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All the more reason for re-appraisal then.
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« Last post by Offwidth on Today at 08:28:57 pm »
Also Offwidth. I find your continual attempts to shield the BMC behind the fact that it's heavily supported by volunteers extremely hard to jusify.
A small percentage of people that we meet in life are takers. That's just how it is, people realise this over time and the takers aren't widely respected as a result. The vast majority of people help or volunteer with something. Whether it's charity, clubs, schools, community, sports, politics or whatever, most of us volunteer our time in some fashion or other. The notion that volunteers should be regarded as being in anyway special or holy is nonsense. Nearly all of us are volunteers for something or other. Being a volunteer should not make you immune to criticism. It one hundred perecent should not make the organisation you are volunterring for immune to criticism. The volunteers should be as outraged as the rest of us if not more about the state of things at the BMC. If any of the organisations that I volunteer for were behaving this poorly I would be kicking up so much shit you wouldn't be able to see me for the brown cloud.
That's not what I'm saying though. I'm saying staff and volunteers just got on with things, since 2017, during several real crises. The first big one was the disruption then financial fallout of the Motion of No Confidence (when grants were stopped, despite a huge majority backing the BMC leadership). The second was covid and furlough. The third was during a cost of living crisis which was unlucky to correspond with: some seriously poor financial planning , control and oversight; and also serious stakeholder problems in GB Climbing. Six of us wrote to say this last March, got Council to back us and have been pressuring for improvement ever since. After a year of struggle, and some senior departures, at last there is light at the end of the tunnel. However, since budgets are still tight, members leaving now because they are angry with BMC mismanagement (and encouraging others to leave) will hurt staff and key volunteers' ability to work at maximum efficiency. So since things are looking much better I'd just ask them to think carefully before doing so. If you don't believe the 2022 statement ask questions at the open forum in a couple of weeks. Or have a quiet chat with David, Tarquin or Bill who have been Council Finance and Audit reps in the last few years... I trust all three. David was the first to warn the FAC about over ambitious membership growth targets (who then dropped put of Council for a few months) and Tarquin and Bill were part of our letter writing 6.
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« Last post by teestub on Today at 07:10:50 pm »
Have you done any accounting? This seems extremely unlikely from the small exposure I've had to finance and accounting.
Helping Randall to hide the McLaren on the Lattice accounts? 😂
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« Last post by seankenny on Today at 07:04:47 pm »
We fit the profile and want to enjoy the heritage of landscape and estates the Trust conserves. I think- without solid evidence, of course- that a lot of ‘people like us’ are actually very comfortable with a more honest and nuanced appraisal of the legacy of the past and how it was all built.
These days “people like us” will include people whose ancestors were very much on the wrong end of the arrangement that led to those lovely country houses…
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« Last post by Nails on Today at 06:54:39 pm »
I've been compiling company accounts for nearly 30 years. I may be overstating things to make a point. It might be hard to decipher if there was no accompanying documentation but I reckon I could give it a good go. Not that I suppose the BMC are likely to give me the opportunity. The main point is that it simply isn't that difficult to work out the expenditure.
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« Last post by Oldmanmatt on Today at 06:42:47 pm »
I'm no accountant but give me 1 day with access to the bank records for BMC 2022 and I could give you a pretty detailed picture of where the money has gone and on what.
Have you done any accounting? This seems extremely unlikely from the small exposure I've had to finance and accounting.
I don’t believe it is as hard as has been intimidated and Nails suggestion is a good starting point. Are we to believe that all kinds of transactions occurred with no records, authorisation or direct oversight? To be clear, the number if zeros at the end of amounts concerned is largely irrelevant. Imagine if you will, attending the district Christmas street decoration committee, to be told that the fund which had stood at £2000, has £200 missing and unaccounted for, but not to worry because Mrs Baker (the Grocer) has done a wonderful job of the bunting and lets all pull together and forget the missing money, and anyway, Mr Sparks (local carpenter) the former treasurer, has moved away anyway, and look at the lovely lights and don’t worry that Mr Sparks left the accounts scrawled in three lines on the back of an old envelope and Mr Dodge, the former chairman, said he was sure it was all cushty, before he went to take up his new job in the Hebrides…
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« Last post by Will Hunt on Today at 06:36:26 pm »
For what it's worth, I'm sceptical that nationalising would lead to better regulation, which is how you change internal governance. The reason the Thatcher government privatised in the first place is because they balked at funding themselves the future investment that was needed to pull the industry out of the hole it was in in the late 80s. Governments since have been able to enact the WFD and now the Environment Act (which, as I've said before, is a mind bogglingly costly thing to implement) and not had to worry about borrowing the money themselves to finance it, that's the water industry's problem. I personally don't think the Environment Act would have been enacted as it is if the government was going to have to do the borrowing and taxing to pay for it.
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« Last post by Moo on Today at 06:15:33 pm »
It’s worth noting that not even feargal sharkey is arguing in favour of nationalising the water companies. His argument being ( the last time I saw him speak about it ) that as soon as we do so then we all foot the bill. He’s arguing for tough regulations on the water companies, get them to sort the mess out they created and the shareholders will just have to suck it up for a while.
The basic premise of that argument makes sense to me but I’m certainly not wise as to how difficult that would be to implement.
I guess if you did nationalise the water companies then you could hopefully be surer of their governance being in our best interests.
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« Last post by remus on Today at 06:06:36 pm »
I'm no accountant but give me 1 day with access to the bank records for BMC 2022 and I could give you a pretty detailed picture of where the money has gone and on what.
Have you done any accounting? This seems extremely unlikely from the small exposure I've had to finance and accounting.
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« Last post by Will Hunt on Today at 05:58:15 pm »
When I said before that the quality of reporting around this was poor, this is the kind of thing I meant. While Britain was in the EU, a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually. After Brexit, the WFD was transposed into English law.
From 2016, the government decided to test water quality under WFD every three years rather than annually. A single sentence separating two contradictory statements, each presented as fact. Can the Guardian really not be aware of when Brexit occurred? This is typical of the paper, which is happy to report on the water environment provided it can be used as an argument for nationalising the water industry/being in the EU (I mean, I absolutely hate Brexit, but the reduction in sampling frequency has nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with budget cuts). Ideologically, I'm in favour of nationalised water. That doesn't necessarily mean I think it would be a pragmatic thing to do now. Do I think that nationalisation is a solution to the "problem" (what is that exactly? Reduction of storm overflows? Elimination of storm overflows? Reduction of pollution incidents? Improvement of bathing water quality? Improvement of water ecology? All different things with different solutions)? Not really. Dwr Cymru have all these challenges; they have no shareholders. The same goes for plenty of other water and sanitation providers around the developed world.
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