A Message from Richard Parry to Boaters

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Tanglewood said:

That will be what this means then

 

• phase two of putting the measurement and evaluation infrastructure in place to support the outstanding OMF / outcome indicators;

0. Putting the infrastructure in place – towpath measurement

   We are in the process of a two phase installation of around 50 automatic video analytic sensors, to monitor the volume and type of towpath use in the fourteen longitudinal study areas (LSAs). In addition we are also installing temperature and air quality sensing capabilities in six of the more densely populated urban LSAs. Further sensors will be installed as part of future property development schemes and externally funded projects initiated and /or delivered by the Trust and its partners.

It simply gets worse :

 

50 cameras ?

To what are these connected ?

Who is monitoring them ?

How is the information collated / recorded ?

 

It would appear to be a lot of expense to justify the claims of increasing well being.

 

Our licence fees do not provide a bottomless pit of money for vanity-projects such as this.

 

NOT HAPPY.

 

12 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

CaRT have started using CCTV cameras to monitor certain areas for footfall, they are triangle shaped, about 1ft high, black plastic with a sensor/camera eye towards the bottom. They have put one at Victoria Quays, Sheffield, which points at Victoria Quays Car park foot exit and Victoria Junction Café, which is opposite the Towpath side of the canal. So all that it is monitoring is mainly office workers going to and from work and how busy the café is at lunch time when said office workers have lunch and also people who have parked in the car park to walk into the city centre. I would say that only 10-20% of the people picked up by this camera actually walk/use the canal Towpath. So not really a true reflection of Towpath use.

But just think how much 'better' those office workers feel because they have walked a few yards along the canal.

[Tanglewood]

6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

It simply gets worse :

 

50 cameras ?

To what are these connected ?

Who is monitoring them ?

How is the information collated / recorded ?

 

It would appear to be a lot of expense to justify the claims of increasing well being.

 

Our licence fees do not provide a bottomless pit of money for vanity-projects such as this.

 

NOT HAPPY.

 

It does get worse - how happy does  this make you? Sorry, let me rephrase that.....

On a scale of 1- infinity, how would you rate your increased sense of well-being every time you learn a little more of what Canal and River Trust now do with your license fee, (and your taxes and your mooring fees) 

 

Rehabilitation study

As part of our work under the OMF indicator on broadening opportunities and inclusivity, the Trust intends to measure the value and effectiveness of waterway related community rehabilitation programmes, including community payback and fit for work schemes, by assessing their impact upon reoffending rates.

In collaboration with the relevant Probation Trusts, we intend to provide the Justice Data Lab with details of offenders who have participated in waterway related community payback schemes. The Justice Data Lab’s analysis consists of matching individuals who have participated in a scheme or programme with statistically similar individuals who have not participated in the scheme. The 12-month reoffending rate of both groups is then compared to identify if scheme participants are less (or more) likely to reoffend than non-participants.

 

 

Waterways & Wellbeing – Building the Evidence Base – First Outcomes Report page 112

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Tanglewood
to add the reference in case anyone thinks I've made this up

[LadyG]

10 hours ago, Tanglewood said:

It does get worse - how happy does  this make you? Sorry, let me rephrase that.....

On a scale of 1- infinity, how would you rate your increased sense of well-being every time you learn a little more of what Canal and River Trust now do with your license fee, (and your taxes and your mooring fees) 

 

Rehabilitation study

As part of our work under the OMF indicator on broadening opportunities and inclusivity, the Trust intends to measure the value and effectiveness of waterway related community rehabilitation programmes, including community payback and fit for work schemes, by assessing their impact upon reoffending rates.

In collaboration with the relevant Probation Trusts, we intend to provide the Justice Data Lab with details of offenders who have participated in waterway related community payback schemes. The Justice Data Lab’s analysis consists of matching individuals who have participated in a scheme or programme with statistically similar individuals who have not participated in the scheme. The 12-month reoffending rate of both groups is then compared to identify if scheme participants are less (or more) likely to reoffend than non-participants.

 

 

Waterways & Wellbeing – Building the Evidence Base – First Outcomes Report page 112

 

omg, so one is likely to be encountering criminals in crt insignia? How does one know which are criminals and which are volunteers and which are supervisors?

It makes me feel unsafe.

My general wellness will be much reduced if I think this is the  future. 

I won't be socialising with any of them.

I don't mind rehabilitating criminals, but I think they need to learn useful skills, and be trained by specialists, not let loose in society.

They should earn a living instead of sponging off society.

Edited June 4, 2018 by LadyG

[Rob-M]

7 hours ago, LadyG said:

omg, so one is likely to be encountering criminals in crt insignia? How does one know which are criminals and which are volunteers and which are supervisors?

It makes me feel unsafe.

My general wellness will be much reduced if I think this is the  future. 

I won't be socialising with any of them.

I don't mind rehabilitating criminals, but I think they need to learn useful skills, and be trained by specialists, not let loose in society.

They should earn a living instead of sponging off society.

I think you may find that Community Payback is supervised activities, certainly the teams I have seen working around Birmingham have had a supervisor who instructs on what is required.  There isn't a gang of criminals let loose raping and pillaging along the towpath.

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

16 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

I think you may find that Community Payback is supervised activities, certainly the teams I have seen working around Birmingham have had a supervisor who instructs on what is required.  There isn't a gang of criminals let loose raping and pillaging along the towpath.

 

 

There does appear to be several gangs along the towpaths 'raping & pillaging' but no mention is ever made that they are attached to the Community Payback programme.

[Captain Pegg]

8 hours ago, LadyG said:

omg, so one is likely to be encountering criminals in crt insignia? How does one know which are criminals and which are volunteers and which are supervisors?

It makes me feel unsafe.

My general wellness will be much reduced if I think this is the  future. 

I won't be socialising with any of them.

I don't mind rehabilitating criminals, but I think they need to learn useful skills, and be trained by specialists, not let loose in society.

They should earn a living instead of sponging off society.

Must be a big worry for a non-boater in Scotland. I live opposite a churchyard that is maintained by such folk. Never had the slightest issue with it. The only impact is a well maintained graveyard for the visitors.

 

 

[LadyG]

16 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Must be a big worry for a non-boater in Scotland. I live opposite a churchyard that is maintained by such folk. Never had the slightest issue with it. The only impact is a well maintained graveyard for the visitors.

 

 

You would think the good folks of the parish would maintain their own "airt", rather than sponging off the State [neither volunteer nor conscripted labour are free at source]. What use are litter picking and poxy weeding skills in the real world.

 

Of course it is a worry for me as I intend to live on the UK inland waters for the rest of my time on the planet earth. Even now thinking about a proper boat and going to France where they encourage real sailors, and other purist hobbyists. Just don't have the bottle, so my first step is a sewertube. I could live comfortably on a smallholding in some far off eastern land on my pension, but the UK seems to get more expensive,  more polluted, and overcrowded with not very nice people every day.

Edited June 5, 2018 by LadyG

[Captain Pegg]

7 minutes ago, LadyG said:

You would think the good folks of the parish would maintain their own "airt". What use are litter picking and weeding skills in the real world.

Of course it is a worry for me as I intend to live on the UK inland waters for the rest of my time on the planet earth. Even now thinking about a proper boat and going to France where they encourage real sailors, and other purist hobbyists. Just don't have the bottle, so my first step is a sewertube. I could live comfortably on a smallholding in some far off eastern land on my pension, but the UK seems to get more expensive,  more polluted and overcrowded with not very nice people every day.

Community Payback is about the benefit to the community not to the offender, the clue is in the name. Frankly if you ever do end up living on a boat on CRT waters it won't be an issue.

 

JP

[LadyG]

11 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Community Payback is about the benefit to the community not to the offender, the clue is in the name. Frankly if you ever do end up living on a boat on CRT waters it won't be an issue.

 

JP

I think folks have forgotten the "Care in the Community"  policy in the 80's, where lots of very strange people and some fairly dangerous nutters were turned out all day, to wander the Pound shops and loiter in bus shelters before they found a nice place to beg on the streets.  

We have a whole family of foreigners here who sell the Big Issue  here in Toytown: father, mother, sister and brother, they are not actually homeless, maybe they were once twenty years ago. I no longer buy their products. I think they have had plenty of time to get a job and contribute to the economy but they elect to stand on the streets, peddling their wares.

Edited June 5, 2018 by LadyG

[Captain Pegg]

1 minute ago, LadyG said:

I think folks have forgotten the "Care in the Community"  policy in the 80's, where lots of very strange people and some fairly dangerous nutters were turned out all day, to wander the Pound shops and loiter in bus shelters, before they found a nice place to beg on the streets.  

That's a different thing. And an unfortunate description of the mentally ill.

[Captain Pegg]

8 minutes ago, LadyG said:

 

We have a whole family of foreigners here who sell the Big Issue  here in Toytown: father, mother, sister and brother, they are not actually homeless, maybe they were once twenty years ago, but I no longer buy their products. I think they have had plenty of time to get a job and contribute to the economy but they elect to stand on the streets, peddling their wares.

You have had plenty of time to buy a boat and move onto CRT waters. But you know what? Life isn't always so simple is it?

 

Probably best to ask yourself if you would like to trade places with them before you criticise their actions.

 

JP

[Athy]

27 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I could live comfortably on a smallholding in some far off eastern land on my pension,

WE'll be seeing you in Norfolk soon, then?

[LadyG]

1 minute ago, Captain Pegg said:

That's a different thing. And an unfortunate description of the mentally ill.

I expect you will find a lot of criminals are mentally ill, including the ones who do the tidying up in the graveyards.

I just wish they would do something useful [I mean learn how to earn a living], then they might be healed. The power of God seems to have passed them by. 

[LadyG]

13 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

You have had plenty of time to buy a boat and move onto CRT waters. But you know what? Life isn't always so simple is it?

 

Probably best to ask yourself if you would like to trade places with them before you criticise their actions.

 

JP

I am not criticising the actions of the graveyard tidying criminals, they are taking  a soft option made available to them at great expense, but it is NOT free, just check on the cost of "volunteers" to the CRT.

I have done voluntary work with misguided teenagers, the young ones are great fun, the older ones are usually beyond help, having graduated through the youth clubs system for wayward kids,  they drift in to crime as an alternative to sitting around drinking Special Brew and smoking roll-ups of contraband tobacco, sponging off mates who have kiddies and are housed for "free" by the LA. This is how a lot of people live on the housing estates in Glasgow, we have similar ghettos in most larger towns hereabouts. They have no job, they aspire to wealth, they get in to crime.

Edited June 5, 2018 by LadyG

[Captain Pegg]

2 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I expect you will find a lot of criminals are mentally ill, including the ones who do the tidying up in the graveyards.

I just wish they would do something useful [I mean learn how to earn a living], then they might be healed. The power of God seems to have passed them by. 

I have never assumed they are all incarcerated and/or unemployed. They have committed minor offences. Mostly just young folk from deprived childhoods who lacked moral guidance in their upbringing. They don't need healing or to find God.

[Athy]

3 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

 They don't need healing or to find God.

It wouldn't do them any harm though.

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, Captain Pegg said:

I have never assumed they are all incarcerated and/or unemployed. They have committed minor offences. Mostly just young folk from deprived childhoods who lacked moral guidance in their upbringing. They don't need healing or to find God.

There are more prisons now than ever before, more violence in youth, and an expanding prison population. Just to to keep them entombed costs about £35K per annum per criminal [and no I  don't sugar it up by saying "offender"]. The inconvenience and the the cost of getting them there is horrendous.

 The system is not working.

Crime seems to be a growth industry judged by the numbers in prisons. Petty crime is a nuisance, it affects all of us in one way or another, like shoplifting [costs direct and indirect], like litter and graffiti, like spitting on the streets,  swearing in public, stealing anything not tied down, breaking shop windows. Of course they never actually pay any money back to the victims, that would be foolish. Its a bit of a lottery whether they are petty crimes or serious crimes. How would you define stealing cars for fun and learning to drive by the age of 13 barely able to see over the steering wheel, if no one gets injured is it a petty crime, if someone gets killed is it a serious crime? A  great wee guy, I complimented him on his steering of a 70 foot yacht, so he explained why he was so good :). 

Don't think they are all misguided kids, my 77 year old neighbour broke in to my house to get her fix of alcohol, I pulled her out by the scruff of the neck. Her husband had her arrested for assault after we had extracted her from the public toilets. He refused to help me get her out of someones house, where she lay on her back, very physically fighting off assistance. On one occasion it took four coppers to physically  get her back to her house. Not in the least phased by the handcuffs or a night in a cell, seemed quite proud of this new experience.  I did try to be sympathetic at first, but as far as I  am concerned, she spends her time trying to make my life a misery, its all petty crime but no one can stop her or her like., she has learned how to manipulate the system. No unhappy childhood or other excuse.

Two convicted criminals I knew and who were ex school and college colleagues had no excuse, one was a policeman,  who decided to supplement his income by several means, another traded diseased cattle for a living, they both got caught and drifted in to obscurity, probably some minor drug trafficking, something easy like that. New skills learnt in prison. They had no reason to become criminals, they opted for that route.

Edited June 5, 2018 by LadyG

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, Captain Pegg said:

I have never assumed they are all incarcerated and/or unemployed. They have committed minor offences. Mostly just young folk from deprived childhoods who lacked moral guidance in their upbringing. They don't need healing or to find God.

If they are employed why are they weeding a churchyard rather than hanging out with friends. They will only meet other criminals, who explain how to use the system. Its well known that a year in the Bar-L can set a criminal up for a life of crime, sometimes very successfully if judged in personal financial  terms.

oops, are we a bit off topic?

I'm off to the gym and swim, its all quiet here this morning, maybe yesterdays visit by the Police will work for a few days till they come up with another scheme.

Edited June 5, 2018 by LadyG

[Tanglewood]

3 hours ago, LadyG said:

oops, are we a bit off topic?

Probably!

 

Like any other conversation  this forum is bound to wander at times.  I accept responsibility as I posted the information that CRT are intending to measure the benefit of Community Service activities and hope to find that community service on the canals results in fewer incidents of re-offending than a control group.   CRT are  not intending to do the rehabilitation themselves - just try to show there are unexpected and hitherto unmeasured benefits, from such a programme.

 

I think spending money on measuring this kind of thing is wasteful of CRT resources - if anyone should be doing it it should be the Probation Service.  Measuring is now an entire industry - and all organisations are spending resources they probably could divert elsewhere more usefully,  trying to prove they make a difference.  The extract below is taken from 'Ten reasons not to measure impact' by Gugarty and Karlan in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

 

''The trend toward impact measurement is mostly positive, but the push to demonstrate impact has also wasted resources, compromised monitoring efforts in favor of impact evaluation, and contributed to a rise in poor and even misleading methods of demonstrating impact. For instance, many organizations collect more data than they actually have the resources to analyze, resulting in wasted time and effort that could have been spent more productively elsewhere. Other organizations collect the wrong data, tracking changes in outcomes over time but not in a way that allows them to know whether the organization caused the changes or they just happened to occur alongside the program.

Bad impact evaluations can also provide misleading or just plain wrong results, leading to poor future decisions. Effective programs may be overlooked and ineffective programs wrongly funded. In addition to such social costs, poor impact evaluations have important opportunity costs as well. Resources spent on a bad impact evaluation could have been devoted instead to implementation or to needed subsidies or programs.'

 

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/ten_reasons_not_to_measure_impact_and_what_to_do_instead

 

 

 

[LadyG]

6 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

Probably best to ask yourself if you would like to trade places with them before you criticise their actions.

 

 

If  I had been birthed, fed and watered, schooled and housed for twenty years in the UK, I would not be selling the Big Issue, I would be  doing something useful with my life. Dad does occasional busking, Mum sells Big Issue at Morrison's, son is outside Tesco, and the daughter covers for them. None of them are disabled, the children are bi-lingual, father can get by in English. I am not against immigration if it is to absorb those who are refugees, or economic migrants, but I  expect them to work for a living in order to stoke the UK economy. They don't all sign up to that part of the deal. 

Edited June 5, 2018 by LadyG

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, Tanglewood said:

Probably!

 

Like any other conversation  this forum is bound to wander at times.  I accept responsibility as I posted the information that CRT are intending to measure the benefit of Community Service activities and hope to find that community service on the canals results in fewer incidents of re-offending than a control group.   CRT are  not intending to do the rehabilitation themselves - just try to show there are unexpected and hitherto unmeasured benefits, from such a programme.

 

I think spending money on measuring this kind of thing is wasteful of CRT resources - if anyone should be doing it it should be the Probation Service.  Measuring is now an entire industry - and all organisations are spending resources they probably could divert elsewhere more usefully,  trying to prove they make a difference.  The extract below is taken from 'Ten reasons not to measure impact' by Gugarty and Karlan in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

 

''The trend toward impact measurement is mostly positive, but the push to demonstrate impact has also wasted resources, compromised monitoring efforts in favor of impact evaluation, and contributed to a rise in poor and even misleading methods of demonstrating impact. For instance, many organizations collect more data than they actually have the resources to analyze, resulting in wasted time and effort that could have been spent more productively elsewhere. Other organizations collect the wrong data, tracking changes in outcomes over time but not in a way that allows them to know whether the organization caused the changes or they just happened to occur alongside the program.

Bad impact evaluations can also provide misleading or just plain wrong results, leading to poor future decisions. Effective programs may be overlooked and ineffective programs wrongly funded. In addition to such social costs, poor impact evaluations have important opportunity costs as well. Resources spent on a bad impact evaluation could have been devoted instead to implementation or to needed subsidies or programs.'

 

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/ten_reasons_not_to_measure_impact_and_what_to_do_instead

 

 

 

Targets and measurable goals with rewards in line with results will always end up skewing the program. The results of using contractors by CRT without caveats or evidence, has been discussed on here on several occasions.

 

Edited June 5, 2018 by LadyG

[Sir Nibble]

27 minutes ago, LadyG said:

If  I had been birthed, fed and watered, schooled and housed for twenty years in the UK, I would not be selling the Big Issue, I would be  doing something useful with my life. Dad does occasional busking, Mum sells Big Issue at Morrison's, son is outside Tesco, and the daughter covers for them. None of them are disabled, and the children are obviously bi-lingual. I am not against immigration if it is to absorb those who are refugees, or economic migrants, but I  expect them to work for a living in order to stoke the UK economy. They don't all sign up to that part of the deal.

It's no longer the homeless selling the big issue. The length and breadth of the country big issue sellers seem to be overwhelmingly female and dressed in a uniform of long skirt and head scarf. I think it's normal employment for a section of the population.

[MtB]

45 minutes ago, LadyG said:

but I  expect them to work for a living in order to stoke the UK economy. They don't all sign up to that part of the deal. 

 

Well I think selling the big issue illustrates quite a good work ethic. They could just sit about doing nothing, complaining about the benefits system. 

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, Sir Nibble said:

It's no longer the homeless selling the big issue. The length and breadth of the country big issue sellers seem to be overwhelmingly female and dressed in a uniform of long skirt and head scarf. I think it's normal employment for a section of the population.

That describes mother and daughter to a T.

This is not generating wealth, this is parasitism. I think The Big Issue started as a way of giving the homeless a helping hand, a temporary fix. I used to give them a £1 and tell them to keep the paper, when the price went up I just pressed a £1 coin in to their hand. No longer.

 

The politicians tell Mr and Mrs Smith from suburbia that these migrants are the way forward for Industry-_UK.

Build GDP, pay off National Debt. That is not how the immigrants see it: the archetypal Polish builder who works hard, earns real money, provides for his Polish family, he has no intention of working for the UK economy or the common good.

Edited June 5, 2018 by LadyG

[Athy]

20 minutes ago, Sir Nibble said:

It's no longer the homeless selling the big issue. 

Surely this isn't true? The magazine was set up (by a fellow called R. John Bird, I think) for that very purpose - to draw attention to homelessness and to provide homeless people with a way of earning an income.