Heads and tales

WITH Canal & River Trust (CaRT) advertising to replace two of Chief Executive Richard Parry's direct reports, we ask ‘who is next to go?', writes Allan Richards.

To get the answer to that we have to look at at what is going on with the nine ‘executive directors' and ‘heads of department' who now report directly to the chief executive.

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As previously reported in narrowboatworld (CaRT Finance Director to go), CaRT is replacing its Interim Head of Customer Services, Dean Davis and its Finance Director, Philip Ridal. Salaries for the new joiners will be around £100,000 and £150,000 respectively (both plus benefits).

These are two positions of nine that currently report to CaRT's chief executive who has been systematically stripping power from executive directors and placing it in the hands of non executive staff who report straight to him.

Executive directors

In addition to outgoing Finance Director, Philip Ridal, three other executive directors report to the chief executive. They are Simon Salem (Marketing Director), Vince Moran (Operations Director) and Stewart Mills (Property Director).

Under British Waterways, ‘heads of department' would report to an executive director who, in turn, would report to the chief executive. Under CaRT we have some ‘heads of department' reporting direct to the chief executive.

Keeping quiet

Whilst CaRT are keeping very quiet about what is going on, it now seems that the chief executive now has more ‘heads of department' reporting direct to him than directors.

Evaluation of minutes, press releases and other documents suggests that Richard Parry has five ‘heads' reporting directly to him in addition to the four directors. They are:

Roger Hanbury—Head of Governance
Dean Davis—Head of Customer Services
Heather Clarke—Head of Planning
Jackie Lewis—Head of Legal
Nigel Cadman—Head of Human Resources

. . . . of course, each ‘Head' reporting direct to Richard Parry diminishes the power, responsibilities and influence of other directors.

Well that's the ‘heads', here are the tales!

Tales

Tale number one concerns ex ‘The Waterways Trust (TWT)' Chief Executive, Roger Hanbury who is now Head of Governance. The tale is that BW were keeping TWT afloat by giving it about £1m a year which TWT would then return to BW as grants. In return for TWT agreeing to merge with CaRT and transfer its regular donors to the Trust its chief executive was given a three year sinecure but will leave shortly due to problems with Waterways Partnerships

Tale number two concerns Dean Davis who is in the process of being replaced by a new Head of Customer Services. The tale is that, having been appointed as Interim Head of Customer Services by Richard Parry to strip Simon Salem of some of his responsibilities, he will not return to his old job as West Midlands Waterways Manager but be used in a similar role to strip Operations Director, Vince Moran of some of his powers.

Next Saturday, Dean Davis, is attending the National Association of Boat Owners AGM speaking on ‘My first six months'.

Hopefully he will take the opportunity to come clean and confirm that his first six months as Head of Customer Services was also his last.

Perhaps he will also provide a description of his new role.