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

[Paul C]

You are not Mr Tony Dunkley though

 

I know, and I respect him for not giving up and thus allowing the case to be brought this far. Without a court case or the awarding of costs (yet), its unclear to say if its all been worthwhile, he's "won" and a line can be drawn under the proceedings, with CRT withdrawing to a safer position and his boating allowed to continue as it was, untroubled by CRT. Ie its still 'in progress' although he's obviously somewhat in the lead at this stage, if a crude analogy would be okay to make.

[Pennine]

I'm astounded that they are using SAP Sales / Inventory software as their licensing database. Trying to shoehorn licencing/ boat data into software designed for an entirely different purpose is madness. Were they just too tightfisted to have bespoke software written?

[NigelMoore]

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.

 

The difference in perception between us lies, as ever, with the interpretation of s.43(3).

 

What I have said was that [in effect] s.43(3) empowers charging as they see fit for legitimate services provided where prior statute does not prohibit that, and that setting of conditions as they see fit can apply to any such legitimate service – BUT, where those services are newly empowered ones [i.e. post 1962], then the conditions must be approved. The ordinary route for imposing the conditions in this instance would be via byelaws, else, primary legislation.

 

The right to create byelaws as a tool for that, though having always existed, nonetheless needed expanding upon over time to embrace a changing environment of canal useage - so for example, the right to create byelaws imposing conditions for allowing boats onto the system [the underpinning of the authority for the 1976 byelaws] only came into being upon passage of the 1975 Act - 13 years after your favourite clause.

 

In the example I gave of the 1971 Act, on your reading of s.43 BW could, absent the Act, have demanded registration of pleasure boats on the river waterways, and made issue of that relevant consent subject to whatever terms and conditions they saw fit. It was quite simply not the case, however. Even then, the Act allowed such conditioning solely in respect of non-navigating vessels. You need to give more careful thought to why, in such specific and relevant instances, your analysis of s.43 had not and could not have applied.

 

[Allan(nb Albert)]

 

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.

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

For the non-technical -

 

CaRT gives false evidence

 

[NigelMoore]

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.

 

Nothing simplistic about your mind; but your application of it to this topic is.

 

Another perspective: s.43 dealt with general provisions for transport charges and facilities. It dealt, in other words, with the business side of things, rather than the management side.

 

Up to that point, the way they ran their commercial contracts was constrained by detailed and varied charging schemes, and often specific limiting conditions were placed on the way they conducted the particular business – these had to do with how much they could charge for particular cargoes; whether or not they could charge for lock use; how long they could/would have to allow cargoes to lie on wharves, etc etc.

 

General management of the use of the waterways was provided for via powers to set conditions by way of byelaws, if those were needed outwith existing specific statutory provisions.

 

The point of s.43 was to lift the restrictions and allow harmony of charges and conditions. There was no intention to grant unfettered powers to do what they wished regarding management of the waterways, in unilateral imposition of charges and conditions for whatever they saw fit – despite the over simplistic reading of the section giving just such an impression.

 

This is why express powers to impose certain charges - as for pleasure boat and houseboat certificates - and to set conditions for the use of those [where applicable] were very specifically addressed later on, as the perceived need for such extra control grew.

[Tony Dunkley]

For the non-technical -

 

CaRT gives false evidence

 

 

Yes, but just to underline their almost unbelieveable stupidity, if the written evidence produced from their dubious computer system and submitted to the Court had been genuine and true, it was in fact detrimental to the argument of their own case.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

 

Yes, but just to underline their almost unbelieveable stupidity, if the written evidence produced from their dubious computer system and submitted to the Court had been genuine and true, it was in fact detrimental to the argument of their own case.

True, it would have shown that you had purchased licences but also mooring permits for Holme Lock!

 

You should remember that they expected the case to be undefended. I visualise something like the following being said -

 

...... Mr Dunley failed to satisfy us that he has a 'home mooring' and this is undisputed. What Mr Dunley has done is declare a mooring that he does not have - a ghost mooring. The document we have submitted in evidence shows that he has been doing this for twelve years! ......

 

 

rather than -

 

 

..... As Mr Dunkley is not present, I feel that I must point out that a document we have submitted in evidence is false. Whilst the document suggests that Mr Dunkley has declared a ghost mooring for twelve years this is incorrect. We here provide and substitute a corrected document that shows that Mr Dunkley has purchased mooring permits from us which enable him to moor at the place where we have previously said he is overstaying .... ......

 

[Tony Dunkley]

True, it would have shown that you had purchased licences but also mooring permits for Holme Lock!

 

You should remember that they expected the case to be undefended. I visualise something like the following being said -

 

 

rather than -

 

 

 

Careful Allan . . . C&RT and Shoosmiths may think you've been hacking into their files.

[Quinafloat]

It's certainly starting to look as if the CaRT database is deficient and no amount of clever queries can get the right information out as it just isn't in there to start with,

[mayalld]

It's certainly starting to look as if the CaRT database is deficient and no amount of clever queries can get the right information out as it just isn't in there to start with,

 

Actually, it looks like nothing of the sort.

 

The query that they used isn't what I would have written, but NOTHING that has been brought up here suggests that the database lacks the data to produce a better query output.

For the non-technical -

 

CaRT gives false evidence

 

 

Oh dear, oh dear.

 

Given that CRTs legal team find themselves short of something to do this week, is it really a smart move for Mr Crossley to publish unjustifiable claims that their clients presented false data to a court on his blog.

 

It really is quite extraordinary that narrowminded world should choose to turn "Tony doesn't understand the evidence" into "the evidence was false"

[Naughty Cal]

 

Actually, it looks like nothing of the sort.

 

The query that they used isn't what I would have written, but NOTHING that has been brought up here suggests that the database lacks the data to produce a better query output.

 

Oh dear, oh dear.

 

Given that CRTs legal team find themselves short of something to do this week, is it really a smart move for Mr Crossley to publish unjustifiable claims that their clients presented false data to a court on his blog.

 

It really is quite extraordinary that narrowminded world should choose to turn "Tony doesn't understand the evidence" into "the evidence was false"

Since when has that ever stopped them

[jenlyn]

It's certainly starting to look as if the CaRT database is deficient and no amount of clever queries can get the right information out as it just isn't in there to start with,

 

Your absolutely right. As I have stated before, if the initial information is not inputted correctly, or the information inputted is not sufficient, the end calculations will be warped, useless and not accurate. That would see the process as unfit for purpose.

[mayalld]

Your absolutely right. As I have stated before, if the initial information is not inputted correctly, or the information inputted is not sufficient, the end calculations will be warped, useless and not accurate. That would see the process as unfit for purpose.

 

There is absolutely ZERO evidence that the data input is either insufficient or incorrect (and without wishing to get into any spelling or grammar discussion, the word is "input" rather than "inputted")

 

There is ample reason to presume that the report that was written to present the information is not the best report in the world, because it fails to properly distinguish between header/footer information (which is properly "now" data) and data that is part of a time series.

 

A crap report is a less serious problem than crap data.

 

If your data is OK, you can revisit the reporting years later, and get a better output. If the data is bad, then it isn't fixable.

 

My opinion, and I give that opinion as a professional working in the field, is that this is a presentation problem, not a data problem.

[jenlyn]

There is absolutely ZERO evidence that the data input is either insufficient or incorrect (and without wishing to get into any spelling or grammar discussion, the word is "input" rather than "inputted")

 

There is ample reason to presume that the report that was written to present the information is not the best report in the world, because it fails to properly distinguish between header/footer information (which is properly "now" data) and data that is part of a time series.

 

A crap report is a less serious problem than crap data.

 

If your data is OK, you can revisit the reporting years later, and get a better output. If the data is bad, then it isn't fixable.

 

My opinion, and I give that opinion as a professional working in the field, is that this is a presentation problem, not a data problem.

There is ample evidence, you just choose to ignore it.

As I said to someone yesterday, if tony Hales crapped on the towpath, mayall would suggest a section or rule that made it legal.

I would advise anyone to question Crt, and get the facts, as Tony did.

Some on here just talk rubbish.

[mayalld]

There is ample evidence, you just choose to ignore it.

As I said to someone yesterday, if tony Hales crapped on the towpath, mayall would suggest a section or rule that made it legal.

I would advise anyone to question Crt, and get the facts, as Tony did.

Some on here just talk rubbish.

 

No, there is not ample evidence that the data is wrong.

 

Clearly, you and I have different views on how the world should be. However, notwithstanding my views on how the world should be, I make my living diagnosing issues with IT systems (usually from about 10% of the evidence that I would like), and I will blow my own trumpet and say that I am very good at my job.

 

Based upon what I have seen here, my professional opinion is that the report is crap, but the underlying data is fine.

 

Now, you may suggest that it is fortunate that my opinion gives an answer that I am happy with.That much is true. I can only assure you that if my professional view of the system was that there was a data error, then I would say as much.

 

I would agree that people should question. Tony did just that, and he got an answer. That answer confirms my diagnosis.

 

Yes, some people talk rubbish, and you will doubtless find cases where I have done so. In this case, however, no matter how much you want the data to be crap, it isn't.

 

You have the right to continue to say "the data is wrong" in the face of somebody who understands databases better than you. You have the capacity to step back and say "well, perhaps I should defer to somebody who knows about this stuff". The choice is yours to make.

[Tony Dunkley]

There is ample evidence, you just choose to ignore it.

As I said to someone yesterday, if tony Hales crapped on the towpath, mayall would suggest a section or rule that made it legal.

I would advise anyone to question Crt, and get the facts, as Tony did.

Some on here just talk rubbish.

 

It would be surprising if he hasn't already done so . . . . considering that he's spent so many years crapping on everything else.

[jenlyn]

No, there is not ample evidence that the data is wrong.

 

Clearly, you and I have different views on how the world should be. However, notwithstanding my views on how the world should be, I make my living diagnosing issues with IT systems (usually from about 10% of the evidence that I would like), and I will blow my own trumpet and say that I am very good at my job.

 

Based upon what I have seen here, my professional opinion is that the report is crap, but the underlying data is fine.

 

Now, you may suggest that it is fortunate that my opinion gives an answer that I am happy with.That much is true. I can only assure you that if my professional view of the system was that there was a data error, then I would say as much.

 

I would agree that people should question. Tony did just that, and he got an answer. That answer confirms my diagnosis.

 

Yes, some people talk rubbish, and you will doubtless find cases where I have done so. In this case, however, no matter how much you want the data to be crap, it isn't.

 

You have the right to continue to say "the data is wrong" in the face of somebody who understands databases better than you. You have the capacity to step back and say "well, perhaps I should defer to somebody who knows about this stuff". The choice is yours to make.

You are not doing the data for CRT. Neither have you any inside knowledge of it. So giving your "interpretation " is not valid or fit for purpose.

[Paul G2]

Actually, it looks like nothing of the sort.

 

The query that they used isn't what I would have written, but NOTHING that has been brought up here suggests that the database lacks the data to produce a better query output.

 

Oh dear, oh dear.

 

Given that CRTs legal team find themselves short of something to do this week, is it really a smart move for Mr Crossley to publish unjustifiable claims that their clients presented false data to a court on his blog.

 

It really is quite extraordinary that narrowminded world should choose to turn "Tony doesn't understand the evidence" into "the evidence was false"

I'm confused and I'll be the first one to admit that I don't really understand data bases, so help me out here. What seems to be in contention here is that the report somehow misrepresents historic data as it relates to home moorings, and it does this by essentially taking the most current data input and overwriting historic data with it. Are you saying that it is just a function of the report that is making things appear this way and that the actual, accurate, historic mooring data is still in the database?

 

As far as the NBW article goes, it would appear that, among other things, CRT misrepresented to the court the exact nature of Mr. Dunkley's circumstances. If CRT wanted to take any action against NBW they would have to show that everything they did - every action they took and every word they wrote - was 100% beyond reproach, and it wasn't.

[Tuscan]

There is absolutely ZERO evidence that the data input is either insufficient or incorrect (and without wishing to get into any spelling or grammar discussion, the word is "input" rather than "inputted")

 

There is ample reason to presume that the report that was written to present the information is not the best report in the world, because it fails to properly distinguish between header/footer information (which is properly "now" data) and data that is part of a time series.

 

A crap report is a less serious problem than crap data.

 

If your data is OK, you can revisit the reporting years later, and get a better output. If the data is bad, then it isn't fixable.

 

My opinion, and I give that opinion as a professional working in the field, is that this is a presentation problem, not a data problem.

 

Part of the problem is that if you are cruising past a data logger and your index number is logged the system as it currently exists registers you as moored at the point you were logged and not as cruising through and logged at a point you finally moored. Thus it could be much of the data could be incorrect if it is being used as proof of a fixed location.

[mayalld]

 

It would be surprising if he hasn't already done so . . . . considering that he's spent so many years crapping on everything else.

 

And still you have nothing to say other than to shout a bit of abuse at people.

You are not doing the data for CRT. Neither have you any inside knowledge of it. So giving your "interpretation " is not valid or fit for purpose.

 

Actually, yes it is.

 

Much diagnosis is done with far less information than this

I'm confused and I'll be the first one to admit that I don't really understand data bases, so help me out here. What seems to be in contention here is that the report somehow misrepresents historic data as it relates to home moorings, and it does this by essentially taking the most current data input and overwriting historic data with it. Are you saying that it is just a function of the report that is making things appear this way and that the actual, accurate, historic mooring data is still in the database?

 

 

 

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying

[phill]

 

My opinion, and I give that opinion as a professional working in the field, is that this is a presentation problem, not a data problem.

Given that this 'presentation' was about to be used as evidence in court your professional opinion is a little disingenuous. We have moved from theOP position of not knowing much about the unde rlying data set to an examination of what was intended to be presented unchallenged.

 

so perhaps the answer is 'yes CRT's reporting is fit for purpose' but that purpose is completely scurrilous.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

 

No, there is not ample evidence that the data is wrong.

 

 

 

 

I agree. It was the way that the data was manipulated and presented to the court suggesting that Tony had been declaring a ghost mooring for twelve years that was wrong.

 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

I am going to defend Mayalld in this aspect. He works with data it seems so his contribution should be given some credence in the same way as it seems certain members' views in other areas of expertise are also given credence. Just because it seems some do not have much idea about database operation does not mean Mayalld is wrong.

 

I can not remember him categorically saying that the CaRT database is fit for purpose, I think he is saying that in his view the report it produced was not fit for purpose and those are two very different things.

 

Having dabbled in database programming (who remembers DBase4) to produce information about student progress I can see his point. I have also seen nothing that proves the CaRT database is or is not fit for purpose. Personally I suspect it does not have enough fields to fully record the information about boat movements and position and the boat position checking is not carried out often enough to allow meaningful reports for boat mooring/movement purposes to be written but that is without seeing the main database structure. So in that I tend to disagree with Mayalld.

 

Whatever the truth is it is long past the time for CaRT to come clean and allow some form of independent inspection.

[mayalld]

 

 

 

I agree. It was the way that the data was manipulated and presented to the court suggesting that Tony had been declaring a ghost mooring for twelve years that was wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't believe that CRT ever said anything to the court that suggested that column was to be taken as having that meaning.

 

The fact that Tony leapt to that conclusion and whinged about it doesn't mean that CRT ever said that

Given that this 'presentation' was about to be used as evidence in court your professional opinion is a little disingenuous. We have moved from theOP position of not knowing much about the unde rlying data set to an examination of what was intended to be presented unchallenged.

 

so perhaps the answer is 'yes CRT's reporting is fit for purpose' but that purpose is completely scurrilous.

 

CRT never presented that data as having the meaning that Tony claimed it had.

 

We went down a path of Tony claiming that CRT said something and it wasn't true. But CRT never made the claim that he took issue with.

[phill]

 

I don't believe that CRT ever said anything to the court that suggested that column was to be taken as having that meaning.

 

The fact that Tony leapt to that conclusion and whinged about it doesn't mean that CRT ever said that

So cockup over conspiracy? Rather proves the OP, no?