Redbridge Council - making up their own rules.

 

There is a series of steps in terms of documents which motorists are sent to respond to when they receive a PCN for an alleged parking contravention. The documents are listed in the 'Do nothing' column above. PATAS is now called London Tribunals. £110 is now £130 (the above chart is a decade old).

The documents are all defined in the 2022 General Regulations and the 2022 Appeals Regulations. They are statutory instruments 2022 no. 71 and 2022 no. 675. They are legislation made by the Secretary of State for Transport and the Lord Chancellor following powers granted to them under the Traffic Management Act 2004 and other enabling legislation.

On one of Mr Mustard's cases his client received a document which isn't listed in the legislation. Mr Mustard thinks that is improper behaviour on the part of Redbridge Council as the legislation is an end to end process which has been carefully defined to take a PCN from the initial issue through a well worn series of steps up to the 'bailiff' (enforcement agent) where it usually ends. The legislation does not envisage enforcement authorities, such as Redbridge Council, taking extra steps, as in this case. Mr Mustard didn't ask them to justify why they did it as he expected the answer to be that the legislation doesn't forbid the issuing of an extra letter between the Charge Certificate and the Order for Recovery.

Such a letter undermines Mr Mustard's authority when he has carefully explained the legally sanctioned process to a motorist and then a council does something different. It makes motorists think Mr Mustard doesn't know what he is doing. Here is the letter:

This standard letter starts with a misleading sentence that the recipient has not complied with a Charge Certificate. There are two steps you can take in response to a charge certificate. The first step, if something has gone wrong with the PCN process, such as a statutory document not having been received, then the motorist should simply wait for the next document, the Order for Recovery, which means that a witness statement can then be made and a, say, missing Notice to Owner, can be issued afresh. 

The second step is that you could pay at that point to close the PCN (you might want to do this is you have missed a deadline and wouldn't lawfully be able to sign a witness statement).

Thus if you don't wish to pay as it isn't applicable to your situation the action which equates to complying with the charge certificate is to do nothing at all. Redbridge Council don't know what situation you are in.

Mr Mustard asked eight questions about this letter to learn more about it and they follow along with the answers.

This answer wasn't precise as to the number of days before the 'Final reminder' (the untitled letter at the top of this blog) is sent. in Mr Mustard's case it was 24 days.

Noted.

That is a lot of letters. Mr Mustard has assumed they are sent out on a regular cycle but they may not be, it may need a council employee to remember to do it.

Redbridge are prolific issuers of PCNs. In 2022-23 they issued 238,284 so almost 20,000 a month. These statistics imply that a quarter of the PCNs they issue each month are not paid or successfully challenged. No wonder they want to avoid registering all of these with the Traffic & Enforcement Centre (part of the County Court but really just a register of unpaid PCNs). Each one they register costs £10.

Let's say it costs £1 to send out a letter. That means they spent £4,951 but they delayed the payment of £49,510 in TEC fees (assuming they intended to register every PCN as a debt which from what Mr Mustard has seen isn't the case, they get their bailiffs to vet the list and try to select only PCNs they will be able to collect on). In theory they saved £44,559 but the real amount is lower.

There was also some extra income brought in by this doubtful letter.

The 80 pence is a bit odd as sums being claimed were all £120 and £195.

A hit rate of 5% isn't that high but a goodly sum was dragged in. If those people had paid up at the start the most the PCNs would have come to is 275 * £65 =  £17,875 (and some were £40).

Never ignore a PCN as it quickly becomes expensive.

Indeed it is (or a mile marker whilst you wait for the next document).

This answer was odd. The wording of the supposedly ignored letter (Mr Mustard's client never ignores PCN documents) was the same wording as the one received. Mr Mustard thinks the start of the letter is just plain wrong, much like the letter itself. 

Mr Mustard thinks that the CCC is the Customer Contact Centre or similar. It isn't part of the parking department so needs a tight script to work from. This makes it unlikely that any error the council has made would be spotted although it is possible as the script confirms at the end.

The bottom of page 1 and the first 2/3rds page 2 relate to our situation. Mr Mustard notes that they force you to go round the witness statement / statutory declaration procedure if you wish to pay at a discount. Some other councils, if there is a good reason why you couldn't pay at a discount, such as not receiving the PCN on your car, will let you pay at the discounted rate at that time as it is quick, is still good income and removes one from the list of open PCNs, which is huge. The bird in the hand policy. Redbridge know that many people will not manage to navigate the process properly and they will get even more money.

Mr Mustard notes that the CC will refer the case to the parking department by completing an internal 'parking enquiry form'. More on that in a minute.

Now that is odd. The final reminder closes by offering the opportunity to pay by instalments. That is to invite people who want to pay to phone up under false pretences and have their hopes dashed.

When Mr Mustard saw the final reminder he decided to respond to it (mostly out of curiosity).

Councils block the ability to add messages online when they don't want to receive correspondence (which is thoroughly unhelpful). It wasn't possible to add anything online in this case so Mr Mustard couldn't upload his authority letter. That meant he had to turn old school and post a letter in which if councils thought about it costs them more to process and so they would be more helpful to the public, whom they are, in theory, there to serve. Not offering an email address either is ridiculous in the year 2024.

A response was sent on 10 May directly to the motorist which may not have reached him as it wasn't passed on and his history is of good communication.

It simply told the motorist to wait so was a complete waste of time.

The letter is wrong. The court fee is £10 but the motorist doesn't pay that if they file a valid witness statement. It becomes a council overhead. (The reference to 'the' local authority is odd, as Redbridge are referring to Redbridge!)

The invitation to contact Redbridge Council set out in the reminder letter is not made in good faith as it doesn't take the motorist any further forward, the only option of the four about which the council are going to do anything is to see what happened to your payment if you say you paid. That is a tiny minority of the reasons why a charge certificate will have been issued as most payments are done online and so automatically close the PCN file.

This final reminder letter is intended to panic people into paying, it is certainly confusing as it isn't one of the statutory steps which councils can take.

This PCN is ongoing with an Order for Recovery having been received in June, a witness statement being made on 10 June, a fresh Notice to Owner issued on 25 June, formal representations made on 2 July, rejected by Redbridge on 2 August and an Appeal started at the independent tribunal on 8 August.

The hearing is on 18 September. One thing you have to be if you want to fight a PCN is persistent which Mr Mustard is times a hundred.

The end.