Some 18 months after making a complaint regarding the last licencing consultation (not to be confused with the current one on licence pricing!) I finally have the Waterways Ombudsman’s report into the matter. A summary of the report, which extends to almost 50 pages, will be published on the Waterways Ombudsman’s web site in due course.

Whilst the report is heavily critical of British Waterways in many areas it upholds the policy adopted. The W.O. is of the opinion that British Waterways may well have adopted the “policy + guidelines” even if they had properly followed the consultation proceedure.

A binding recommendation has been made concerning the current pricing consultation whereby British Waterways is obliged to demonstrate that the consultation process has been properly executed by producing an independent report for the Ombudsman.

As many owners will be aware, British Waterways have continually moved the goalposts during and after the consultation. Sadly, this did not stop when the policy was implemented! Licencing terms and conditions reflecting the new policy were introduced on 1/1/2007. What seems to have happened is that British Waterways became aware that the majority of the 300 “private” and “managed” shared boats would still apply for private licences. What they did was deliberately withhold the 1/1/2007 changes from licence applicants by not amending the 2006 Terms and Conditions on either of the websites that hold them and deliberately preventing owners from receiving paper based copies. (As far as I know I am the only person who has a copy – and I had to squeeze that out of BW by suggesting that they had not implemented the policy)

This resulted in applications being made simply on the basis of what BW had told management companies - and, needless to say they told different companies different things.

Just before 1/4/2007 they secretly changed the wording of the "unchanged" Terms and Conditions so that all 150 “managed” boats were liable for “business” licences. In other words they simply reversed a change they had made in response to a recommendation made by the Waterways Ombudsman in respect of an earlier complaint.

Although not part of my complaint, I made the Ombudsman aware of this situation and also put pressure on British Waterways to rectify the situation.

The outcome is that the 1/1/2007 and 1/4/2007 terms and conditions are no longer in force and have been replaced by "guidance" on how to choose a licence ( now available on waterscape.com - but you have to search for it! They are also now being sent out in licence renewal packs).

These guidelines are significantly different to the 1/1/2007 T’s & C’s and tend to rely on the spirit of the consultation outcome document rather than the guidelines that amend it (in other words they give the owners the choice of deciding if the boat is to be licenced as "private" or "business". This is very good news as many shared owners were reasonably happy with the consultation outcome before it was amended by the guidelines.

My understanding of this document is that it has significant benefits for all 300 shared owners:-

Private shared owners can simply forget about the policy – they do not now have to do anything to comply (even if they have done so in the past)!

“Managed” owners who are currently licencing as “private” now have more flexibility in the way they apply for licences. For example, it is permissible to use the address of the management company as the applicants address (and probably desirable for everyone!). Also, no special restriction applies regarding payment so boat funds can be used for the purpose for which they were intended.

“Managed” owners who are currently licencing as “business” may also be able to licence as “private”. However, this probably depends on them reaching agreement with the management companies as to how this can be achieved.

Can I suggest that owners do not comment on the “how to choose a licence document”. If there is anything in it that you don’t understand, I suggest you email me privately. I strongly suggest you do not contact BW, ask for clarification, or put forward interpretations on this forum.

Whilst the noises now coming out of BW suggest that they have lost interest in licencing shared boats at the business rate I should remind owners that they have now implemented policy, scraped it and reverted to a previous policy and reimplemented it in a different way. I see no mileage to be gained from providing them with opportunity or ideas for further changes or “clarification .... and we do know that in the past they have used information published on forums to our disadvantage.

In summary, I am generally very pleased with the outcome of this complaint. I am somewhat less than pleased that BW is not disciplining the person(s) responsible for its actions during implementation or apologising . I am considering making a further complaint so that that these issues are addressed.

Finally, can I repeat for, hopefully the last time that this complaint was specifically made on my own behalf of the owners of nb Albert rather than shared owners generally. It was not sponsored in any way by a shared ownership management company.


Regards

Allan

Ps In response to a question from an OwnerShips owner at his boats AGM in October 2006, I stated “It will all be sorted by Christmas”. I would beg to remind that owner that I did not say which Christmas