Barnet Council - your number's up

 

Older readers will get the reference to 'come in number x'

This was an odd case although Mr Mustard has now seen a second instance of it in a different borough.

For starters the PCN was for the wrong contravention, it was for code 01 but should have been for code 02 as loading was also banned.

The motorist, Mr D, sent Mr Mustard a copy of the PCN placed on his car windscreen which ended with the numbers 6618. That could not be found on the council computer and so Mr Mustard just kept an eye out to see what would happen next.

A month later Mr D received a Notice to Owner bearing a number ending 6607 for the same set of facts (date, vehicle, location etc).

What you need to know now is that PCNs are issued in sequential series by individual traffic wardens and that the last digit of a PCN is a check digit so the PCNs in this case were 660-7 and 661-8 and thus they had been consecutively issued at the same time.

What had therefore happened was that the traffic warden had decided something was wrong with 660-7 and issued a fresh PCN 661-8 intended to cancel 660-7 but accidentally cancelled 661-8 (or the computer took over and did it).

It was therefore an easy win as 661-8 was never served and Mr Mustard had proof that 660-7 was served.

Mr Mustard made out three arguments in his formal representations to the council.

1    Finchley Road as a description of the location is too vague (the keeper and driver may be different).

2    Loading is banned so the alleged contravention is incorrect.

3    The PCN was not served.

The Notice of Rejection didn't tackle points 1 and 2 and said that the PCN was either placed on the windscreen or given to the driver. It also waffled on about CPZ entry signage which was irrelevant as there was a local sign.

Thus it was an easy decision to start an Appeal at London Tribunals at which time a fourth Ground of Appeal was added which was the Notice of Rejection dated 14 August offered a 50% discount for 14 days from service and 2 days earlier it had already been removed. A council must be as good as their word.

There was no need for a hearing. Faced with an opponent with 4 straight arrows in his quiver the council cancelled the PCN.

The end. 

On your bike Camden Council

 

Boy did this scooter cause some trouble. It looks like it was being used by a food delivery rider who was often reckless about their route.

 

The first Mr Mustard knew of it was when the lady in question, let us call her Carla, told Mr Mustard that she had 39 PCNs for a scooter she hadn't owned, that she didn't have a driving licence for a 2 wheeler and that she didn't want it to cause problems for her in her work as a police officer. Mr Mustard has known Carla for her entire life and so was easily able to advocate for her with parking management.

 

This wasn't a run of the mill case of cloning as the registration in use wasn't hers nor was it a case of malicious registration when someone borrows your personal details in order to wrongly register a vehicle. The truth was stranger still.

 

Firstly, it turned out that only 11 PCNs had been redirected to Carla but that still comes to £1,430 which is a bit of a worry. There was a brief but effective exchange of emails. Mr Mustard had set off on the wrong premise about numbers and his client had blindsided him by taking action without telling him (full disclosure is helpful). As Mr Mustard has changed the names to protect the innocent it is unlikely that there is only one Carla Smith in the country so the reader will have to use their imagination for this part of the story.

 

The first email to Camden quickly hit the target as Mr Mustard has a good relationship with one of their employees and so he is listened to and known to know what he is doing, plus Camden had right royally messed up so the sooner they admit to it and put it right the easier their ride will be.

What this told Mr Mustard was that Camden Council had plucked an address off another file for a different vehicle at a different address but for a similar name and thus decided they were one and the same. They just can't do that.

Now that the merry-go-round has stopped, the career of Carla is not on the line, and Mr Mustard knows what has happened he asks for compensation as he is pretty sure Camden have flouted various rules. As he thinks there are 39 PCNs he asks for £1,000 but that was a bit rich

Carla agrees to the £100, a good result for everyone. Clearly Camden now know they have been naughty and hopefully they won't make such a stupid error again. It was no surprise they didn't want Mr Mustard's help as he would be pointing out all of their other errors.

Mr Mustard left writing this blog for a year to see if other awful behaviour came out of the wood work but it hasn't. Camden Council must have improved their act.

The end.

Barnet - generous but wrong

 

Mr Mustard dines out on council blunders. He should always be hungry but never is as there seem to be unlimited ways in which councils, not just Barnet, go wrong. This may be a function of outsourcing or the never ending search for more automation with correspondingly lower human input. Mr Mustard doesn't do automation as he isn't dealing with 150,000 PCNs a year (luckily) and the 350 he does do all get his personal attention.

 

The above was a new error from Barnet, from a letter dated 28 December 2024, in that they offer 56 days in which to pay £130 but then go on to say if you don't pay £130 within 28 days they will increase it to £195. Patently unfair.

 

All public bodies have to be procedurally fair and Mr Mustard doesn't think Barnet Council will bother fighting the Appeal he has started at London Tribunals. If he is wrong about that he has two other arrows in his quiver and he may find more once he sees the complete evidence pack.

The end.

Barking & Dagenham Council - a dog's dinner

A motorist received two letters, one of rejection and one of acceptance, of even date (an old phrase meaning the same date) in one of which the door to the tribunal was opened so he (very lazy to use the words 'Dear Sir/Madam' unless you can't make your mind up which you are) could continue to contest the PCN at the tribunal and on the other hand could forget all about it as no longer being the liable party (the vehicle had not been rented out).

 

Mr Mustard had an argument about the Traffic Order which had previously won at the tribunal so wasn't worried about the actual alleged contravention (all council letters about PCNs should refer to alleged contraventions until after a tribunal hearing confirms a PCN as valid, until then they are not set in stone although many councils treat them as sacrosanct and cast iron penalties and probably have a little cry when they have to cancel one).

Mr Mustard's client having been left befuddled by two letters dated 8 July 24, Mr Mustard started an Appeal to the tribunal on 15 July 24 on the basis of the contradictory responses and the council threw the towel in and cancelled the PCN on 24 July.

It was 10 years ago that Mr Mustard chatted to another regular representative at the tribunal, who he became friends with after seeing him each week at the tribunal, and expressed his surprise that councils kept lashing up the process. The consensus was that all errors ought to be corrected and those escape routes closed off from challenge but each time a route to success closes another one seems to open. Mr Mustard has come to the conclusion that the piecemeal way in which enforcement takes place and the extensive use of automation and lowly paid staff to process millions of PCNs on a conveyor belt are root causes. Long may it continue.

The end.

 

Barnet Council - Notice to Owner blunder

Parking PCNs only, not bus lane or moving traffic contraventions e.g. no left turn.

In 2017 the Notice to Owner correctly read like this when it came to the time to pay

In June 2018 the wording was changed which Mr Mustard didn't spot until some time later. This wording is incorrect.

After losing at the tribunal more than once the council have now changed the wording back to the correct one in June 19

Here follows the wording of just one of the cases which Mr Mustard has won at the tribunal, case reference 2190021431

The appellant was represented by Mr Dishman. The Enforcement Authority did not attend.

Mr Dishman lodged a skeleton argument dated 14 May 2019. It was submitted: i) The Notice to Owner (NTO) was materially defective as it states that a charge certificate may be issued 28 days after the date of the NTO rather than 28 days after service; ii) appellants are required to request an Appeal form as opposed to one being provided which erodes the 28 day time limit in which to appeal. The practice was said to be discriminatory pursuant to the Equality Act 2010.

The Enforcement Authority resisted the appeal.

Ground 1:

The NTO stated: “If the Penalty Charge is not paid before the end of the 28 day period beginning with the date of this Notice, the Council may increase the charge by 50% to £165.00 and a Charge Certificate may be served seeking payment of the increased charge.”

Regulation 19 (2) of the Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) General Regulations 2007 provides that a Notice to Owner must specify various matters including that “if, after the payment period has expired, no representations have been made under regulation 4 of the Representations and Appeals Regulations and the penalty charge has not been paid, the enforcement authority may increase the penalty charge by the applicable surcharge…”

Regulation 21 provides:

“(1) Where a notice to owner is served on any person and the penalty charge to which it relates is not paid before the end of the relevant period, the authority serving the notice may serve on that person a statement (a “charge certificate”) to the effect that the penalty charge in question is increased by the amount of the applicable surcharge.

(2) The relevant period, in relation to a notice to owner, is the period of 28 days beginning—

(a) where no representations are made under regulation 4 of the Representations and Appeals Regulations, with the date on which the notice to owner is served…”

Regulation 3 deals with service via post. Service is deemed is deemed to have been effected on the second working day after posting (Regulation 3 (2)).

The NTO in this case misstated the position; it stated a Charge Certificate can be issued 28 days after the date of the NTO. The true position is that a Charge Certificate may be issued 28 days after service of the NTO.

Regulation 4(4) of the Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) Representations and Appeals Regulations 2007 provides the grounds on which representations may be made against a Notice to Owner.

Regulation 4(4) (f) states:

'that there has been a procedural impropriety on the part of the enforcement authority'

"Procedural impropriety" in this context means a failure by the enforcement authority to observe any requirement imposed by the Traffic Management Act 2004 or the General Regulations or Representations and Appeals Regulations. This includes, pursuant to Regulation 4(5) (a) of the Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) Representations and Appeals Regulations 2007 the taking of any step, whether or not involving the service of any document, otherwise than in accordance with the conditions subject to which; or at the time or during the period when, it is authorised or required to be taken.

I find the failure to accurately state the position in the NTO to be a procedural impropriety as so defined.

For these reasons I allow this appeal and have not gone on to consider ground 2.

You will only have a Notice to Owner with this wording if you received a PCN on the street served to your vehicle or put in your hand. If the Notice to Owner was received by you less than 28 days ago, and has the wrong wording that you only have 28 days from the date of the Notice to Owner in which to pay, rather than 28 days from service (i.e. when it was delivered to you) then you should make representations that in line with London tribunals decision number 2190021431 the Notice to Owner contains wording which is a procedural impropriety as it limits the proper time for payment.

If you have a Notice of Rejection which was received by you less than 28 days ago and your Notice to Owner also had the incorrect wording then you should make an on line Appeal to London Tribunals on the grounds of procedural impropriety and ask the adjudicator to follow the decisions in 2190021431, 2190185574, 2190155868 and 219019494A which are by four different adjudicators so starting to produce a body of identical decisions which makes it more likely than not that any other adjudicator will follow them (they are not precedents but may be persuasive).

If you have an Appeal at London Tribunals which has not yet been decided you can email them on queries@londontribunals.org.uk

and add a new ground of Appeal of procedural impropriety and quote the four decisions above. If you need copies of the decisions please email mrmustard@zoho.com

or you can search in the tribunal register for them here

https://londontribunals.org.uk/

choose Statutory Registers and then 'search' the Environment and Traffic Adjudicators register and then search by the reference numbers one at a time.

Barnet Council will pounce on the slightest error that a motorist makes and issue a PCN.

Time to turn the tables and make their blunder expensive for them.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard has just read another decision from Saturday 22 June, 2190177587, by a fifth adjudicator, that also finds the Notice to Owner non-compliant.

the Contractor's sub-contractor

Barnet Council can't see through this nor see what their contractor's sub-contractors are up to

Mr C made a mistake in a yellow box, it happens. He received a PCN from the all seeing computer and within 4 days, he had paid it. He received a letter confirming that the PCN was at an end.

His troubles were only just starting except that Mr C didn't know it.

2 hours later someone went into the computer record and reopened the file

Half an hour later another user set the PCN to move forward in the process the following day

The next step after an unpaid postal PCN is a charge certificate. One was generated.

The penalty charge has not increased to £195 as £65 has been paid. That is mistake number 1.

The PCN grants periods of 28 days (from issue date or receipt date respectively) for the PCN to be paid or challenged. After 9 days (the 18th is day 1) the 28 day periods have clearly not expired. The Charge Certificate is a nullity and an unlawful demand for payment. One questions why the software is not programmed to stop stupid errors like this one.

The charge certificate may well have been generated but it didn't reach Mr C who stayed in the dark.

Next up comes the Order for Recovery. The batch in which that was generated and sent to liberty by NSL contained an error.

That email, of 11 December 2017, was not processed by NSL. How many documents were in those batches? not just Mr C's?

In October 17 the details of the PCN were sent to a bailiff for a pre-debt check. This was a data breach as Mr C was not a debtor or even a potential debtor.The bailiff decided he was worth powder & shot so the PCN continued through the process.

The council's record shows that the PE3, Order for Recovery, was produced, but not that it was posted. Mr C did not receive it and that is because it was not mailed to him.

The next thing that Mr C knew was that he was contacted by the bailiff, for a PCN which he had paid months prior at the discounted rate.

This is what can happen when you contract out your responsibilities and they then get sub-contracted to another company (Liberty in this case, owned by Crapita, but not so crap in this case). It looks like a failure by NSL but the address to which Liberty sent their email has been redacted, for no good reason so Mr Mustard can't be 100% sure.

Now that Mr C has been to his councillor he has received an apology for his PCN being mishandled but no mention of any compensation for the fright of a bailiff sending a demand for payment which simply was not due.

This is why Mr Mustard is against the way in which Barnet Council outsource services. he doesn't have a problem with it per se as he himself offers outsourced debt collection, the difference being that he is staggeringly efficient and his clients receive a weekly report of progress and any problems, so they know what is happening.

Barnet council outsource and then let the outsourcer outsource some more so are two steps removed from knowing what is going on. Throw in extreme automation of processes and the lack of human involvement and injustices like this one happen.

Even then once a cock-up occurs the administration doesn't cover itself in glory by offering a fulsome apology and making a payment in compensation. No the explanatory letter which Mr Mustard has seen goes on about how correct the initial PCN was, as if this is some comfort, in order to deflect attention from how dire everything was that happened after that, and says not a word about the data breach nor offer any compensation for receiving a threatening letter from the bailiff when absolutely no money is owed to the council.

This is just one reason why Mr Mustard will Vote Labour tomorrow. Should Labour get a majority tomorrow Mr Mustard will offer his services as Parking Czar to them in order to stop PCNs becoming a revenue stream, in order to bring fairness & commonsense to the system and to reduce automation and put the human touch back to the forefront.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Council can't see the nose on their face

One of the tactics, whether conscious or not, is to wear motorists down by repeatedly refusing challenges as only 1% of the public can be bothered to take the council to the tribunal (a situation that Mr Mustard intends to do something about). Here is a tribunal case which illustrates why you shouldn't take what the council write to you as necessarily being correct:

Mr G attended today. The issue in the appeal is whether he had paid to park his car in the Broadway on 17th May 2017.

Mr G provides evidence of a screenshot showing texts sent to the text number of the cashless parking service at 10:07 and 11:32 on 17th May. At 10:07 a request for 90 minutes parking was made and at 11:32 a request for a further 60 minutes. The appellant’s security code number was input. The details of the credit card are already recorded by the pay by phone company. Mr G states that he had carried out all steps to pay to park. He did not immediately receive a text in response but he states that this is not unusual in the London Borough of Barnet as it can take 30 minutes or more for a reply to be received. Mr G provides his credit card statement showing two payments made to the local authority of £1.50 and 85p for a transaction on 17th May. These payments would be consistent with the two periods of parking requested.

The local authority states that it has no record of any payment made on 17th May. Its records show that a request was made at 21:49 on 17th May to park the car until 09:00 the following morning. No charge was made because the bay was not operational during this time. Mr G states that he was at home in Kent when this transaction was processed and that he did not make any request to park his car in a bay at a time when parking restrictions were not I operation. I accept this evidence.

I accept the appellant’s evidence that the request to park was made when he parked and before the Penalty Charge Notice was issued at 10:31. I accept the appellant’s evidence that the payment to the local authority shown on the credit card was for parking on 17th May. I allow this appeal because I find that a payment had been made to park the car at the time that the Penalty Charge Notice was issued.

Interesting points from this are that this motorist reports a customary delay in having his text payment confirmed (and yet the council say that you should stay with your car until payment is confirmed - parking meters confirm your payment in seconds which is why Mr Mustard recommends you use them whenever possible - which would mean you standing around waiting for a text for 30 minutes, which might be the amount of parking you have paid for!) 

and that clearly payment has been made but the back office staff either can't see them or don't want to (Mr Mustard has complained about such an oversight in the last few months).

Even more odd is the system generating parking sessions which didn't take place

The decisions of parking adjudicators are public and entered on a register but Mr Mustard usually leaves the name out of his reports. Experts will find this decision under ref. 2170458153.

Councils - you can't trust them with the amount of PCN power they have been given. Do not take any nonsense, like this, from them. If you are correct, forget about the discount, and fight the council all the way to the tribunal. There you will get a fair hearing from an adjudicator whose pay is not dependent upon you paying for a defective PCN.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Council blundering about in the dark

A traffic warden (CEO) has to have a good reason to believe that a contravention has occurred and unless it is blindingly obvious that a vehicle is miles from the kerb there should be clear photos with a measuring device to prove the 50cm has been exceeded. This is what the traffic warden has within his evidence, and with service of 5 years he should know better

When viewed on his laptop Mr Mustard thinks he can make a kerb out under the back of the car at an oblique angle and so on the traffic warden's own evidence there is no contravention.

This is what the scene was like the next day in daylight

A challenge was made by the motorist and rejected by the council. The council confuse themselves, this is the scene from further away, the location is Victoria Close EN4:

What the council fail to understand is that the entire curved edge of the 'turning circle' is 'the edge of the carriageway' and that as long as any part of the car is within 50cm of that, the front or rear bumper, or a mirror, then no contravention has occurred.

This is the only PCN issued at this location for this contravention in 3 years. It it going to be fought all the way to the tribunal.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Council parking are getting better - at apologising

A good apology is a thing of beauty and Barnet are getting better at them but then they do have to send Mr Mustard quite a few.

Mr Mustard checks the on line balance of every PCN he handles every 10 days or so. When he then sees a balance increase by £8 he knows that, in theory, an Order for Recovery has been issued. It turned out that Barnet had been increasing the balance when they asked the Court to approve the debt registration rather than when the Court responded. He is told that this was due to human error but Mr Mustard thinks it was the way the system was set up.

The event which confirmed that the horse was before the cart was when Mr Mustard, having seen a balance increase by £8, submitted a witness statement in order to get a debt registration cancelled and the TEC (the relevant part of the Court) told him that the PCN had not been registered as a debt. That was a procedural impropriety (blunder) on the part of the council.

You can keep an eye on your Barnet PCN balance here

Note that the fault was down to NSL who are meant to be PCN processing experts. Mr Mustard wouldn't want to deal with amateurs if this is what experts are like. Mr Mustard has been described as a professional lay representative which is, of course, an oxymoron. It is harder to get your contractors to do the right thing than manage your own staff doing it as they are within your sight. This is one of the prices you pay for outsourcing, loss of control.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Haringey play Hardball, then No ball

A Charge Certificate is a serious document. You cannot challenge a PCN at that stage, you can only pay up or await the court registration and then try to send the PCN back down the line once you are holding an Order for Recovery.

Sending a Charge Certificate when you are not entitled to is an unlawful demand for payment by a local authority (Adjudicators are quick to cancel PCNs in such circumstances) and would be seen by the man in the street as a Hardball tactic. However Mr Mustard's alter ego has been a debt collector for 28 years and has handled over 500 PCN in 2 years so knows the process inside out and upside down and isn't fazed by Haringey Council playing hardball as he is more than their equal.

Let us run quickly through this case of Miss H.

Postal PCN issued for a no right turn (please don't do this in Highgate High St when you have travelled about 100m south from the double mini roundabout, the camera will get you) on 29 June 2015.

Mr Mustard submitted formal representations (there are no other kind for a postal PCN as you only challenge the local authority once before getting the opportunity to Appeal to an independent adjudicator) by the Signed For service on 8 July 15. They were signed for in Lancing (where the scanner lives) on 9 July.

Going slightly back in the time line, on 6 July representations Mr Mustard had made on another PCN for this client were point blank refused even though Haringey Council had a signed authority letter from the client in both cases.

On 21 July Mr Mustard asked a more senior officer to stop the stupidity of refusing representations by a suitably authorised and experienced representative. This was for a different client, a Miss B, but he asked that representations for this client, Miss H, also be checked. The more senior officer "had a word" with the junior clerk on the Miss B case and doubtless repeated himself clearly on this case. Mr Mustard would have loved to have heard what the more senior officer had to say.

On 4 August Mr Mustard checked the balance on Haringey's computer. It was £65.

Imagine Mr Mustard's surprise when his client sent him a Charge Certificate dated 6 August for £195 which is absolutely impossible.

A procedural impropriety is committed by a council which sends a document it is not entitled to send.

It certainly doesn't make it any better if they can't decide if £130 plus 50% is £195 or £130?

Mr Mustard checked the balance on the council computer again on 9 August and the PCN amount due was by then £0.00 so either the council computer has a mind of its own (or two minds by the looks of it) or an officer with some sense has got hold of the file and tried to quieten Mr Mustard down by cancelling the PCN. There are two more PCN he needs in all fairness to cancel.

Presumably there is a letter of apology and bunch of flowers already on their way to Miss H? There should be after sending such a worrying missive as an illegal Charge Certificate but parking seem to have their own moral code which doesn't include much in the way of morals.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Newham Council - a world record PCN demand?

You won't believe your eyes.

If you have a £130 PCN you can end up with the value being increased by 50% and you then receive a Charge Certificate.

Mr Mustard, who rather likes numbers, knows that if you add 50% to £130, the answer, using only his own brain power, is £195. Newham Council have huge computer systems which help them to make a packet out of PCN

which make £130 + 50% come to £8,795 which is a tad more than 50%, 500% or even 5,000% extra. Time to wind the elastic band up a little tighter in the council computer?

Mr Mustard thinks you might like to see the Charge Certificate, but not if you open an envelope over your cornflakes, having innocently forgotten to pay a PCN yourself?

apologies for the poor image quality

Can you imagine how the lady who opened the envelope to be confronted by this Charge Certificate felt? Even Mr Mustard would have been shaken to his very core. (He has virtually held the hand of the affected party and told them not to worry, which is easy for him as his name is not in the frame).

There has obviously been a diabolical error somewhere and the test now for Newham Council is what they do about this gargantuan error. The very least is a fulsome grovelling apology from the Parking Manager, the cancellation of any other PCN that happen to be knocking about for the same vehicle (only one as far as Mr Mustard is aware) a bunch of flowers (no, not for Mr Mustard, silly) and a lifetime's supply of free visitor vouchers.

Are Newham Council big enough or will they blame some faceless unnamed pen-pusher and quietly cancel this PCN and otherwise keep schtum? We are judged less by our mistakes than how we deal with them. Here is an opportunity to show the world what Newham Council are made of; sugar & spice?

Surely the PCN value field could have been set to trigger a warning if it exceeded a set maximum?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update 18 June 15: The Newham payment system is now showing £457 which is a vast improvement on the previous figure but is still wrong. A council can only issue one Charge Certificate and so having issued a defective one they have no action open to them other than hitting the cancel button (unless they want to explain themselves to the Ombudsman in due course).

A Brent blunder

A lady has just received a Notice to Owner for a PCN she was supposedly issued with at 09:26 on 12 February 2015. The PCN was not found on the car. Mr Mustard wonders if this is because the traffic warden realised his/her error and hot footed it but didn't cancel the PCN due to operator error as there is a Key Performance Indicator for this?

The restrictions in this zone in Lydford Rd are really odd as MA is a cpz from 10am to 3pm and MW from 8am to 6.30pm but of course a marked out bay can be completely different to cpz hours which set the rules purely for otherwise unsigned single yellow lines (although usually the bays will be for the same hours).

Brent accept Ringo payments - why isn't that showing on the sign? The traffic warden checked location 5074 (not on the sign, the number must be on the meter). Is is a data protection breach for the council to exhibit a photograph of the screen shot of registration numbers of five vehicles which had paid for parking at that location? (four of them probably for the previous day as all their sessions ended at 10am).

Interestingly, if you put 5074 into Ringo it comes up as Mapesbury Rd which is the name of the cpz zone. You would need to know that fact as a visitor or you might thing Ringo had got it wrong. Mr Mustard has just tried, at 22:25 on Saturday to pay for 15 minutes parking. Ringo has asked him for 20p and said his session will end at 10:15 on 23 March so it automatically assumes the 15 minutes that you want are the next payable 15 minutes rather than the current 15 minutes. At the bottom of the screen it says "Pay for parking to start now" which clearly it doesn't. Mr Mustard is about to hit the "back" key especially as the default vehicle is an old one.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

NSL employee doesn't understand CPZs

Mr Mustard had the idea a while ago of writing a blog about CPZ zones and has now been prompted to get on with it. He thinks they should be called Single Yellow Line Zones as that is all that the zone entry signs, like this one, set the rules for.

The times on Controlled Zone signs do not set the times of any marked out bay inside the zone although they may happen to coincide, nor the times of double yellows which are always 24/7 (but not always 365 days of the year, they may not apply in winter in holiday resorts) but the zone entry signs do set the restricted times of single yellow lines inside the zone unless the line has its own sign with different hours which take priority.

You would think that an NSL employee would know this, but one clearly doesn't.

how many grammatical errors can you find?

Where was Mr Mustard's friend parked? In a bay next to this sign.

Thus the part of the Case Summary, seen above, sent to PATAS which talks about signs not being necessary next to the bay is just plain wrong. Mr Mustard thinks that an adjudicator will be with him when he raises this point.

Mr Mustard will send an email now to the Parking Manager who evidently needs to ask NSL about the training that isn't being given to NSL's employees and/or the knowledge of Notice Processing Officers.

The parking manager isn't going to be amused at yet another blunder by NSL. This is one of the difficulties with outsourcing, ensuring quality control.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Maths test. Q1: £110 minus £nil = ?

So there you have it, in NSL's Croydon HQ, their computer thinks that £110 less nothing is £165. Mr Mustard does struggle with the concept of the square root of -1 but not with taking nothing away from something which means that the answer is something, unless the something was in fact nothing, in which case the answer is something and nothing. Clear?

Mr Mustard has sent this Notice to parking management and doubtless it is now listed on the agenda for the next monthly meeting between parking management (thin client commissioning side or some such nonsense) and the poor NSL bod who is trying to get his people to not make mistakes on any Mr Mustard file, which of course makes them more prone to do so. The PCN should be cancelled by the close of business.

Please do something for Mr Mustard. Get out any current or already paid Notice to Owner and look at the sums being claimed. If any of the numbers are wrong (and they could also be £60 - £nil = £90, or £130 - £nil = £195) then send a copy to mrmustard@zoho.com If you have paid, he will request a refund for you as you have received an illegal demand for payment. If you haven't paid, he will get your PCN cancelled on the grounds of Procedural Impropriety.

Will there be another NSL blunder tomorrow? Check back and find out.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update: 4 September at 15:50

The parking process manager has emailed to say the PCN has been cancelled and the item duly added to the agenda for the next meeting.

NSL charge Mr Mustard (again)

a trainee Notice Processing Officer

Mr Mustard seems to recall that NSL have previously tried to register him as a debtor with the TEC (Traffic Enforcement Centre - attached to Northampton County Court). Mr Mustard has a message for NSL, he does not get parking tickets (PCN) as he always parks properly, or, if he does get one, it will be an error and it will not reach the Charge Certificate stage as he will make representations. If NSL, you are thinking of putting Mr Mustard's name on a statutory document, stop and think as you are almost certainly about to drop a clanger. Here is the offending document:

The name isn't even correct. Initials are "D R" not "R D"

Mr Mustard does not have a Fiat and was not parked in Union St on 22 March 2014.

For the average motorist there isn't much you can officially do in this situation other than wait for the Order for Recovery (and then file a witness statement) but it would still be best if NSL make a similar blunder to tell them by email to barnet@nslservices.co.uk and copy the email to your ward councillors.

Mr Mustard took his usual direct approach, ignored NSL, and went straight to the parking manager who cancelled the PCN without further ado.

Doubtless a handsome written apology with flowers, chocolates or wine will arrive from NSL later on in the week.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard drives in the bus lane during operative hours?

Oh dear, it alleged that on 21 May 2014 at 16:30, when he was at his desk pretending to work but actually spending half of his time on PCN (Mr Mustard has a trail for the entire day from his desktop emails) he drove down the Bus Lane on the A5. Now it isn't very likely that that will happen and he isn't the owner of this vehicle although he is acting for her but he can't give her the PCN to deal with as the driver as the Notice tells him not to.

Mr Mustard reckons that NSL have got their new parking software, ICES, in a bit of a muddle and hence they have sent him this unlawful demand for payment.

Mr Mustard has passed it to a Barnet Council parking manager so that they can cancel the PCN and take a little look at what NSL are doing wrong. This will not be the only blunder consequent to the software change.

If this happens to you, do not ignore the Notice. Send an email to barnet@nslservices.co.uk that says you are not, and never have been, the owner of the vehicle because if not the case will rumble on as far as bailiffs who don't have a reputation for listening to reason.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Headline 2023 - DRS outsourcing a success

Actually Mr Mustard doesn't think that the headline will be that as either the outsourcing won't get off the ground because too many staff are affected and seem to be putting spokes into wheels or because after 5 years the councillors will realise it is an expensive disaster, or maybe even just not value for money ( Vfm for short ) and like the current long term leisure contract which Barnet Council wish to buy negotiate their way out of they will try to do the same for DRS. Bizarrely the argument for quiting outsourcing will be the same as for entering into it, in order to save money.

Let us firstly attend the official contract signing ceremony:

http://saltertshirts.spreadshirt.com/bad-deal-A8368778

Anyway let us for the sake of this post pretend that the DRS outsourcing runs for the full 10 year term ( ask yourselves why it is a 10 year term - it's because that is what the providers want it to be - is the tail wagging the dog? ). Why will it appear to be a success? because each year Barnet Council applies inflationary increases to its charges ( except parking which it mines like a rich seam of gold with hyper-inflationary increases ) and the reports presented on this topic have ignored the question of inflation. Firstly you need to see the report. It is on the council website so it does not present a problem if it is replicated on Scribd - the good thing about which is that it makes it easy to put the report into a pretty box below.

Click on the below title to be transported to Scribd if you want to download the report to your compuer.
DRS Business Case - Barnet Council

Now have a look at that report and then tell Mr Mustard why he cannot find the word "inflation" anywhere in the report.

You can download the whole thing and print it out if you wish, including from the council website here. I am going to keep the maths as simple as possible as that way lies understanding and it is possibly why councillors get given 160 pages reports full of numbers and tables - so they don't bother to enquire closely.

Firstly take a look at para 6.2 on page 8 so you get an idea of the affected services as DRS is an artificial group of services lumped together into a big fat tasty bundle for outsourcing.

Para 6.5 says that extra income over 10 years will be £10,303,005 ( a stupid figure. It should have been rounded to £10m - this is part of the strategy to bamboozle and appear precise when the figure is just a guesstimate - an aspiration ) This table is repeated for no good reason other than confusion in para 9.7.

Para 9.8 is very interesting. Most of the benefits are expected to accrue by Year 4 so why not stop the contract there as extra benefits will be needed in years 5 to 10 and there are none to be had. A different solution will be needed.

Now jump to page 30. Actual income in the year ended 31 March 2011 ( assuming that is the year from the heading of the expenditure column ). The meat of the breakdown is in the secret appendix E but no matter. We know that total income is £10,286,706.

Now let us apply annual inflation increases to that income. Here is the table that Mr Mustard has knocked up for you.

Effect of inflation increases on DRS income
Inflation	4.477%	104.48%
Year	Income £	Extra
		Income £
0	10,286,706
1	10,747,242	460,536
2	11,228,396	941,690
3	11,731,091	1,444,385
4	12,256,292	1,969,586
5	12,805,006	2,518,300
6	13,378,286	3,091,580
7	13,977,232	3,690,526
8	14,602,993	4,316,287
9	15,256,769	4,970,063
10	15,939,815	5,653,109
Total extra income		29,056,062

So with inflation at the average rate for 2011 of 4.477% , you can see that inflation alone, if it stayed at this sort of level, would generate nearly 3 times the extra income than is being "guaranteed" ( if it really is, I am sure that the guarantees will be stuffed full of clever city lawyers' get-out clauses ) 

In case you are interested an inflation rate of just 1.75% would generate the required extra income of £10m.

In future reports by officers to the committee once the outsourcing is under way ( if it ever gets there ) there will be a lot of crowing about how fantastic the provider has been in generating extra income when in fact it was inflation price increases that will have done all the hard work. 

Are you reading this Mr Craig Cooper, Commercial Director, whose name is on this report. Are you going to revisit the basis of this contract and start to earn your £132,480 p.a. based on the free advice of a blogger. Please do email me to tell me what is going on as this contract progresses along its bumpy road. I think that in the future, all reports need to separate out the extra income due to inflation from the extra income due to improved sales and new lines of business, don't you?

Does anyone at the council ( don't lower your heads consultants ) feel the tiniest bit embarrassed that a part-time blogger has pointed out such a huge issue ( "issue" is a weasel word used by the council to describe a blunder or a problem ).

Do you remember Councillor Coleman when you were presenting your proposed inflationary increases to EPR charges about a month ago that you said "there is plenty of government detail for bloggers to comb through at midnight" ( or at least that was the gist of it ). This blog demonstrates what good value that is for the council. A pity that more councillors and officers aren't doing this sort of thing in their normal hours or it wouldn't be necessary. Fortunately super-bloggers need less sleep than ordinary mortals.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard