Stakeholder BW moves into the 'Third Sector'

British Waterways has revived/relaunched/reinforced its bid to become a 'Third Sector' organisation, issuing a new PDF:

Setting A New Course - Britain's Waterways In The Third Sector.

I'm not sure what's in the new 36-page document that hasn't already appeared in discussions over the last year - and particular in the pathfinding 2020 - A Vision For The Future document of six months ago.  But then I've not yet read it properly.

The press release says:

The report, produced by a team of third sector experts, incorporates input from waterway stakeholders including those at British Waterways’ recent Annual Meeting. 

It identifies that as a charity British Waterways would sit on the boundary between the third and public sectors – other examples of organisations in this space include museums, universities and foundation hospitals. 

As well as being the guardian of the UK’s third largest collection of listed buildings, the report notes that, as a charity, British Waterways would be the UK’s 13th largest by income; comparable to charities such as the British Red Cross Society and Barnardo’s.

There goes that word 'stakeholder' again, which I still say is misused.  A stakeholder is traditionally the person or party who holds an asset on behalf of a group of others who might have conflicting interests over who really should own it.  

In this situation I suppose BW is the stakeholder.  You and me all, we are the interested parties, the 'shareholders' if  you like, the ones on behalf of whom BW is holding this wonderful stake.

(Why does this matter?  Because in a 'third sector' organisation - where everything is public - everyone has a stake in it.  To use the S-word is meaningless.   What's more important is to define the person or organisation looking after the resource - for example if it's BW or the Environment Agency that is looking after a particular navigation or property estate.) 

A quick browse of Setting A New Course shows that it's highly readable - well done to the communications department!  However, BW, please can we have a version that doesn't use so much damned ink on printout?  Have you see the cost of refilling my printer?

Certainly the earlier document had a far cooler front page (below), but that was maybe even inkier.  And now's not the time for trendiness, judging by what's truly at stake.

Comments

[Andrew Denny]

Neil, I'm not in danger of becoming a word pedant; I'm already a complete, paid-up, card-carrying founder member of The Pedant's Circle. I was a pedant before anyone was sure what pedantry was, when people were stil arguing about its exact meaning!

I always say language only changes if you let it. I do let a lot of language change. But I fight against meaningless change or change that confuses. As I think it does here.

[Neil Corbett]

Andrew you're in danger of becoming a word pedant:-)

I am of the "language is organic" school and most people now take stakeholder to mean someone who has a stake in the service, whether providing or receiving.

On the main subject as I see it. I suspect that the third sector or whatever you call it might be a safer place to be than in the government funding domain. What little government money there is over the next few years will be targeted at (justifiably)higher priorities than waterways. BW will just suffer cut after cut if it stays where it is.