I think we are all in danger of failing to see the wood for the trees here.
The last time we had to mobilise in a big way, BW was suffering from the fall-out from the crisis in DEFRA's budget caused by the farm over-payments problem. Transferring BW to a different department or tweaking its funding stream were possible responses to that (and may still make sense but are no longer the right response to where we are today.) And Steve is right to remind us that this came after BW had done pretty well for a number years. It benefitted from new sources of funds such as the lottery (though as Neil rightly says that always carries a bias towards initial capital spend rather than revenue and maintenance support). Government spending was increasing and BW were doing even better than that as there was some strong political support - not to mention nicer photo-opportunities than some other areas of government activity. As Steve says there has been a greater recognition of the importance of the waterways to heritage, regeneration and the quality of life. And even with real difficulties in some parts of the system, there has still been money for things like the Liverpool link. Now we are suffering from a much more profound problem. We are still in a deep recession caused by the worst financial crisis since the 1920s/30s. The UK is in particular difficulties because of the dominance of the economy by financial services (which has occurred under both parties). I think that makes things very different, and much more difficult. Many economists don't think the deficit is the big issue as it's an inevitable fall-out from a recession, but it seems to be dominating politics. (And I've just deleted a long section on the economics of this as being very off topic...) The argument for cutting BW is therefore now much more political. If you believe in slashing spending to reduce the deficit and think that too much government was the cause of the crash as the Conservcatives do - then I think it's inevitable that BW will share the pain. BW's third sector plans always made sense to me as preparation for a change of government. Taking BW's activities out of the national accounts and therefore shrinking the state has obvious appeal to the right. I am therefore extremely pessimistic about BW's future. I would expect boat licenses to increase too as bigger user charges is also part of the new Conservative philosophy. I see no great prospects of success in trying to make BW a special case when lots of other worthy causes are sharing the pain. And while BW have been wrong to ape the private sector by increasing top pay, there's not that much to be saved there compared to what is needed. Of course not everything is perfect in the public sector, but the scope for painless cuts is much less than some claim. On the other hand I'm less worried about short term disposals of BW property (though I stress short-term) because the property market is so depressed. They simply wouldn't get a good price at the moment. Nor would the sales make any significant difference to the national debt. This is the Treasury flexing its muscles. In the longer term I am more worried however. I have always agreed with Steve that the current system is better, but it may be a least worst option to accept an under-funded BW moved to the third sector with a property dowry. But this would be because the alternative was worse, not because it has any great merit as a solution in itself. The truth is that BW will always require public funding. It's a public good that benefits the whole nation. The bitter truth however is that we want European style public services and public realm, but want to pay US taxes for them. -- Nigel Stanley
