Finally, some good news from Barnet Council

Although this decision arrives somewhat late in the day, as the first illegally over-priced permits and vouchers were sold in April 2011, Mr Mustard does welcome it as the council are doing the right thing for which they should, finally, be gently applauded.

Mr Mustard does have some sympathy with the council who must have thought that after all the free bad publicity about the permit price hike and the judicial review in national newspapers like the Guardian, that residents would be  stampeding up to the Town Hall with their refund applications. That turned out not to be the case.

What the council probably overlooked was their own statistic about resident churn in the borough in that 8% of residents change each year so those who have moved away (or sadly died) wouldn't have known that a refund is due.

So far only about 5,200 out of the estimated 12,000 who are eligible for a refund have received a collective £1.2m with another £1.3m still to be distributed.

Mr Mustard's only concern with this 9 page report (he has shown you just the main 2 pages) is that as far as Mr Mustard can tell Civica are only going to contact residents at the address on file. There is no indication that any tracing action will be taken if the resident does not respond in order to verify if the resident is still resident or if they have moved away and to obtain the new address.

Mr Mustard thinks that another report to effect tracing will be required later on.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No NtO

vital steps to reach the top

The Notice to Owner (NtO) is a vital document for a vehicle owner as it tells them a PCN has been issued which they may not know about because:

• the traffic warden photographed it on the windscreen and then removed it so you can't get the 50% discount
• someone else was driving and didn't tell you they got a PCN
• it was dark and raining and the PCN was slipped under the wipers and went flying when you used the wipers
• a schoolkid took the PCN for a laugh or a dare

If you don't respond to the PCN by paying it or contesting it, the cost of the PCN rises by 50% and you then have to wait somewhat nervously for the next document to arrive, the Order for Recovery so that you can file a witness statement at Court and go back to the beginning. You could be on a holiday of a lifetime whilst this happens and your car ends up seized by a bailiff.

The minutes of a meeting between NSL and Barnet Council "thin client" representatives has the following "Issue" (how Mr Mustard hates that word, this "issue" is a blunder, an error, a problem or some such other more accurate word) recorded at 16 January 2013

Issue: Failure of NtO issue.

Description: Audit screen in CE (the parking enforcement software) states NtO printed & posted on 17/08/2012, however correspondence screen states NtO failed to process. Customer states NtO not received, only CC (Charge Certificate) received in the post. Conflicting information within CE system. Example case AG########.

Action: Logged with Civica 16/01/2013 under support call ######. Awaiting update.

So there you have it. There has been a problem with a document that is vital to the legal processing of PCNs, not being issued, which should lead an honest council to stop what they are doing and undertake an audit of the system to see how many PCN were affected and cancel those PCN. Did they? Mr Mustard very much doubts it.

Mr Mustard turned to the minutes of 8 February 13. He couldn't find a mention of the NtO problem.

At the next meeting on 10 April 13 there is an item about "Civica issues" but no detail as to whether this includes the NtO printing problem. The action was to arrange a meeting so the problem certainly wasn't solved if it was included.

The meeting of 20 May 13 did note various failures to issue statutory notices (like the NtO) which had been going on since June 12 and were still ongoing at April 13 but didn't specifically mention this problem.

At the next meeting on 10 July 13 and the one after that of 10 September 13 (which was only about Key Performance Indicators) and the one of 8 October 13 and of 29 November 13 there was no mention of this NtO printing problem. PATAS accept a council report which says that a Notice has been printed and posted at face value so the independent adjudicator may have made some decisions on a false premise.

Maybe the problem was confined to just 2 or 3 PCN or maybe it affected 10,000 but given the poor minutes of meetings (which internal Audit have commented upon when they audited contract management as opposed to processing) we don't know. Mr Mustard will be sure to ask the parking manager next time he sees him.

Mr Mustard's experience of parking departments generally (and he has dealt with a few in London) is that they lack decency, good manners and honesty (excluding the two Barnet parking managers he deals with most weeks). They have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a moral and legal position.

Until revenue raising is not at the heart of the local authority parking operation, this situation is unlikely to change.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

p.s. The software has now been changed from Civica CE to ICES so this problem will have gone away. Some other problem will have replaced it, most probably.

NSL - 700 PCN not issued as out of time

Take the bus and you won't get a PCN

Minutes of a management meeting show that at 9 April 13 there were 700 Regulation 10 PCN which had not been issued on time. If they were £110 value PCN and 50% were paid inside 14 days and 20% at full price the council will have lost income of £34,650 or 21 day's worth of savings that NSL are meant to have brought us. (A Regulation 10 PCN is when the PCN is sent by post because of a drive away or because the traffic warden was physically prevented from serving).

Civica, the software supplier, said that progression of the PCN had not been configured (correctly) so it is all down to NSL (as the process worked when Barnet Council was in charge of it).

One Barnet, it isn't working is it?

Parking is such a vital service to the reputation of the council that it is foolish to entrust it to a contractor who has no connection with the borough other than as a cash cow.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

We will be slow but you mustn't be

"IT" should have read "I.T." standing for Information Technology.

This scruffy note was being inserted into PCN envelopes whilst the parking enforcement software was being changed from Civica to ICES.

So it is OK for the council to be slow but if you fail to pay, during a time when the on-line payment facility was not available, then it is your fault that the council couldn't upgrade in 2 days over a weekend which would have been the best approach.

As it happens you don't need to fret about the council being slow. If they take longer than 56 days to respond to your formal representations, the ones you sent in after receiving the Notice to Owner, the council are deemed to have accepted them. So, sit tight, be quiet and let the days tick by.

If the council don't respond to your informal challenge, the one you sent in when you found a PCN on your car, and then send you a Notice to Owner, that is a procedural impropriety following the Hackney Drivers Association Ltd judicial review and you can quote PATAS decision 213064382A as being one that followed the same reasoning, in your Appeal to PATAS.

If your resident permit has run out, and you can't get it renewed, then you should follow this advice from the council

Through this period of change, your vehicle registration number has been sent to our enforcement partners NSL, so that they do not issue this vehicle with a penalty charge notice. However, as this is a manual work around until our permit system maintenance is completed, if you do receive a PCN during this time we ask that you call us immediately, where we resolve this instantly for you.

Please call us on 020 8359 7446.

We will contact you when our systems are available for you to complete your application in full.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Oops - NSL - same mistake twice

oops

Following on from Sunday's post about NSL failing to send out 864 Bus Lane PCN (minuted on 24 May 12) you would probably expect that failure to not happen again? Oh dear, it has.

When it comes to parking, zero tolerance is show by the council, acting by their agents NSL, to a perceived parking contravention. Traffic wardens are required to issue a PCN to a vehicle seen in contravention. Is the same attitude displayed by the council when NSL are in contravention of the One Barnet parking enforcement contract?

On 18 January 13 it was minuted that 235 bus lane PCN had not been issued. At £130 each with an estimated 50% of the PCN paid at 50% and then 20% at full price the loss to the council would be £13,720 or 8 days of anticipated contract savings.

Mr Mustard went through the 2012/13 Accounts and no deductions were made from sums paid for that year and he wasn't made aware of any when he did the Audit Commission Act inspection as a member of the public.

NSL should be made to pay for any errors (and doubtless they will point the finger at Civica the software supplier  except that it would have worked if it had been configured correctly).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

NSL - could be more helpful

There are 7 files on Mr Mustard's dining table, the ones on which some action is imminent. The above box contains his other live files. He has twice as many files as that for 2014 which are already in the closed box.

Thus you can see that he is fairly busy making challenges, representations and Appeals. Sometimes they work and NSL decide to throw in the towel. The pleasing part is that whatever Mr Mustard wrote has worked but the displeasing part is that sometimes Mr Mustard does not know that until he checks the balance on the council computer (which is off until 7 April whilst they change software supplier from Civica to ICES).

If Mr Mustard makes an informal challenge which NSL, on behalf of the council decide to accept, they should write and tell him every single time and not leave him wondering if his client has received a Notice to Owner that they haven't told him about (or worse that one has been sent which hasn't arrived). It would be polite and businesslike to write an email saying the PCN is at an end. This would do.

Dear Mr Mustard 

PCN AGxxxxxxxx has been cancelled.

best wishes

NSL on behalf of Barnet Council

and then some of his more elderly clients would be spared 6 months of worry. The thing is, Mr Mustard thinks, that as soon as there isn't any money in it for the council, NSL lose interest in the PCN and often can't be bothered after that to do a single thing.

Other situations in which PCN just disappear are when the formal representations have not been answered within 56 days. That is an automatic acceptance of them and cancellation of the PCN but how does Mr Mustard know that a Notice of Rejection has not gone astray? He doesn't, which is why NSL should write and say that the PCN is at an end.

If a Notice to Owner has not been issued within 6 months of the PCN that is an automatic cancellation (although PCN do sometimes still get chased - quite wrongly). (This sentence only relates to parking PCN served on the car windscreen or into the hands of the driver).

Sometimes, due to system error, nothing happens to a PCN. At the point of discovery of an oversight which cannot fairly or legally be recovered the motorist (or Mr Mustard) should be told that the PCN has been abandoned.

Mr Mustard thinks there is a severe shortage of polite good practice. It is also good practice to keep the PCN database tidy so that someone else does not come along and bring back to life a PCN which is actually finished but which hasn't been amended to a £nil value.

Please could we have some politeness so that there is certainty and transparency.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Is "confirmation" past or future tense?

The above page, on which Mr Mustard has cancelled his £55 payment, confused Mr L., as the following adjudicator's decision shows:

Mr L. attended the hearing. The Enforcement Authority was not represented.

Mr L. accepts that the contravention occurred. He believes he made payment of £55 the following day via the council's website. He produced a confirmation printed on 15 May 2013. The authority's position is that they did not receive any payment. Mr L. accepts his account was not debited.

The Authority is only obliged to accept payment of the discounted penalty if payment is made within 14 days of service of the Penalty Charge Notice. The amount is paid when it is received. The full amount becomes payable thereafter. That is the legal position. The authority does have discretion to extend that period.

In this case, payment was not taken because Mr L. had to press the "confirm" button before the transaction could be authorised. The heading on the form stating "Payment Confirmation" is confusing and does lead users to believe that payment has in fact gone through. The authority would be well advised to change this heading to avoid such situations arising in future. Mr L. was clearly not intending to avoid payment and the wording is not helpful. I would therefore strongly recommend that the authority now accept payment of £55 for this Penalty Charge Notice.

 

What did the council do? they rejected the recommendation within days (don't think too hard about it, will you?)

Should they have? Well, arguing their case as devil's advocate they will say it does say confirm at the bottom but it doesn't exactly leap off the page at you, does it? The largest print is "Payment Confirmation" which could easily lead you to think that payment has been made. On the previous page you had entered your name and address and credit card details including the cvv code so no extra data was required to process the payment, thus Mr L's mistake can be understood.

What should the council do now? Stop being so mean to a person who made an innocent error would be a good start and then change the colour of the confirm box to another colour, perhaps red so that it stands out and change the heading to "Please confirm your payment" as suggested by the adjudicator.

Mr Mustard predicts that these changes will be made before Christmas as they are easy to do and as the council read his blog and his tweets.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

 

 

CPZ refunds coming soon

Manyana (beach)

Mr Mustard always thought the 8 weeks and everyone will be paid out promise was going to be hard to meet and since his claim was acknowledged on 5 August (one of the first to claim probably) he has heard diddly squat.

He is grateful to the friend who brought this Delegated Powers Report to his attention (are they not still numbered nowadays?)

Civica - Parking Refunds Contract Award by MisterMustard

Mr Mustard is well known for pulling officers up who break the rules and issue single supplier purchase order arrangements (they often forget the actual contract) but in this case he perfectly understands and agrees with the logic. In addition, the Civica proposed fee seems reasonable and they don't look like they have tried to abuse their monopolistic position.

Mr Mustard notes that of four officers mentioned on the front cover of the DPR, two are interims. He does hope we are soon going to have an absolute minimum of interims and consultants now that most of the "transformation" has been decided upon. Using the paragraph numbers of the report Mr Mustard has the following observations:

3.2 That would be the advertising done by the CPZ campaigners, BAPS, Bloggers and the LidDems in High Barnet (not sure who else). Mr Mustard hasn't seen anything from the council other than on the website which somebody who has moved out of borough is unlikely to look at. Have you had a permit renewal reminder in the last month? Did it have a note saying you might be due a refund? Do please comment below if it did.

3.3 If only the council had said this at the beginning "every effort will be made to contact them" i.e. residents who are due a refund.

5.2 If all 12,000 applications are made that will be a cost of about £7 per refund.

8.7 Mr Mustard doubts that all refunds will be made within 8 weeks of the decision not to contest the judgment, which was made on 2 August. Perhaps this means within 8 weeks of the DPR i.e within 8 weeks of 3 September?

This DPR did set Mr Mustard thinking. Civica will not have entered into a contract which could lose them money and so will doubtless have allowed for the worst case scenario that all 12,000 refund applications will be made. They are therefore confident that they can process a refund for less than £7. 

The council could ensure they get value for money by taking out advertisements in the 3 local papers (include the Ham & High as it has readers from Barnet) one in Barnet First (the odd person must actually read it) put a flyer in with every document from the parking department and NSL, a footnote on every email from the council (instead of that stupid one about saving the environment - Mr Mustard can decide for himself what he wants to print thank you very much) in the advertising hoardings around the borough and on the backs of buses. Traffic wardens could also put helpful leaflets on every car they pass which is sporting a CPZ permit.

The question that we then need to ask is at what cost they could process an application for a permit? There are documents to check so let us allow another £3 for the brief time that should take (a logbook say and a proof of address) and we have a cost to process a permit of £10. We are charged £40 for a permit so aren't they still being used for revenue raising?

I feel a judicial review coming on if the council vote for even an inflationary increase to the cost of a permit.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Subtle hampering

If you get the above message you might be out of time in which to make representations to Barnet Council about your parking ticket (PCN) but, on the other hand, you might not.

You get three bites at the cherry (a PCN is more like a rotten apple though) when it comes to appealing.

The first time, known as informal representations, are usually made in the 28 days after you have been hit served with a PCN. These representations are outside of the statutory process but do allow for obvious errors to be picked up and PCN cancelled at an early stage with least fuss for the motorist. The fewest tickets are cancelled at this stage, about 10%. You can send in an informal appeal at any time up until the Notice to Owner is issued which is a maximum of 6 months after the PCN is served.

The second time, formal representations are made in the 28 days after the Notice to Owner is served. This is set down in statute. Miss this deadline at your peril. These appeals succeed twice as often as informal ones, about 20% of the time, even when the words used are identical.

The third time, for Barnet Council cases, is to PATAS, the home of the independent adjudicator. These appeals succeeded 72% of the time last year (90% for Mr Mustard's cases) and so you can see that the longer you fight for the more chance you have of winning. Keep those appeals flowing; if your argument is a good one, simply use it three times.

Now what Mr Mustard has discovered, after testing on a number of cases, is that if you appeal informally as soon as you get the PCN and have that appeal rejected, the computer system is set so that you cannot make another informal appeal on-line even though you might still be within the 28 days. This means that if you have thought of another point of appeal you cannot use the on-line system to submit it. This is to fetter your ability to appeal on-line and is in contrast to what the PCN says on its face:

"If representations against the penalty charge are received at the address detailed overleaf before the Notice to Owner has been served, those representations will be considered;..." except that you can't easily make them on-line which is offered as an alternative method of communication.

instead you will have to write to:

Barnet Parking, PO Box 4894, Worthing, BN11 9WT 

(get a free proof of posting at the Post Office)

or

email to barnet@nslservices.co.uk

If Mr Mustard was being cynical he would think that the council were trying to put you off from appealing as they dislike receiving too many appeals, it slows them down from their primary task of extracting as much money as possible from the motorist.

Doubtless this fettering will turn out to be a terrible accident in the computer software section and will be changed very soon to allow for on-line appeals at any moment up until 28 days after the Notice to Owner was served.

Paragraph 86 of the Secretary of State's guidance on civil enforcement of parking contraventions is well worth a read:

"Enforcement authorities have a duty not to fetter their discretion, so should ensure that PCNs, NtOs, leaflets and any other advice they give do not mislead the public about what they may consider in the way of representations"

Appeal experts in other boroughs will probably want to test this informal appeal blocking to see if it is a common feature elsewhere. Feel free to add a comment below.

The reason it is worth sending in one or more informal appeals is that the council have to respond to them or they have committed a procedural impropriety as the PCN says that they will be considered. Not doing what a council says it will do on the face of the PCN is clearly unjust. Some adjudicators might say that there is no requirement within the legislation to respond to informal representations but that is to ignore good manners and the council's own service standards when it comes to correspondence and to act contrary to the offer on the face of the PCN. Point that failing out, the PCN promise, to an adjudicator and then they will almost certainly agree with you that it is a procedural impropriety and as soon as that is established the legislation requires the adjudicator to cancel your PCN. Result.

Get your pen or keyboard out and get writing or typing.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

FOI all over the place & records destroyed rather early?

Back in September 12, before Barnet Council lost their rag somewhat with Mr Mustard and made question after question vexatious, he was helping a friend who had received a parking ticket in the snow (it has now been cancelled by the independent adjudicator) Mr Mustard started to muse upon the enforcement pattern during times of snow. The safety of traffic wardens ought to be put before the council's grubby revenue gathering. Thus, he sent in the above question.

Here is the answer he received.

This answer was given in deployed hours rather than shifts which was probably because shift lengths varied and so that was sensible. However the average PCNs per deployed CEO was of no use at all as the number of deployed CEO (traffic wardens) was not stated. Mr Mustard asked for clarification in September 12.

Thank you for the reply which doesn't quite answer my question which was the number of PCN issued each day although is helpful as the CEO were not working similar length shifts by the looks of it so the number of hours worked is a better measure.

Could you please also supply the number of PCN issued each day as originally requested.

In January 13 he wrote the following:

I note that an answer to this email remains outstanding. Please now provide an answer as soon as possible.

The council's response was:

Thank you for your request for a review of the civil enforcement officer shifts received on 14 January 2013. I’m sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the council’s response to your information request.

We will now conduct an internal review.

Did Mr Mustard ask for an internal review? not really. He simply pointed out the failure to answer the original question. A response to the question would have sufficed.

The review arrived. The first part surprised Mr Mustard, a former payroll manager.

We are unable to provide this information regarding the number of shifts worked by Civil Enforcement Officers during the period specified as those records were not retained following the transfer the Parking Service on 01/05/2012.

Why not? If there was any query about hours paid then it could not be answered. It is normal to keep payroll backup records for at least a year and preferably 3 (certain records have to be kept longer in case of government inspection). Mr Mustard thought that the records would have been kept in the SAP system and there was no good business reason to destroy them. Doubtless this was a breach of the council data protection policy.

The second part of the answer was:

Mr Mustard looked at the numbers supplied and thought it odd that the number of PCNs issued was remarkably similar to the number of deployed hours and in some cases identical. He didn't believe for one moment that traffic wardens only issue 1 parking ticket per hour so he guessed that Barnet Council had, once again, erred. The answer should have failed the sniff test, it was self evidently and glaringly wrong. Mr Mustard asked for the review to be reviewed. The council responded in due course.

Thank you for your email, and my apologies for the delay in replying.

I have asked the service area to double check the figures they provided and their answer is as follows:

I can confirm that the PCN numbers cited in the email below is correct. This was obtained from a report from the Civica system. There was an error in the previous email where the PCN numbers were incorrectly calculated as being deployed hours. We are unable to provide actual figures pertaining to deployed hours as these are no longer available to us as a result of the transfer of the service.

Therefore the information provided to you in the Internal Review was correct and the previous information provided in the original FOI response was incorrect. I can reiterate the previous apologies for this error. ("I can" is pretty feeble as apologies go because it doesn't say that you do reiterate the apologies.)


I trust that this resolves this issue. 

The "issue" isn't really resolved. Mr Mustard still has no idea what happens about parking enforcement when it snows. Next time it snows he will get his questions in before it thaws.

Barnet Council wonder why they are on the naughty step at the Information Commissioner. Given the speed and quality of their answers, one can't be surprised.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Interesting facts - #1 parking software

Mr Mustard sees quite a lot of facts in the typical week (and an awful lot of theory) and now and then he has decided to share them with you.

In order to enforce parking contraventions the council needs software to keep all of the paperwork in order and to process parking tickets through the system. You might be surprised to find out how expensive it is to issue & process parking tickets. The annual software fee for 2012/13 is £268,603 (+ vat) and each year the council issue about 160,000 parking tickets so that is £1.68 a ticket just to keep a record of it. It doesn't sound much per ticket but the quarter of a million pounds has to be paid regardless of the number of tickets issued.

Prior to computers it just wouldn't have been possible to issue this many parking tickets without hundreds of clerks following the cases. 

Progress!

In addition 50p out of every parking ticket issued (whether paid or not) gets paid to London Councils to fund PATAS. So that is £2.18 of your parking ticket money spent as soon as the ticket is printed out.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Civica - is there a problem ?

This is a fact finding blog.

Back in April one of my twitter followers/followees had a problem with trying to appeal a parking ticket on-line and the computer system, supplied by Civica at a cost of £2m for 5 years, told her that the "ticket is not at a stage that can be appealed". She was able to send in an appeal by email which you can't do since NSL took over on 1 May 12.

Today the parents of a friend experienced the same problem.

Now Mr Mustard starts to wonder if by some curious coincidence he knows the only 2 people that this has happened to (which is the likely defence of Barnet Council - a rare event ) or if it has happened to hundreds.

Has it happened to you? Please comment below or send Mr Mustard an email with the ticket number.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard