Council only metaphorically several sandwiches short of a picnic?

Waitrose: sandwiches for 4-6 people = £18

Now Mr Mustard isn't the only person to think that the council's One Barnet* decisions have been taken by people who are one sandwich short of a picnic (the very idea that you can outsource almost everything and all your problems will go away and you will save money is patently absurd as is voting for 2,000 page contracts that you haven't read) but when it comes to having post council meeting picnics refreshments the horses (no, don't mix up your stories Mr M - Ed) are not spared and a shocking amount is spent on sandwiches even though half of the councillors might have to rush off to other important engagements.

so polite "would it be possible..."

We could save £4,000 a year by not providing sandwiches after full council meetings. After all, what do bloggers do? Well, with a meeting starting at 7pm they probably eat at 6pm and then set off to the Town Hall or, if they have to set off earlier, they buy their own sandwich and eat it on the journey. If they are still hungry after the meeting they go and spend their own money in the noodle bar opposite the Town Hall or decide that a pint of Youngs and a bag of crisps will adequately fill their stomach and adjourn to The Greyhound. If the public can manage then so can councillors. Why are sandwiches provided for full council meetings but not for other committee meetings? (Mr Mustard is pretty sure that they aren't as councillors tumble out of the Town Hall like ferrets over a cliff the minute that meetings end), it isn't logical as they usually all start at 7pm and finish by 10pm.

If sandwiches are absolutely necessary, which they aren't, then Waitrose can supply them at a cost of £18 times 12 for a small mountain of sandwiches (veggie ones are £2 less per tray) = £228. Why on earth is £512 (and 50p) being spent each time?

Mr Mustard consulted a certain "troublesome" café owner, Helen Michael of Cafe Buzz in Finchley, N12 and asked her to quote for sandwich supply. Now of course we haven't seen a list of exactly what is normally on the groaning buffet table but she guessed there would have to be veggie and kosher sandwiches and 63 of at £2.50 a time would be £157.50. Let's suppose that half of the councillors will need two whole rounds of sandwiches and add in some large round cakes made by Helen's fair hand (boy, is she good at baking) and a small delivery charge and we are still only up to £300 (a photo from a councillor of the spread at the next meeting would be nice so that the whole world can see if this is merely a subsistence spread or too lavish) and a local business is supported by the council. It would make up for some of the 30% drop in turnover that removing cash parking meters caused to the businesses of the borough.

More sandwiches for less money. Now why isn't that the council mantra, perhaps because it is the councillors' own stomachs they are thinking of?

Until a photo comes his way, Mr Mustard has had to use his imagination as to what the post full Council meeting buffet room looks like.

Yours frugally, unlike our council

Mr Mustard

p.s. The basic councillor's allowance is £10,597 which would buy 588 trays of Waitrose sandwiches, sufficient for 2,352 to 3,528 councillors. Oink.

* "One Barnet" should be renamed "No Barnet" as soon there won't be anything much left except for overpaid Commissioners.

Update: 19 Nov 14

The concern of the public for the health and wellbeing of the bloggers is heartening. I have had the star rating of the noodle bar brought to my attention.

On the other end of the scale Cafe Buzz has now been awarded 5 stars this very week.

Update: 20 November 14

As ever, Jack Cohen, our one and only liberal democrat councillor, who isn't in public service to line his pockets but to serve the public and consequently Mr Mustard would happily buy him a slap up dinner after every full council meeting (but Jack won't accept even a tea or coffee if he pops in for a chat having spied an activist or two in Cafe Buzz, as often happens) is on the money

Still, Richard's answer is inadequate as it doesn't inform Rebecca, and us, of the number of sandwiches provided, as she asked. The libraries budget is being cut by a huge amount but the councillors' catering budget not by a penny?

 

Mr Mustard has also learnt of other sandwiches It isn't clear if the media sandwiches (bloggers are new media but the council certainly won't be feeding us and Mr Mustard would want to send any fish paste sandwiches off for analysis before eating them, or at the very least have Miss Marple by his side) and there are sandwiches for Officers (staff) as well. If any London wide media are reading, why not send a Freedom of Information request to every London council to see what they spend after, or before, full council meetings.

Never mind the fine detail. The question is one of principle. Should councillors get free scoff after a 3 hour meeting?

One Barnet - aspirational contract savings.

"is providing"? Mr Mustard thinks this statement is not true

In the bright new world of 2012 the parking section was one of the first services to be contracted out under the One Barnet banner (a brand which has served it's purpose in 2014 according to Richard Cornelius the "leader" of the council). Has the supposed contract saving of £600,000 p.a. been achieved? Mr Mustard checked the first full year ended 31 March 2014. 

Note that costs stay fairly level during the contract period. Inflation was ignored.

The final row of this table = the difference between top & bottoms rows of table above

So this table shows roughly a £600,000 a year projected saving.

How have NSL and the council done?

Firstly, NSL have claimed, and been paid, for extra deployment hours i.e. paying for extra traffic wardens to roam the streets and dish out more Penalty Charge Notices, which might have been in order to catch up with the non-target of expected PCN numbers which would otherwise have been missed.

Month	Amount £
April	42,359
May	48,013
June	44,745
July	44,596
August	44,959
September	38,876
October	48,785
November	38,011
December	23,902
January	32,681
February	20,073
March	50,289
Extra hours	477,289

So that was nearly half a £million saving down the drain. Extra hours added 18% to the contract cost.

Then the council (some highly paid consultant who is now miles away) massively under-estimated the costs of PayByPhone. That service certainly isn't cheap and is probably about the same as the cost of cash meters and collecting cash.

Month	Amount £
April	28,556
May	28,754
June	28,315
July	29,588
August	24,912
September	27,812
October	31,813
November	31,977
December	24,412
January	29,486
February	27,768
March	30,676
Year	344,069
Budget	164,000
Extra costs	180,069

Then the new software doesn't appear to have been put in the main tender figures. It was quoted separately (hence the fairly level tender costs) and £174,755 has been paid out so far.

The main saving came, ironically, from performance failure as KPI payments had to be negotiated months in arrears.

	Amount £
Possible KPI	284,000
Actual KPI	169,664
Saving	114,336

So, there you have the main elements of the contract variances. To summarise:

Overall contract position
Extra hours	477,289
Extra PayByPhone	180,069
KPI failure saving	-114,336
New software	174,755
Extra costs	717,777
Planned saving	661,000
Net loss	56,777

So not only does it look like the contract hasn't made the projected £600,000 saving, but it has actually cost £56,000 more than the pre-savings budget. That is partly to do with the software change but NSL needed to be paid for extra hours which wiped out a nett £363,000 of the savings (after deductions for poor performance) and £180,000 went on extra PayByPhone charges which seem to have been grossly under-estimated. So much for the decision to remove cash parking meters being a minor decision. There were hidden costs.

Mr Mustard doesn't have enough data to gauge the effect of NSL on the income stream. He would if he could.

So if this is what the parking contract looks like after almost 2 years what do you suppose will be the position on the two large Capita contracts as time goes by. Will they also fail to produce the projected savings. At least we can get rid of NSL in 2017 when their 5 years is up, unlike Capita who can hang around like a bad smell until 2023.

I think the parking manager needs to start planning now.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

You pay your parking ticket and then the bailiff clamps your car!

This story simply shouldn't have happened.

23 September 2013 - The Chipping Barnet 'D' CPZ zone, near High Barnet tube, was extended. The lady in question, Miss H, a lady in her late seventies, applied twice for a permit but partly due to the judicial review result her applications didn't get processed as her cheque was for too much money. This left her without a permit when the zone started. A dispensation was issued but no-one told Miss H that it would expire.

3 October 13 - A permit was issued but not put in the car immediately.

9 October 13 - A second PCN was issued, for £110 (the first one was paid in full).

11 October 13 - An informal challenge was made.

11 November 13 - A Notice to Owner (NtO) was issued.

?? November 13  - Formal representations were made in response to the NtO.

28 November 13 - The council (NSL) reject the representations but said £55 would be accepted if paid within 14 days of the letter (no time allowed for delivery as is customary).

6 December 13 - A cheque for £55 is sent by Special Delivery at a cost of £6.22

11 December 13 - The cheque is cleared.

18 December 13 - A Charge Certificate is issued for £165 less a credit for the £55 paid. This is a blunder of the first water and is an illegal demand for money and threatens to register the non-existent debt at the county court and then send in the bailiffs. Miss H was abroad on holiday. This was one reason why she had paid up (she wouldn't have paid anything if she had been introduced to Mr Mustard sooner than she was).

9 January 2014 - An Order for Recovery is issued.

24 January 14 - TASK bailiffs write to say they are investigating and will respond within 28 days. Mr Mustard doesn't know what prompted this letter from TASK apart from some correspondence from Miss H that was probably sent to the council (which means NSL who own TASK).

18 February 14 - The Warrant of Execution is issued.

18 February 14 - The standard first letter is sent by TASK bailiffs.

20 February 14 - Miss H phones the bailiffs and is asked to send proof of payment (which Miss H will have sent off.)

14 April 14 - A bailiff arrives at the home of Miss H, clamps her car and then knocks and asks for £408.52 which she pays as she needs her car to get about.

16 April 14 - Mr Mustard visits Miss H at home at the request of a charity who happen to know of his expertise. Miss H is upset, shocked, annoyed, seriously out of pocket and innocent of any wrongdoing.

16 April 14 - Mr Mustard emails the Parking Manager at Barnet Council (thus cutting out NSL) and outlines the above. His email includes the following paragraphs:

What should happen now is that the sum paid to the bailiff of £408.52 is refunded as it was not due for payment and in compensation the PCN value paid, of £55, should be refunded. A letter of apology should also be sent by NSL Ltd to Miss h as she has had the worry of this to deal with and can ill afford to be without the funds paid to the bailiff.

This whole mess has come about because permits were dealt with in one place (I have not studied it in detail but Miss H did try to get a permit in good time and had two applications returned by the looks of it, probably due to the judicial review of the price), customer service calls in another and enforcement in a third. The system that is in existence in Barnet is simply not fit for purpose. I know it is not your decision to be set up in this way but it isn't properly serving the residents of Barnet.

Our senior citizens should not have to suffer the attentions of bailiffs as a result of the administrative incompetence of NSL Ltd, the parking enforcement contractor of the council.

30 April 14 - Mr Mustard reminds the parking manager that he is waiting.

30 April 14 - The parking manager says he is awaiting feedback (presumably from NSL who must now be in a right sweat - this event isn't going to do their KPI any good)

20 May 14 - Mr Mustard reminds the parking manager that he is waiting.

20 May 14 - Mr Mustard receives a full reply.

Dear Mr Mustard

I apologise for the lateness of my reply. I had again been called away unexpectedly.

Miss H should not have been subjected to the Bailiffs nor paid any additional money. I confirm that a full refund of all monies paid to the Bailiff will be refunded with immediate effect. I confirm that our service provider have internally identified why this error has occurred and will be taking appropriate action. An apology letter will be sent to Miss H confirming the refund.

I apologise on behalf of the Council for the poor level of customer service Miss H has experienced. As a means of making amends I have requested 40 visitors vouchers be sent to Miss H at her address in zone D, they should arrive by the end of the week.

If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to email me.

Kind regards

Parking Manager

So, there is the happy ending that you were promised.

What went wrong? Just about everything.

Permit issuance was in-house back in September (it is now being dealt with by Capita which won't make things any better) and instead of rejecting the application the council should have banked the larger cheque and then sent a refund. That way Miss H would have had her permit on the day the zone extension came into force. Why this was still a problem when the council had declared on 2 August that they would not contest the parking judicial review decision is unclear.

The council should have cancelled the PCN as they knew Miss H had been issued with a permit. The fact that it had not been put in her car within a few days is not a heinous crime and she should have been given the benefit of the doubt.

When the council sent their letter of 28 November 13 they probably didn't set the computer properly to stop all action if £55 was paid by 11 December 13.

When the payment of 6 December was banked no-one thought to stop all further processing as this was an agreed full and final settlement. This is probably because cheques were sent, at that time, to Worthing and that is the offices of RR Donnelley and their job probably finished at the point of banking. It would be up to someone at NSL in Croydon to review the list of receipts and then update the processing software. That probably wasn't anyone's job either.

It looks like TASK, who shouldn't even have been involved at 24 January 14, as there isn't a Warrant in existence at that date, didn't properly follow up the promise made in their letter. NSL should not have given the query to their sister company TASK to investigate and really shouldn't use their own group company bailiff at all as there isn't sufficient scrutiny of what the bailiff does or enough independence.

It looks like the proof of payment sent in by Miss H didn't get looked at properly.

The amount charged by the bailiff was excessive (this one was under the old pre 6 April rules) even if the £117 was owing, which it wasn't.

So this is what you get when you outsource your parking enforcement to NSL and TASK. The mistreatment of pensioners. That is what One Barnet means. Remember this when you vote tomorrow. You didn't find this One Barnet outsourcing in the 2010 Conservative manifesto. What has been left out of the 2014 one? more of the same but worse?

Mr Mustard will see the apology. It had better be a good one.

At least he hasn't got to send this case to the Local Government Ombudsman, unlike Harrow Council who haven't yet twigged that when Mr Mustard sends them a complaint, that there will be plenty to complain about which they should take seriously. In Harrow they (the Newlyn employed bailiff) have removed a car that doesn't belong to the person named on the warrant which is a big no no. The compensation due will be sizeable. Mr Mustard gave them every chance to return the car and be reasonable.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Printed, promoted and published by Derek Dishman, 21 Carnarvon Rd, Barnet EN5 4LX

One Barnet: 'a brand that has served its purpose' - let's take back control of our democracy, say Barnet's bloggers

We have covered every faltering step of the course followed by the Tory councillors, from their first act, on being re-elected, and lecturing residents and staff on the stark economies necessitated by the demands of austerity, but voting themselves a big fat rise in their own allowances, closely followed by the MetPro scandal, a theme which set the tone for the next four years.

The MetPro affair involved the use by the Tory council of an illegally operating private security company, which barred residents from a council meeting, secretly filmed local bloggers and activists, had close contact with vulnerable children, and was being rewarded by casual but substantial payments, in the total absence of any contractual agreement.

Barnet’s bloggers subsequently revealed that far from being a single case of failure in proper regulation of procurement and contractual management, the council had thousands of legally non-compliant arrangements.

Local tax payers’ hard earned cash had been given away in these agreements, unquestioned: a real scandal, and on an unimaginably wide scale.

The next outrage we reported was perhaps one we should have foreseen: the silencing of dissent at all residents’ meetings, with enforced censorship rules, backed by a deliberate amendment to the local constitution, meaning no member of the public was allowed to criticise, or even refer to anything deemed to be ‘council policy’.

The reason for this soon became clear.

Barnet was to be privatised, with a massive outsourcing programme, from which an in-house solution was excluded because, we were told, we needed a large amount of capital investment from a commercial partner.

There had been no mention of these plans in the 2010 Conservative manifesto.

Despite the lack of mandate, the Tory administration pushed these plans through, at the behest of senior management and private consultants.

Needless to say, as well as failing to present these plans to residents at the time of election, there was no consultation over the privatisation: a serious breach of regulations, and one criticised in the High Court by Judge Underhill last year.

Another policy imposed by Barnet Tories that was brought to account in the High Court was the catastrophic parking policy, which overnight sent the borough’s high streets into fatal decline, and alienated vast sections of the Conservatives’ own natural electoral base.

The Barnet Conservative manifesto for the 2014 elections is even more enigmatic than the version they offered voters four years previously.

When asked by the Barnet Press why there was no mention of One Barnet leader Richard Cornelius declared that it is a brand that ‘has served its purpose’.

Indeed it has, but whose purpose, and for whose benefit?

Certainly not the residents and taxpayers of Barnet.

Already we have seen the real motives of Capita exposed by their attempts to begin the commercial exploitation of this borough in the form of the development of ‘memorialisation’ of the dead in Hendon Crematorium, and the grossly insensitive removal of benches commemorating loved ones in the grounds, taken away and dumped in a corner of the grounds.

It seems an apt metaphor for the exploitation of our borough, by private enterprise, at our expense, sanctioned by our Conservative councillors.

 

And we must ask - if the privatisation of our borough, and the sell off to Capita of our local services has been so successful, why are Barnet Tories not rejoicing in this fact, and sharing their sense of satisfaction with voters? Why are they being so evasive about the real plans that they intend to impose, should they be returned to office this coming week?

Is it because the One Barnet brand is now so toxic, it must be dropped, and forgotten, and voters duped into approving another Tory council whose agenda is unstated, but is clearly going to endorse the privatisation of council service and expand this policy wherever possible?

We have read this week of plans to privatise child protection services. There can be little doubt that if they are returned to office, without consulting residents, Barnet Tories will be likely to extend the process of privatisation to any other council function they care to delegate. And increased pressure to make massive savings will inevitably lead to cuts in services on a scale as yet unprecedented.

There will, of course, be no proposal to deprive themselves of the same level of allowance they still enjoy, despite the limited function they will retain, in a borough where our vital services will be run not for our benefit, with direct control by them, but by a private company, for profit, at our expense.

In the accompanying footage here, John Dix, blogger Mr Reasonable explains why the takeover by Capita of our council services presents such a threat to the wellbeing of our borough, and what the future will hold for all of us in Barnet, should the Conservative administration be re-elected this week.

 

The choice for voters on May 22nd is clear – vote Conservative, approve the delegation of control of your borough to private enterprise, and the shareholders of Capita – or take a stand, and begin to reclaim your democratic right to control your own destiny.

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

Published, promoted and printed by Derek Dishman, 21 Carnarvon Rd, Barnet, EN5 on behalf of the famous four Barnet bloggers

That £16.1m "investment" by Capita

Some stories never go away. Readers will recall that one of the (completely bogus) justifications for entering into the out-sourcing deal with Capita was that the council couldn't afford the upfront investment that Capita were going to make. Seemingly 10 minutes later (on 5 August 13) when the ink was still drying on the contract a cheque for £16.1m (it would have been a BACS payment but let's not be picky) was handed to Capita by the council to fund the investment.

One of our finer citizens, John Sullivan, has been mulling this over as he claims not to understand finance but he does know when he's been shafted and he has made an excellent protest song on the subject, and here it is:

A great voice that John has.

Whilst on the subject, has anyone seen the fruits of this £16.1m? Certainly it hasn't been spent on a new switchboard as that was broken last week, nor on upgrading the well out of date SWIFT & Wisdom (lack of) software in Adults & Communities which store client records and documentation on currently well out of date platforms (physical computer equipment) as that took a kicking at last week's Audit Committee.

Has anyone got a list of what the £16.1m has been spent on? 

(It is probably impossible to find out without the council's help as the over £500 spending list does not contain any really useful details, and Capita's contract is mainly based upon providing outcomes rather than inputs, and so it is mostly up to Capita to decide what to spend the loot on and they could be spending it on systems which serve more than one client and thus it is their spend and not the council's. Outsourcing leads to less openness and transparency).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

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

Oh dear me Richard (Cornelius)

Blind man's bluff

Let's go back in time.

On 8 November 2012 Mr Mustard was in the audience at the One Barnet Question Time organised by the Barnet Alliance for Public Services

---

Sent: 09 November 2012 18:04

To: Cornelius, Cllr Richard Conservative

Subject: NSL now working (my ref #1401)

Dear Cllr Cornelius

Last night you said "NSL is generating savings now" (based on my manuscript notes but it will be on film)

You know how I like to armchair audit this sort of thing.

Please send me the figures which justify your claim. Please make sure this includes how much overtime has been paid to get them up to the expected level of PCN and the number of CEO (traffic wardens) now assigned to the contract as opposed to the number at contract start (number of posts not people in post) which I do believe has increased.

By the way, based upon what happens at PATAS (the independent adjudicator ) the contract still isn't going very well.

On Tuesday 6th November the hearings went as follows, and every single parking ticket was cancelled:

1. Allowed by Order of Adjudicator (this usually means no evidence filed by Barnet council)

2. TMO wrong.

3. No copy PCN filed.

4. Council failed to deal properly with correspondence.

5. By Order.

6. By Order.

7. Inadequate evidence from council.

8. By Order.

9. By Order

NSL are still not covering you in glory. Imagine this sort of mess in month 7 on DRS and NCSCO. Don't say later that I didn't warn you.

Thank you

Best regards

Mr Mustard

---

From: Cornelius, Cllr Richard Conservative

Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2012 4:34 PM

To: Mr Mustard

Subject: RE: NSL now working (my ref #1401)

I did say it whether its on film or not. I will get the info to back up .

regards

Richard

---

28 November 12

Dear Mr Cornelius

It is over 2 weeks since your email as below. Do you have the info now please.

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

---

23 January 2013

Dear Mr Cornelius

Oh dear it seems that the simplest factual question takes 10 weeks to not be answered.

On what date will I have an answer please?

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

At this point Mr Mustard concluded that Richard didn't have any evidence to support his statement and waited for proof to come out of its own accord.

---

Mr Mustard has now obtained the minutes of meetings between NSL and the council thin client parking team for 2012/13. Here are some of the entries from the 23 November 12 meeting;

* Council raised concerns regarding RR Donnelley, as several issues arose concerning scanning, banking of cheques made out to Barnet and unallocated process.

* Council raised concerns regarding PATAS performance - NSL to provide full commentary and action plan on how performance will improve - NSL to ensure quality of appeal packs moving forward are of a high standard, NSL to arrange more training and visit to PATAS.

* Civil Enforcement Officer notes in relation to cases of where PCN handed to driver needs to be more robust as several cases lost at PATAS.

* Council advised NSL now had contract for 6 months, expect a turnaround in relation to how contract is performing.

---

So what do we see from this. On 8 November Richard Cornelius, the Leader of the council said the contract is making savings which was his way of saying this One Barnet contract is working but the same month it is clear that the contract has never performed as it should have done. Problems have not gone away either. There are more blog posts to follow.

Mr Mustard has been concerned for some time that councillors generally don't get into the nitty gritty of council functions and then vote in seconds on long, complex and important committee reports. This is a classic example of a lack of in-depth understanding.

Either Corny was bluffing, or ignorant or worse, that he was making a carefully worded statement (he only spoke about savings, not about performance and left the audience to equate the two) which could be construed as a lie (I don't think Corny is a liar but he certainly didn't tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about how well the contract was performing).

One Barnet isn't working.

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

Costs of One Barnet outsourcing : parking

The One Barnet outsourcing is meant to save money.

The parking contract with NSL is a One Barnet contract.

It is meant to save £600,000 a year.

Some of that has been lost because of the way in which the staff were dealt with when NSL took over (NSL are innocent in this matter apart from their business decision to manage the Barnet back office from Croydon). The story is in the local paper, the Barnet Times. That expensive town hall tax dodging interim HR expert doesn't seem to have been worth the money they were paid.

The amount at issue which the council will have to pay out is in the region of £200,000 so that is 4 months out of the 60 the contract is scheduled for which won't show a saving.

There are more failings which Mr Mustard will tell you about soon.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

NSL advertising for free to Barnet Council PCN victims

The above is the footer that NSL are putting on emails about parking tickets.

Now Mr Mustard thought that the idea was that NSL are acting as the council's agent and that the footer, as well as the email, should appear to be from the council (as they used to). It would be OK for a little footer to say that the email has been sent by NSL Ltd as a contractor to Barnet Council so that the situation is transparent but to use up to 165,000 PCN victims a year as potential customers to be advertised to is just not on and certainly is not expressly allowed for in the parking enforcement contract.

Doubtless the foot will be toned down now that Mr Mustard has raised the matter but shouldn't someone in the commissioning team (that we pay a fortune for) have already noticed it and tugged on NSL's chain?

The monitoring of One Barnet contracts is far from satisfactory. This advertising has a value otherwise NSL wouldn't do it, and they are doing it for free.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Message for Brian Coleman from the real world

Here is a recent report from PATAS.

The Appellant attended in person together with a witness Mr B. Also in attendance was Ms. S, a BSL/English interpreter who interpreted for the Appellant and Mr B. The Authority did not attend and it was not represented.

The Appellant showed me her mobile phone which showed that on 28 October 2013, at around 11:59, she sought to register for payment by text. She received a text to say that she should send register by calling, going on line, or by texting her registration number to 65565. The Appellant used text. The next thing that happened was that a call was received. The Appellant has recorded an incomplete number +44330400.... The Appellant presumed that this was from Pay by Phone but as she could not conduct a transaction by phone she went to seek help and the PCN was issued during that time.

The Authority said that payment being made by text would never trigger a voice call. It drew my attention to the published pay by phone document. The Appellant did not say that she started to pay by text, nor had I suggested that she said that. I told the Authority that the Appellant said that she was trying to register by text so that she could make a payment by text. There is no information from the Pay and phone document to confirm that no voice calls would be sent under these circumstances, and the evidence tended to suggest that a voice call from a pay by phone number was registered on the Appellant's phone.

The Authority re-iterated that the Appellant should not have left her vehicle until she got a confirmation message. The Appellant and Mr B. cannot communicate by voice. They must therefore seek help if a voice call reaches her phone and that was what she did.

The Authority had taken the trouble to understand what I tried to ascertain from them. I am giving the Appellant the benefit of the doubt. I am allowing the appeal.

What a catalogue of errors.

Error 1 - removing cash parking meters

Brian's decision (Mr Mustard may refer to Councillor Brian Coleman as Brian but has never been introduced, oh how you now envy Mr Mustard!, but has merely nodded at him once when he was also in the public gallery at a committee meeting and some problem with parking got a mention, and he has of course seen the back of him, the one thing everyone wants? through the glass of the public gallery at Uxbridge Magistrates Court) to remove cash parking meters has evidently caused problems for the deaf. What Brian did was to make a decision that put administrative simplicity and expense before the needs of some of the disadvantaged in society, whose real world is much harder to cope with than his.

Error 2 - over zealous enforcement

If there was a longer period of observation (it doesn't have to be continuous, the traffic warden jots your details down and comes back later), of say 15 minutes, then the time it takes for anyone to go to a Paypoint shop (Mr Mustard was 6th in the queue at one in N Finchley this weekend and the first person seemed to be buying 1000 lottery tickets) or to a trader for a voucher or to find someone to help a deaf person, would reduce the number of tickets given out during the time it sometimes takes to pay or to get a visitor voucher from a resident.

Error 3 - NSL handling appeals badly

NSL have evidently failed to consider whether the motorist was actually deaf or not (and for PATAS it was easier because the deaf lady chose to attend in person) and they probably distrust ever letter they receive and, if so, are not properly considering representations as the legislation requires. They have relied upon a printed guide to PayByPhone which motorists don't carry about with them. NSL keep putting 50 page prints of the guide (android and iphone) into Evidence Packs they send to Mr Mustard which part he throws straight into the recycling because they are an irrelevance. They also signally failed to answer the actual question that the Adjudicator, always a lawyer who has done thousands of parking tickets Appeals, asked them. A schoolboy error.

It would be hard to find a worse combination than One Barnet outsourcing and Brian's historic unilateral money centred decision making.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard