CRT Boat Count

[Muddy Ditch Rich]

1 hour ago, b0atman said:

Strange how more and more boats have no name number or licence displayed .Watch this space CRT will abandon need to display licence so honest voters will not see their failure to police the evaders.

Its not strange at all, as there is no practical need to display a licence anymore, only a number, all CaRT's data gathering is digital. CaRT have told people that they don't need to display the licence, then changed their mind so no one is now sure what to do. 

 

[Chewbacka]

3 minutes ago, Muddy Ditch Rich said:

Its not strange at all, as there is no practical need to display a licence anymore, only a number, all CaRT's data gathering is digital. CaRT have told people that they don't need to display the licence, then changed their mind so no one is now sure what to do. 

 

Wasn't it in some old law that licence disks must be displayed?  If so even if CRT have no need for you to display they can not officially tell you there is no need to display as they can not encourage you to not comply with the law.  However they may choose not to bother enforcing display.

[NigelMoore]

22 hours ago, WotEver said:

Can they legally remove a boat for breaching the t&cs?

It is an odd one - putting in "licensed OR in breach of T&C's". The usual method is to revoke the licence for breach of the T&C's THEN apply s.8. I suspect it was careless drafting; they probably sought to distinguish between boats that did not renew their licence, and those that had their licence revoked. They do not, of course, have any power to revoke a licence for breach of T&C's - even those that reiterate legitimate byelaws [for which prescribed penalties are provided].

The figures make interesting reading compared to the EA statistics re: managing their navigations with equivalent powers. Where CaRT removed 101 boats in the last year alone, for failure to have a licence - and prosecuted none of them - the EA has only removed 17 boats from all their waterways under similar legislation, but has successfully prosecuted nearly 260 cases of licence evasion - and that is for the last 6 years! The comparison makes nonsense of the argument that CaRT are powerless to enforce licences by any means other than s.8; if other navigation authorities can use the specific legislation for the purpose, then so could CaRT. It can only be that the institutional taste for massive retaliation is seen as best served by use of the most extreme of their [arguably] available sanctions.

[Chewbacka]

48 minutes ago, NigelMoore said:

It is an odd one - putting in "licensed OR in breach of T&C's". The usual method is to revoke the licence for breach of the T&C's THEN apply s.8. I suspect it was careless drafting; they probably sought to distinguish between boats that did not renew their licence, and those that had their licence revoked. They do not, of course, have any power to revoke a licence for breach of T&C's - even those that reiterate legitimate byelaws [for which prescribed penalties are provided].

The figures make interesting reading compared to the EA statistics re: managing their navigations with equivalent powers. Where CaRT removed 101 boats in the last year alone, for failure to have a licence - and prosecuted none of them - the EA has only removed 17 boats from all their waterways under similar legislation, but has successfully prosecuted nearly 260 cases of licence evasion - and that is for the last 6 years! The comparison makes nonsense of the argument that CaRT are powerless to enforce licences by any means other than s.8; if other navigation authorities can use the specific legislation for the purpose, then so could CaRT. It can only be that the institutional taste for massive retaliation is seen as best served by use of the most extreme of their [arguably] available sanctions.

My impression - and I have not researched this - is EA target boats without a licence and so can take action accordingly, whereas CRT are targeting boats that do not move enough (in their opinion) and therefore refuse to licence the boat when the current licence expires and then go after the boat for being on the water without a licence.  In which case they do not want the boat to be licensed, they want it off their water.

[Mike Todd]

7 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Many thanks for the clarification.

 

I realised that it wasn't originally intended as relating to the T&Cs, but, surely if the principle is proposed / accepted it would relate to all aspects of the Act, and, if the T&Cs, or any publication, were at odds with the Act they could be viewed as superceding the ACT.

3% or 5% is just an artificial level. What is more important is to understand the relation ship between the evasion level achieved and the cost of achieving it. There will clearly be a point of diminishing returns and I would not want to set (say) a 0% level as this would entail enormous costs. (technically probably infinite). 

It is also important to understand (although harder to do so) the relationship between evasion level and public/boater confidence. Above a given level then more people will start to9 think, why should I pay? Below that level and either it is seen as a waste of resources or there is adverse reaction from publicity about 'hard cases'.

Forget what has been suggested in the past, what level do folk here think is the right level?

[Mike Todd]

14 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

My impression - and I have not researched this - is EA target boats without a licence and so can take action accordingly, whereas CRT are targeting boats that do not move enough (in their opinion) and therefore refuse to licence the boat when the current licence expires and then go after the boat for being on the water without a licence.  In which case they do not want the boat to be licensed, they want it off their water.

Until quite recently, EA and non CaRT navigation authorities did not really seem to be much bothered about overstayers but on certain waterways (notably Thames) public pressure has changed to the extent that some boroughs have taken matters into their own hands by obtaining bylaws that given them powers to act (mainly as riparian owners, I think). I'm not sure that citing EA inaction is likely to last long as an argument against CaRT over-action.

[Muddy Ditch Rich]

The Trust has deliberately evaded answering the question of the legality of their claim that they can remove boats from the waterway for breach of their own terms or conditions. Which quite obviously means they have no such power.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/powers_under_the_1983_bw_act#incoming-972353

[Alan de Enfield]

16 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

3% or 5% is just an artificial level. What is more important is to understand the relation ship between the evasion level achieved and the cost of achieving it. There will clearly be a point of diminishing returns and I would not want to set (say) a 0% level as this would entail enormous costs. (technically probably infinite). 

 

 

Currently £3 million to keep the 'evasion' at around 1000 boats - average licence cost (say) £600 - loss of licence fees = £600,000.

November '16 Nigel Moore posted :

 

.".............Presumably all this expenditure fades into insignificance compared to the annual running budget of some £3 million allocated for licence enforcement.....

 

I would suggest that the thinking is that if 'they' do not pursue licence-dodgers then more and more will avoid paying - I guess the question is "is it worth £3 million" to keep the figures as they are ?

[NigelMoore]

13 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

 I'm not sure that citing EA inaction is likely to last long as an argument against CaRT over-action.

My comparison was designed to show the opposite - that the EA DO take prompt and appropriate action in prosecuting boaters that fail to register their boats, and do so effectively, with the net result that their income is increased towards the level it should be relative to the boat numbers present. CaRT never do this. The action CaRT takes is to remove non-paying boats instead of pursuing them through the Magistrates Court [alternatively, suing for the civil debt if they wanted to spare the boater a criminal conviction].

CaRT's argument for pursuing s.8 procedures instead of the statutory specific remedies is that those remedies are ineffectual and result in only "derisory" penalties, such that s.8 is their only viable option. The EA example shows that that is ridiculous, and patently false.

The moorings problem is a separate issue; the EA are still feeling their way with regard to that - sadly, along lines for which no legitimate sanction can be claimed in my opinion. It is for the riparian owners to take such steps as they think necessary, and as you say, the Boroughs are beginning to bring in appropriate byelaws to deal with that.

[NigelMoore]

14 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I would suggest that the thinking is that if 'they' do not pursue licence-dodgers then more and more will avoid paying - I guess the question is "is it worth £3 million" to keep the figures as they are ?

However my point is that they OUGHT to be pursuing licence-dodgers to both bring in the income to which they are entitled, and to demonstrate firm management.

The cost of removing boats via the company that took advantage of the "investment opportunity" CaRT offered from their inception, is around £5,000 minimum per boat, paid out to those contractors [the s.8 power allowing for recovery ONLY of that expenditure if the owner wants their boat back and can actually find those sums]. That adds up to a cost of at least a half million in the last year, as compared with a potential positive revenue of £50,000 plus if they sued instead.

As CaRT have published, only 9 boats were retrieved out of hundreds seized during one particular period - and unless they illegally forced payment of the licence fee in addition to the costs, those fees would remain sums owed at the end of it all.

[NigelMoore]

59 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

My impression - and I have not researched this - is EA target boats without a licence and so can take action accordingly, whereas CRT are targeting boats that do not move enough (in their opinion) and therefore refuse to licence the boat when the current licence expires and then go after the boat for being on the water without a licence.  In which case they do not want the boat to be licensed, they want it off their water.

I agree. My position is that what they want does not constitute proper and responsible management. At the very least, it is a vastly expensive cop-out.

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Currently £3 million to keep the 'evasion' at around 1000 boats - average licence cost (say) £600 - loss of licence fees = £600,000.

November '16 Nigel Moore posted :

 

.".............Presumably all this expenditure fades into insignificance compared to the annual running budget of some £3 million allocated for licence enforcement.....

 

I would suggest that the thinking is that if 'they' do not pursue licence-dodgers then more and more will avoid paying - I guess the question is "is it worth £3 million" to keep the figures as they are ?

Does license enforcement include the cost of "checkers" going round looking to see what boats are where and for how long or is it purely the cost of dealing with those who have no licence?

[NigelMoore]

On 05/05/2017 at 16:44, WotEver said:

Can they legally remove a boat for breaching the t&cs?

Just reading through the recent judgment in Jones v CaRT, there is an alarming example of how the views of CaRT as put across in pleadings are accepted without question. Lord Justice McCombe acknowledges in his introductory paragraph on “Background Facts” that what he goes on to set out relies on the skeleton arguments “from which much of the following is gratefully derived.” Therein lies so many of the problems faced by the public in the legal arena.

 The offending paragraph concludes: “There are also powers conferred upon the Respondent to remove vessels in certain circumstances under s.13 of the 1971 Act and s.8 of the 1983 Act, where a boat operator has failed to comply with the terms of his licence.” As a whole, that is egregiously false [though I am not faulting the judge for simply recounting CaRT’s supposedly innocent outline of their powers]; it applies only to s.13 re: houseboats, not to s.8.

 It is highly doubtful that the Appellant’s legal representation would have noticed this. Thankfully, it forms no part of the decision, but it does emphasise how sharp and alert one needs to be to fend off these wild assertions slipped in by CaRT in seemingly innocuous contexts.