Waterside Moorings

[Tanglewood]

Just for fun, I looked up this website.  There are 19 people employed to manage 3,600 long term moorings, most of whom are simply 'managers', some are described as maintenance managers and 5 are 'dedicated support staff', which either means they are really committed, or they are not shared with another department.  What on earth are all these people doing  and how on earth can all their salaries be covered and profit  produced to go to  CRT itself?    No wonder they are thinking of dropping the policy which required them to close 10% of linear moorings when a new a marina opened within 30 miles. 

[Graham Davis]

And?

Or is this another sock puppet moaning about CaRT?

[matty40s]

These moorings cover small and large mooring sites across the network. The managers will not just be dealing with 3600 moorers, but local authorities, maintenance, safety, advertising,dealing with non payers etc etc. I have no doubt that when the regions are reduced, some people will lose their jobs.

If you take a maximum of 14 managers , they are still dealing with 257 moorers each - a large marinas worth - spread over a large area.

24 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

And?

Or is this another sock puppet moaning about CaRT?

Contribute or stop posting.

[Arthur Marshall]

I wouldn't have thought 19, less the 5 support staff, is too bad when you break it dwn.  The site says they are spread round the country, make weekly visits to some sites, monthly to others. I didn't find the number of actual managers rather than employees, or the number of maintenance managers as by that time I was losing the will to live, but assuming "some" means at least one of each per region, that's most of them accounted for. That leaves not a huge number to run the rest of the mooring system, which includes all private EOG moorings and marinas. So you've probably got about two per area, plus your dedicated support staff (whatever they may be) - I suspect they are your humble pen pushers and may well be part time. 

29 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

And?

Or is this another sock puppet moaning about CaRT?

Don't think so - poster's been  here a while.  And it's an interesting question.

[Tim Lewis]

1 hour ago, Tanglewood said:

Just for fun, I looked up this website.  There are 19 people employed to manage 3,600 long term moorings, most of whom are simply 'managers', some are described as maintenance managers and 5 are 'dedicated support staff', which either means they are really committed, or they are not shared with another department.  What on earth are all these people doing  and how on earth can all their salaries be covered and profit  produced to go to  CRT itself?    No wonder they are thinking of dropping the policy which required them to close 10% of linear moorings when a new a marina opened within 30 miles. 

How many staff do you think there should be then?

Tim

[Alan de Enfield]

I posted this a couple of weeks ago under the 'will the canals last' thread - I reckon the same rationale could apply to the moorings management.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, last Friday, Winston (or Win to all those knew him) was proud to be a British Waterways lengthsman. He was responsible for a length of canal and had a short dumb workboat which he moved along the canal to wherever he thought a job needed doing. The boat had a small wood burning stove and Win, using his boat as a work platform, would saw down overhanging branches from the offside, break them into short lengths, stow them in the hold and use them to warm himself on a freezing cold day and brew a mashing of tea for his lunch. Any trees or other problems which were a hazard to navigation would be reported by Win and dealt with by the maintenance gang. Win would walk a different length of towpath of his section everyday, carrying a long handled blade to clear away any small shrubs growing out of the towpath wall and trim long grass and towpath hedges as he went.

Win was responsible for several locks along his length. Every morning he would clear away accumulated rubbish from the by-wash, occasionally oil and grease the paddle gear, paint the balance beams and keep the lock surroundings clean and tidy. He knew the location of the culverts and the best way to keep them clear. Win would inform the local Licence Enforcement Officer of any boat navigating his section without a licence. Win would instruct novice boaters in the workings of a lock and show them the safe way to work the lock and how to wind paddles up and down. Boaters would wave and smile at Win. He would smile and wave back and tell them of any problems or stoppages to the best of his knowledge. Walkers would enquire of Win how the locks work and he found the time to tell them. Win was everybody’s ray of sunshine and instant point of contact and the fount of all knowledge on his length of canal.

Win never won awards in the best length competition but his work was respected by all. But ‘The Office’ said, “How does Win do his job without instruction?” So they created a planning position and hired two people, a Section Supervisor to write the method statements and one person to do time studies. Then ‘The Office’ said, “How will we know that Win is doing his tasks correctly?” So they created a quality control position and hired two people, one to do the risk assessments and one to write the reports. Then ‘The Office’ said, “How are these people going to get paid?” So they created a payroll department and hired two people, one to be time keeper and one to be payroll officer. Then ‘The Office’ said, “Who will be accountable for all of these people?” So they created an administrative position and hired three people, a Section Inspector, an Assistant Admin Officer and a Legal Secretary.

Twelve months later, ‘The Office’ said: “We have had this system in operation for one year and we are £125,000 over-budget, we must cut back on the overall costs.” And so, of course, the first thing ‘The Office’ did was make Win redundant...

[Arthur Marshall]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I posted this a couple of weeks ago under the 'will the canals last' thread - I reckon the same rationale could apply to the moorings management.

Twelve months later, ‘The Office’ said: “We have had this system in operation for one year and we are £125,000 over-budget, we must cut back on the overall costs.” And so, of course, the first thing ‘The Office’ did was make Win redundant...

Yes, but in this case, as far as I can see, the managers are still scattered round the system rather than all sitting in an office in London.

[Tanglewood]

1 hour ago, Graham Davis said:

And?

Or is this another sock puppet moaning about CaRT?

Scrutinising activity is not moaning.  Not sure exactly what you mean by 'sock-puppet' but I assume it was meant to insult, deride or undermine the post.  Wouldn't it be better to engage in a sensible discussion as others are?

Waterside Moorings is a Trading Arm of CRT.  As provision of moorings is not one of the 'charitable aims', it would in theory,  be possible to separate this activity completely from CRT to 'out-source' it.  Their purpose and function is to 'manage' the provision of long-term moorings.  They cannot be subsidised by CRT and they must deliver any profits from CRT.  Problem is their accounts appear not to be open to scrutiny - you cannot make a FOI request to see them.  3,600 moorings really do not generate a huge amount of money - I suppose it would be possible to work out the total amount of income generated, but given that EOG moorings are half the value of others, and there are not that many high value moorings, it is hard to see how there is any profit at all.  If you look at their customer standards, the numbers of visits that mooring sites should expect is laid out quite clearly.  And I know that it can take considerable time to visit all the sites in an area, but I just cannot see how enough income can be generated to pay all these salaries and on-costs, not to mention actually administer hundreds of mooring sites.  But the  truth is I just don't know what all these people do - and no-one responding has convinced me that they do either.  If the primary objective of providing moorings is to provide income to support CRT statutory functions, and it doesn't how will the team manage it so it does.  As mentioned above the policy to close moorings is likely to change, but this does not mean that all long-term moorings will remain open, if they are finding that income is not generated, and they have to lose staff, then will they consider relocating moorings to reduce the admin costs.  It is possible that we will get fewer small moorings and more of the long lines of boats which is not a great prospect.

[Dave_P]

1 hour ago, matty40s said:

These moorings cover small and large mooring sites across the network. The managers will not just be dealing with 3600 moorers, but local authorities, maintenance, safety, advertising,dealing with non payers etc etc. I have no doubt that when the regions are reduced, some people will lose their jobs.

If you take a maximum of 14 managers , they are still dealing with 257 moorers each - a large marinas worth - spread over a large area.

Contribute or stop posting.

Since many boats are owned or lived on by more than one person, the actually number will be a fair bit higher.

2 hours ago, Tanglewood said:

Just for fun, I looked up this website.  There are 19 people employed to manage 3,600 long term moorings, most of whom are simply 'managers', some are described as maintenance managers and 5 are 'dedicated support staff', which either means they are really committed, or they are not shared with another department.  What on earth are all these people doing  and how on earth can all their salaries be covered and profit  produced to go to  CRT itself?    No wonder they are thinking of dropping the policy which required them to close 10% of linear moorings when a new a marina opened within 30 miles. 

Could you provide the exact link to this info?

[Dave_P]

9 minutes ago, Tanglewood said:

3,600 moorings really do not generate a huge amount of money - I suppose it would be possible to work out the total amount of income generated.

Based on a conservative estimate of £1500pa per mooring, that comes out at £5.6million.  Given that you don't think that's a huge amount of money, can you lend me a tenner?

More seriously, CRT have stated that these moorings do generate a profit, which is used for general maintenance.  I suppose they could be lying.

 

[Arthur Marshall]

I'd certainly be surprised if the moorings don't make a profit, seeing as how a fair number of them are just a bank and a bollard. And all the money they make from me and the rest of us on my farm mooring is pure profit, as CRT do nothing at all for it but collect the dosh.

Unless there's a real reason to obtain the info, a FOI just wastes CRT's time and money. I have no idea why they don't publish detailed accounts, but then most companies don't either.  Nor am I sure what it would tell you - it certainly wouldn't give you any insight into what the employees actually do.

As said, 19 bodies scattered round England to maintain and manage a countrywide mooring system doesn't seem out of proportion to me.  And I'd rather have CRT doing it than outsourcing it to the car park companies that are overseeing moorings and issuing fines in some places - which is your only other option.

[alan_fincher]

31 minutes ago, Tanglewood said:

Problem is their accounts appear not to be open to scrutiny - you cannot make a FOI request to see them.  3,600 moorings really do not generate a huge amount of money - I suppose it would be possible to work out the total amount of income generated, but given that EOG moorings are half the value of others, and there are not that many high value moorings, it is hard to see how there is any profit at all.  I

Well you can look at the numbers in the CRT annual report for a start - they are certainly open to scrutiny!
 

19 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

Based on a conservative estimate of £1500pa per mooring, that comes out at £5.6million.  Given that you don't think that's a huge amount of money, can you lend me a tenner?

Not a bad estimate at all.

The published income from mooring permits in the 2017 report was £5.9million, (£5.4 million in the previous year).

As that shows as a 9.3% increase, whereas I'm sure the average increase per moorer is a lot less than that, presumably it shows that those moorings managers are having an increased success in selling those moorings?

 

[IanM]

3 hours ago, Tanglewood said:

Just for fun, I looked up this website.  

If that's what you do for fun I'd hate to see what you do when you're serious!

I know it isn't what you did but it really annoys me when people spend their time constantly sending FOI requests to government departments, councils, trusts, etc. in an attempt to, as far as I can tell, find some nugget of 'scandal' to produce an "oh my god, look what they're up to, it's a conspiracy/cover-up/outrage" story with which to share with the internet.

Anyway, moan over.

[matty40s]

27 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Well you can look at the numbers in the CRT annual report for a start - they are certainly open to scrutiny!
 

Not a bad estimate at all.

The published income from mooring permits in the 2017 report was £5.9million, (£5.4 million in the previous year).

As that shows as a 9.3% increase, whereas I'm sure the average increase per moorer is a lot less than that, presumably it shows that those moorings managers are having an increased success in selling those moorings?

 

Or enforcement teams are getting better at suggesting taking one of these moorings rather than get forced off the waterways.

[Mike Todd]

https://www.watersidemooring.com/Features/View/2/meet-the-team

shows 7 sales managers, each covering a different area. They also have a Sales Manager to oversee them.

[Mike Todd]

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/boating/mooring/waterside-mooring

says, "We run waterside mooring as part of our discretionary commercial business activities. This income is really important because it goes towards the preservation and maintenance work we do to bring the waterways to life for everyone." This suggests that Waterside Moorings is a part of CaRT, not a separate company, or at least not an arms-length trading organisation like BWML. As such it will not have separate full accounts but, as indicated earlier, may well appear as an explicit item within the CaRT accounts.

[alan_fincher]

42 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

https://www.watersidemooring.com/Features/View/2/meet-the-team

shows 7 sales managers, each covering a different area. They also have a Sales Manager to oversee them.

However this link shows those 7 area sales managers, plus one more and their national manager, but also lists the other 10 people involved (5 maintenance managers & 5 support staff).

So it would seem the total number of 19 quoted in the original pist is correct.

[alan_fincher]

43 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/boating/mooring/waterside-mooring

says, "We run waterside mooring as part of our discretionary commercial business activities. This income is really important because it goes towards the preservation and maintenance work we do to bring the waterways to life for everyone." This suggests that Waterside Moorings is a part of CaRT, not a separate company, or at least not an arms-length trading organisation like BWML. As such it will not have separate full accounts but, as indicated earlier, may well appear as an explicit item within the CaRT accounts.

As I said in post 14, the moorings income from Waterside Moorings is an explicit item in the annual report.

I'm not sure I would expect to be able to see staff costs for the 19 CRT employees listed as a separate item though - they are presumably merged with any other number for overall CRT staff costs.

I very much doubt that individual staff salaries are anything you could get released via an FOIA request, other than for those at the highest levels, maybe.

[mark99]

6 hours ago, Tanglewood said:

Just for fun, I looked up this website.  There are 19 people employed to manage 3,600 long term moorings, most of whom are simply 'managers', some are described as maintenance managers and 5 are 'dedicated support staff', which either means they are really committed, or they are not shared with another department.  What on earth are all these people doing  and how on earth can all their salaries be covered and profit  produced to go to  CRT itself?    No wonder they are thinking of dropping the policy which required them to close 10% of linear moorings when a new a marina opened within 30 miles. 

 

What an earth do you do everyday then?

And to repeat, what staffing level do you think is right?

You've not really made a cogent point in the post. Sideswipe at best.

 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2018 by mark99

[roland elsdon]

Definition of manager

individual who lives off the back of workers

or individual whose prime role is to  ensure scarce resources ( including staff) are utilised to best advantage.

choose...

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, roland elsdon said:

Definition of manager

individual who lives off the back of workers

or individual whose prime role is to  ensure scarce resources ( including staff) are utilised to best advantage.

choose...

Well I know which one I hope I was

[StephenA]

We're on a C&RT waterside mooring - the people I've dealt with have been excellent. I've been able to get support for problems with a shoreline power point on a Saturday morning, and when we've raised problems via email (sheared mooring stud on the jetty, non working tap) they've  responded quickly and kept me updated.

It does seem that the OP is posting just to raise peoples hackles.

 

 

[brassedoff]

I can't see crt cutting down on any regular income that's been in place and regular for many years  from leisure moorings or offside farm moorings.

That would be income suicide and hit the repairs budget even worse.

As the fast show would of said : SHAMBOLIC....

[BruceinSanity]

9 hours ago, roland elsdon said:

Definition of manager

individual who lives off the back of workers

or individual whose prime role is to  ensure scarce resources ( including staff) are utilised to best advantage.

choose...

Middle manager: someone standing with an umbrella held over the workers to protect them from the BS coming down from above, while they throw half bricks at him.

[roland elsdon]

A bloke who makes decisions in the middle of a firefight which then get scrutinised by others on huge salaries sitting round a table making profound and obvious statements  s l o w l y