Van hire violations - TfL guilty of illegality

When you rent a van and contravene parking or moving traffic rules (stopping in yellow boxes, banned turns etc) liability for the PCN can be transferred from the hire company to you if certain details are on the hire agreement for agreements lasting up to 6 months (less a day).

Transfer for long leases is possible by another method.

Years ago Mr Mustard was introduced to a Barnet based hire company by a mutual acquaintance. Let us call them BV. Mr Mustard only helps BV with their problem PCNs as they employ a person to deal with the routine.

If a PCN can be transferred to the customer then it is. BV routinely provide a copy of the hire agreement as proof that the rules for transfer have been complied with. BV had a little white Euro 6 compliant van. They hired it to SL (hirer #1) for a period of almost 5 months. Here are the hires for those 5 months.

SL stopped with half the van in a red route bus stop on 27 January.

On 28 January TfL asked DVLA for keeper details.

On 29 January DVLA supplied the details of BV.

On 31 January TfL sent a PCN to BV.

On 4 February BV supplied the details of SL.

On 16 February TfL sent a fresh PCN to SL who didn't immediately deal with it but did finally pay up on 4 May.

So far so good. SL returned the van early by arrangement. It was driven after that by a number of law abiding renters who all avoided incurring PCNs. Notable by their mistakes was hirer #6 who made the classic error of using the Rotherhithe Tunnel which now has a van gross vehicle weight limit of 2 tonnes. This has caught out tens of thousands of drivers as there are far too many signs to take in at once.

What should have happened next for each of the April PCNs was that TfL should have asked DVLA for the keeper details on each of those dates and sent BV a PCN for each alleged contravention. This is in accordance with the London Local Authorities and Transport for London 2003 Act.

TfL didn't do that. They sent PCNs to SL who knew they were a mistake. He phoned TfL who told him to make representations. SL did not do so and you can partly understand why, he had returned the van, he knew he was not liable, he probably assumed the errors would be corrected. In August the PCNs had progressed, even though TfL knew they had the wrong man, and they got sent to bailiffs.

It was only in November that Mr Mustard got involved. He complained to TfL and that was when he discovered that TfL keep a secret database of hire agreements and although they ask DVLA to confirm ownership in relation to every single PCN they only use that to check the hire company is still the same and if it is they skip the legal requirement to send a PCN to the hire company, let them make representations and then transfer liability to the hirer, because TfL think they know who the hirer is. That is the big flaw in their 'approach' as TfL blithely call their illegal acts. 

BV tell Mr Mustard that only 60% of hires complete on the pre-planned end date and so TfL's database will often be wrong, as it was in this case. Innocent motorists should not be dragged into the PCN process for other motorists. Having obtained the facts from TfL (they had to be dragged out of them, requiring 3 emails over 6 weeks, silence often a clue that you have hit a painful nerve) Mr Mustard has now made a complaint and pointed out what Mr Mustard considers are data processing breaches and demanded action:

1        Forward this email to the officer responsible for data breaches to consider whether TfL should self report.
2        Forward this email to the officer responsible for ensuring that TfL (and their contractor, believed to be Capita) strictly follow the 2003 Act and follow it in future when issuing PCNs by sending the PCN to the keeper as registered at the DVLA on the relevant date.
3        Delete the entire database of vehicles on hire or at least stop adding to or referring to it.
4        Cancel the five PCNs which have been illegally sent to an innocent party.
5        Apologise to both BV and SL and make offers of compensation.

BV have been deprived of five £18 PCN processing fees which hirer #6 should have paid.

Mr Mustard will update you when he gets a response.

In the meantime Mr Mustard wonders if any other enforcement authority in London has decided upon the same wizard wheeze to save time and postage. If you are reading this, you work at a council in London and you have an illegal database like TfL (or heaven forfend you all share one) Mr Mustard suggests you run for the hills as he is coming for you.

End

You can call me Al

Traffic wardens (CEO) like to change their name. You can call me Ade, or Oladokin or Arsen but unfortunately they were not their real names.

Take a look at page 39 in Item 7 of the report pack for the Audit Committee of 21 June 2012 

and you will find that Ade Oresanya was really Adebukonla Alaba Oresanya

that Oladokin Awonusi was really Olalekan Abraham Oduwaye and

that Arsen Fundi was Eddy Nduwimana.

The first two, who were detained by the UK Border Agency as a result of Operation Quest acted as Civil Enforcement Officers for Barnet Council as direct employees. 

The third one, Eddy, has form for Theft and Deception who, whilst a postman, posted anything of value into the boot of his car. That must be what is known as Special Delivery. He was dismissed by Barnet Council when the subterfuge came to light which it did when he had been working through a temp agency and then applied for a permanent post.

The report does not say which agency supplied him although it is most likely to be through the Hays contract which is an umbrella arrangement covering about 100 agencies. In the Hays contract, signed with Haringey Council on behalf of such other public bodies in Greater London as wish to use it, paragraph 4.5 states that is the obligation of the contractor to obtain two professional references for each Temporary Worker. ( There is not a definition of what a professional reference is. In the case of people who are prepared to change their names supplying a professionally forged reference probably won't be that difficult. Mr Mustard recalls that 30 years ago he had a boss, an accountant, who had a stock of blank letterheads for all of his previous employers so that he could type out any reference he fancied!)

Para 4.5 goes on "The contractor shall, at no additional charge to the council ensure that all checks including, where appropriate, CRB checks on Temporary Workers are carried out prior to the said Temporary Worker being placed with the Council. Subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 the Contractor shall pass the results of such checks to the Authorised Officer."

Now, whether or not it was Hays ( and one would expect the same type of clause to be in any contract with any agency supplying temporary staff ) we have to ask ourselves if the agency, probably Hays, obtained the "professional references" and we have to ask ourselves if the CRB checks were being carried out properly by the agency and also if the documents were passed to the council and/or whether they noticed they hadn't had them. Has there been recruitment of Temporary Workers by Barnet Council in default of good HR procedure and outside of contract because the criminal conviction only came to light when Eddy tried to go from temporary to permanent staff?

Out of a workforce of about 50 Parking wardens to have 3 in one year (6%), who were not who they said they were, get through the recruitment procedures is a pretty dismal performance. It is easy to look good in CAFT, it just tells you how pathetic other departments have been.

HR = hardly rigorous

The big question

Can an illegal immigrant, if that is what they turn out to be, or an employee who wasn't entitled to be an employee, issue a valid parking ticket?

This is a question which has come up a lot around England and which Mr Mustard cannot see has been properly tested unless of course, you know different.

An honest body would of course immediately rescind all tickets that had been issued by someone who should not have been out on the streets issuing tickets at all but we are talking about grasping councils so that is too much to hope for. 

If any reader knows because of a case at PATAS the name of the traffic warden who issued their ticket, because they had to give evidence, and if it was any of the three named above then please get in touch with mrmustard@zoho.com and we will see what we can do.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Target deniers

Now the website of the council says that there are not targets for issuing Penalty Charge Notices, or "parking tickets" as they are more commonly known. Here are the pages concerned, the no targets bit is on page 2..

click to enlarge; back to return

click to enlarge

Now take a look at the staff briefing for the period April to June 2011.

Sorry about the quality of the scans.

"Activity Levels" are just so "One Barnet"; what you mean is "how much money did we rake in?". It isn't very clear from the graph as to what is what. There is a short line that goes to week 12 or 13 above the long straightish line. That will be actual 2011/12. The longer line is target for 2011/12 and the lower line is actual for 2010/11. So you can see that a decision ( by person or persons unknown ) has been made to be much tougher on collecting money for parking this financial year. Is there any evidence that congestion is much worse this year and so this huge increase can be justified? none that Mr Mustard has seen.

So almost 50,000 extra tickets are going to be issued. Welcome to Barnet. There should not be a target for issuing PCNs. This report clearly shows that there is.

A 135% increase in permit sales is anticipated. The price of most residents permits went up by 150% and visitor vouchers by 300% but each month only about 1/12th renew so the % increase is phased and a number have not bothered because of the expense.

Only a modest increase expected from pay & display on the streets. One would have expected rather more due to the removal of free bays but again many people have changed their plans due to the price increases.

Car Parks have also had their prices increased and are not full even on Saturdays in High Barnet so this might be a target too far. Some people want to pay to park but they can't and so this will hit income levels.

Personal objective #2: CEO, or Civil Enforcement Officers, must issue 12 to 18 tickets per 7 hour shift. That is a Target/Deadline. It is completely wrong and against government advice. The performance figures will be looked at in 121 ( one to one ) meetings and if you miss your targets you will doubtless be "encouraged" to do better.

Expect next quarter's report not to have the word target in it but some euphemism or for the report to disappear altogether and be replaced by a verbal report. Expect Personal Objective #2 to be reworded.

Updare 18 December.

Thank you to Ron for details of NSL's mishaps in Brighton. Here is a link to that story. 17500 defective tickets

These do not sound like the sort of operatives we want in Barnet.

Funny isn't it. If you had asked Mr Mustard a year ago if he would argue in favour of parking meters and traffic wardens, he would just have laughed.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Jumping the gun

Mr Mustard's attention was brought by a tweet to an item on the BBC News website here where the bloggers' friend, The Right Honourable Eric Pickles MP is reported as follows :-

Owners of second homes in England could lose council tax discounts, under new plans to be announced by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles on Monday.

Councils would have the power to reduce or remove council tax relief on second homes and empty homes. Second homes currently receive up to 50% discount.

The money would be used to keep overall council tax bills down, he is to say.

an untypical second home : possibly not in Barnet

Now Mr Mustard is fortunate to have quite a memory and he thought he had seen that this mean spirited discount removal had already taken place in Barnet. After a little digging he found this report and in the window below, go to page 17 ( 117 ) and there is a projected £1,000,000 saving from removing the second home discount in 2011/12 ( don't worry that there is nothing in the next 2 columns for savings, there would be £1m more income in both years than in 2010/11 - the way these budgets work you only see the saving in the year it occurs and then the lower figure becomes the base budget )

Oct 10 Cabinet Report Financial Business Planning 2011 14

Just go back and look at the bottom of page 1 for a moment. What's that "A Beacon Council in 2002/3 for Improving Urban Green Spaces / Libraries as a Community Resource" ( what happened? the bulb in the beacon now low energy ? ) and then in 2002-04 for "Community Cohesion". Mr Mustard thinks that it might be time that these past glories were erased from the template. Why not put 2011's fantastic achievements on? ( perhaps because there aren't any?

Fast forward one year to the next 3 year budget plan, Item 5 at the meeting coming up on Thursday 3 November and in the box below

CAB_2011.11.03 Business Planning 2012 to 2015

If you navigate to page 19 you will find an adjustment of £1,000,000 to the Council Tax base in 2013/14 as between the Cabinet meeting of 13 December 2010 and that of 14 February 2011 someone at Barnet Council realised that the previous plan would have broken the law. If Mr Pickle's plans don't go ahead for any reason then the £1m saving will have to come from somewhere else. 

It evidently isn't easy being the S151 officer although £1,000 a day possibly cushions the blow a little.

Now Mr Mustard is going to have to write to Mr Pickles as the reasoning to keep overall council tax bills down automatically leads to unfairness.

This is what next Thursday's report says :-

6.3 Demographic change poses a particular challenge. Barnet is facing significant budget reductions at the same time as the population is increasing, particularly in the young and very old. Given that 55% of the council’s budget is spent on Adult Social Care and Children’s Services, this poses a particular challenge as these services are predominantly ‘demand led’.

So if 55% of the council budhget is spent on Adult Social Care and Children the other 45% is spent on highways, libraries, rubbish collection, recycling, planning, leisure, housing, overheads etc most of which a second home owner does not use.

If a council tax bill at 50% of normal is paid then the owner of an empty property is already more than paying their fair share of the cost of local services.

This is an analogous situation to the CPZ price rises where the costs of repairing roads fall unfairly on the 5-10% of residents who live within a CPZ.

It is possible that there will be sufficient outcry to case Mr Pickles to water down or abandon his proposals.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard