantity of any substance doesn't make any difference as to whether it floats or not.

 

Are you now saying it was a "diesel boom" that sank rather than a boat.

 

The boat and the diesel boom.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Criticising what we say on a discussion board is fine. Criticizing the poster personally is not. So c'mon boys and girls, play the ball not the man, please.

 

MtB

MtB, could you please explain how this suggestion fits in with your comment about not realising I was to ill to operate the paddles?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just looking back at that 35 figure, I should have picked up on the fact that those related to boats that were seized, rather than merely removed from the waterway.

 

So, 69 boats removed in the last year, 35 seized in the last 2 years; the figures are all relating to different time periods and circumstances, making it difficult to arrive at any meaningful correlation, or any idea of the larger picture.

 

It can terribly difficult making sense of the various figures published.

 

A recent FoI response gives an entirely different picture again, with figures for boats seized in the last four years given as 258!

 

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/226124/response/563617/attach/3/request%20part%205a.pdf

 

So that would indicate [supposing these figures are referring to the same thing] that CaRT have been seizing boats at the rate of 17/18 per year, as compared with BW seizing boats at the rate of 111/112 per year for the last two years of their existence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

There were three immediately obvious strategic objectives: . . . One was to establish that any breach of the T&C’s [as understood by them] could justify revocation/refusal of the boat licence, additionally to the 3 conditions of the 1995 Act..

 

By way of proof [if needed] that CaRT and their outside solicitors are arguing that they are justified in revoking Licences for breach of Terms & Conditions [outside of the 1995 Act conditions], I copy here an email to Tony back in August –

 

shoosmithreTampCbinding_zpseea02c18.jpg

 

The yellow highlighting is mine.

 

This had Parry’s rather slippery approval, when countering Tony’s suggestion that what Jackie Lewis had said contradicts the T&C requirement for home moorers to follow guidelines for CC’ing –

 

parryonTampCs_zps30044ceb.jpg

 

The reality is that no matter how one interprets s.43(3) - even if [which I rigorously deny] their interpretation was correct - the stark fact remains that the '95 Act restricts their ability to revoke/refuse licences for anything other than the 3 conditions set out therein. As a direct consequence of that, any former legislation that is incompatible with the later provision is automatically deemed abolished under the doctrine of "implied repeal".

 

Vauxhall Estates v Liverpool Corporation [1932] DC

 

Held: Even if the Act could be construed as intending to govern future Acts which was doubtful, the relevant provisions must be regarded as being impliedly overridden by the inconsistent provisions of the later Act.

 

Avory J: " Speaking for myself, I should certainly hold, until the contrary were decided that no Act of Parliament can effectively provide that no future Act shall interfere with its provisions."

 

Ellen Street Estates Ltd v Minister of Health [1934] CA

 

Held: The Housing Acts impliedly repealed the 1919 Act in so far as the later Acts were inconsistent with the earlier Act.

 

Maugham LJ: " The Legislature cannot, according to our constitution, bind itself as to the form of subsequent legislation, and it is impossible for Parliament to enact that in a subsequent statute dealing with the same subject matter there can be no implied repeal."

 

There are caveats to this – but I see nowhere these could apply in this instance. The ’62 Act dealt with a generality, the later Act dealt with specifics. It did so in clear and unambiguous terms. So IF s.43(3) had been as universally embracing as claimed, it was repealed to the extent of the dis-application [?!] provided for in ’95.

 

The most sensible understanding of course, is that s.43(3) does NOT have the universal application claimed for it, so the necessity of implied repeal does not arise – but the prior Act cannot, in any event, have the effect of circumventing the later Act.

 

I am positive that Shoosmiths and CaRT realise this, but the above emails confirm that this is their argument regardless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course, indeed. He always did contest it; that is why he ended up in court, where he was fully prepared to continue contesting it before a judge.

 

As CaRT, however, were NOT so sure they could successfully contest it, it would sadly appear that Tony will not be given that opportunity.

 

It is not over yet though; there is still time for Parry to prevail, break CaRT’s word over discontinuing the action, and push for the litigation to clarify matters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are caveats to this – but I see nowhere these could apply in this instance. The ’62 Act dealt with a generality, the later Act dealt with specifics. It did so in clear and unambiguous terms. So IF s.43(3) had been as universally embracing as claimed, it was repealed to the extent of the dis-application [?!] provided for in ’95.

 

 

 

 

Nigel,

 

I am actually going to agree with you to an extent.

 

S17, BWA 1995 provided BW with a power to revoke a licence, OF ITS OWN INITIATIVE, for certain infringements.

 

However, further down, it says;

 

Nothing in this section shall affect any power of the Board under any other enactment to refuse or withdraw a relevant consent

 

(my emphasis)

 

Now, my take on this is that;

1) Implied repeal is a red herring. Certainly the earlier Act cannot protect itself from implied repeal, but that clause is evidence enough that there was no intent that the 1995 Act would repeal any earlier enactment.

2) They cannot revoke a licence themselves for failure to obey T&Cs under s43, but they retain the power that they had previously to ask a court to revoke the licence for breach

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now, my take on this is that;

1) Implied repeal is a red herring. Certainly the earlier Act cannot protect itself from implied repeal, but that clause is evidence enough that there was no intent that the 1995 Act would repeal any earlier enactment.

2) They cannot revoke a licence themselves for failure to obey T&Cs under s43, but they retain the power that they had previously to ask a court to revoke the licence for breach

 

Those are good thought-provoking comments. Approaching the points from an exploratory rather than dogmatic and confrontational way -

 

1) I would query whether sub-section 9, which you are quoting, was denying any repeal of “any earlier enactment”, rather, it dealt very explicitly with “any other enactment to refuse or withdraw a relevant consent”.

 

Within my knowledge, with but one exception, there is only one extant power to refuse or withdraw a relevant consent, to which such a saving would apply, and that is in the section of the enactment of 1971 dealing with Houseboats. In that section the right to impose conditions to the issue of the relevant consent is set out in some detail, and the right to [effectively] revoke that consent by formal Notice if the specific conditions for houseboats are contravened, is given in s.13(2)( a ).

 

In stark contrast to the Pleasure Boat Certificates [which BW were obligated to issue upon receipt of formal application and payment], the Houseboat Certificates could be issued “subject to such conditions (including conditions relating to the prevention of pollution) as they think fit”. [s.14] The conditions in respect of Houseboats must be incorporated into the Certificate or be on a document referred to in the Certificate.

 

By virtue of sub-section 9 of s.17 of the ’95 Act, that 1971 power to withhold/withdraw the relevant consent for Houseboats [for failing to meet the designated conditions extraneous to the 3 listed in the ’95 Act], is preserved.

 

The one exceptional right to withdraw consent that I referred to, applicable to all classes of boat, is that explicitly mentioned in the ’95 Act s.11( c ) – i.e. the Act of 1983, s.7 to do with Control of Unsafe Vessels. Under the terms of that earlier enactment, an unsafe vessel whose defects are not remedied may, after a process lasting not less that 3 months and 3 weeks, be treated as a vessel “without lawful authority”, under s.7(6)( c ) and so subject to s.8 removal.

 

2) The courts cannot be asked to impose a sanction for breach of anything other than a specific law, and enforceable conditions for use by boats of the waterways need to be enshrined in approved byelaws if not in primary statute. Also, the courts cannot impose a sanction over and above that provided for by those byelaws or primary enactment. Their discretion is limited to fines "not exceeding" the specified amount. Any breaches of such [and they are listed in the General Terms & Conditions], can empower the court to impose the relevant sanction, yet nowhere in the byelaws does a sanction for breach entail a power to revoke a licence. It can punish for not having a licence, as with any other breach, and the punishment for breach of byelaws is currently set at a ceiling of £100.

 

BW/CaRT never have had, in other words, any power "previously to ask a court to revoke a licence for breach" of Terms & Conditions outside those of s.17 - for pleasure boats, anyway. It simply is not a power provided for in any other enactment than those I have listed. The exceptional case of Houseboat conditions applies to 0.23% of 'licensed' craft [not including commercial vessels] and they do not need to ask a court to do that, they only need [if it is lived on] to ask a court to approve the revocation of its certificate, and the consequent application of s.13 as being compatible with the HRA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

2) The courts cannot be asked to impose a sanction for breach of anything other than a specific law, and enforceable conditions for use by boats of the waterways need to be enshrined in approved byelaws if not in primary statute. Also, the courts cannot impose a sanction over and above that provided for by those byelaws or primary enactment. Their discretion is limited to fines "not exceeding" the specified amount. Any breaches of such [and they are listed in the General Terms & Conditions], can empower the court to impose the relevant sanction, yet nowhere in the byelaws does a sanction for breach entail a power to revoke a licence. It can punish for not having a licence, as with any other breach, and the punishment for breach of byelaws is currently set at a ceiling of £100.

 

I fear that I cannot agree with your first sentence here, and the remainder deals with how a court can deal with breaches of bylaws, so doesn't speak to the powers that I believe exist.

 

s43 (3) says;

 

Subject to this Act and to any such enactment as is mentioned in the last foregoing subsection, the British Waterways Board and the Strategic Rail Authority shall have power to demand, take and recover or waive such charges for their services and facilities, and to make the use of those services and facilities subject to such terms and conditions, as they think fit.

 

(again my bold).

 

Now, the question that must be posed is "what will happen if the Board's conditions for the provision of a service (as define in subsecion 8) are breached?"

 

The Act is silent on this. In fact it is remarkabky reticent even as to what the Board may do to enforce its "demands" for charges. How exactly may it "take and recover" these charges from the recalcitrant?

 

It is absurd to imagine that Parliament would have granted these powers to demand and intended that the board should be able to do no more than toothlessly demand payment.

 

Clearly, a court is competent to rule as to whether a demanded charge is legitiamte and must be paid.

 

If it is competent to decide on that, then it is competent to decide;

 

1) Was a condition legitimate, and within the board's powers under s43(3)?

2) Has the user breached those conditions?

3) Is the breach capable of remedy?

4) Is the user prepared to remedy the breach?

5) If the breach cannot be remedied or the user is unwilling to remedy the breach, what should happen now?

 

In my simplistic mind, if the board laws down a condition, and the boater is not prepared to abide by that condition, the board can ask a court to rule that the condition was within its powers and that if the boater will not comply with that condition in his use of the waterways, he cannot use the waterways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

From the information that we have, it is clear that CRT's systems contain the data that is required to provide that information.

 

Tony received a Reply to his FoI request on this, and asked me to post it up because the links didn't seem to work for him –

 

Dear Mr Dunkley,

We have considered your e-mail of 20th August and request for information. I have set out our response to the seven parts of your request in order below for clarity.

 

1. The metadata for each column header in the attached document.

 

This report basically brings together details from 4 SAP Objects:

a. Equipment Record – This record contains details of a single boat, in this case boat number 52721. The equipment number equates with the boat’s registration number. Other details recorded include the boat’s basic dimensions, insurance and BS Scheme details. This equipment number is used to identify a particular boat throughout SAP.

b. Functional Location – In the context of Craft Licensing and Mooring Permits Functional Locations are used to record details of Moorings. Each boat (as an Equipment record) is associated with a Mooring (as a Functional Location Record). Where the boat has a declared Home Mooring the associated Functional Location will be that for the actual mooring. In other cases, especially where the boat is declared as “Continuously Cruising”, or as being “Trailable/ Stored Out of Water”, then the associated Functional Location is a “dummy” mooring representing that particular status. For example: Functional Location UT-011-001 represents an L6 Mooring at Barton In Fabis. BW-065-007 is the “dummy” mooring for Continuous Cruisers and BW-065-008 that for Trailable/Stored Out of Water boats.

c. Customer Record – This record contains details of a CRT customer. The customer number here is labelled as “Sold to Party”.

d. Sales Order – In the context of Craft Licensing and Mooring Permits Sales Orders are used to issue Licences and Mooring Permits. Each Licence or Mooring Permit is an individual Sales Order. Each Sales Order is identified by its “Sales Doc.” Number.

e. Note that the creation of the Sales Order for a Licence or Mooring Permit does not in itself mean the licence or permit was issued, the contract has to be further processed (Billed) to issue an Invoice, and the required payment terms have to be met to make the Sales Order valid as a Licence or Permit.

f. Note the Boat (Equipment) Name and Mooring (Functional Location) details shown on all lines on this report are the details of the Boat and its associated Mooring at the time of running the report, and do not necessarily correspond to the sales orders listed.

Please also see attached table “SAP Column by Column.xps”

 

2. The SQL (or similar) used for the query which produced the document.

 

Please see response to item 7 below.

 

3. The database schema as it relates to the document (i.e. tables, together with columns within those tables, indexes and relationships etc). Please note, I am only asking for the part of the schema that relates to the query that produced the document.

 

The SAP data objects are described in the answer to item 1. The data in the report is taken from the sales order except “Description” (Boat Name) which is keyed from the Equipment Record via the Equipment Number, “Func Loc” (Mooring Code) which is keyed from the Equipment Record and “FuncLocDescrip” which is taken from the Mooring Functional Location.

Please see response to item 7 below.

 

4. The customer information relating to the first nine rows (or confirm that the first nine rows do not relate to financial transactions between us or declarations I have made in regard to the BW 1995 Act).

 

The information contained within the first nine rows of this document does not relate to you. As such the information which does not relate to you and which is Personal information relating to a third party is exempt from disclosure under section 40 [Personal Information] of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

 

5. I believe that ‘ZL’ is is the code for licence transaction and ‘ZM’ the code for a mooring transaction. Also that the numeric code represents the number of months and its absence one month. Please confirm this or provide corrected information.

 

ZL = Licence. ZM = Mooring Permit. 3, 6, 12 = 3, 6, 12 months respectively. Where no number is specified the duration is flexible, not necessarily 1 month. In all instances the actual dates are shown as start and end date.

 

6. I note that five ‘ZM’ rows (mooring transactions) contain the code ‘ - L6 Mooring’ after Barton In Fabis. Please provide a list of these mooring codes with their meanings.

 

The attached table (“Mooring site definitions.xps”) is extracted from our SAP Guidance Note: Ref: GN PM 015 “Recording Moorings in SAP” Effective date: 23 May 2013, as retrieved from CRT Gateway 16/09/2014.

 

7. Please provide details of any audit or historical information logged when data relating to the columns in the document is created, amended or deleted.

 

The response to this item 7 also applies to item 2 and 3 above. The technical detail that would be required to respond to Item 2, Item 3 and this item 7 would involve considerable time and resources to bring together and make available and is likely to require contracting external resources. The information is therefore either (i) outside of the scope of FOIA to the extent that information would have to be created and additional work and expertise is required to make the information available and/or (ii) providing the information would exceed 18 hours of our staff time to retrieve and extract and put together for the purpose of answering the requests and therefore Section 12 of FOIA applies. Section 12 states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request if the cost of complying with a request would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit is specified as £450 based on an hourly rate of £25 per person per hour. We hope the information provided in response to Item 1 is helpful. If you wish to consider whether your requests numbered 2 , 3 and 7 could be narrowed in scope we can reconsider whether it could be handled within the appropriate limit.

SAPcolumnbycolumn_zps90148ac9.jpg

I posted the other chart on mooring site designations under MtB’s recent topic on EoG’s - #57.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Tony received a Reply to his FoI request on this, and asked me to post it up because the links didn't seem to work for him –

 

 

Or, to cut it short, everything that I said about what the content of the report was has proved to be accurate.

 

The data in the report doesn't prove that there is a problem with the system, rather it proves that Tony wanted the data to be wrong, so he saw it as wrong.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.