Station Parade - Willesden - Unlawful use of cctv

 

Miss B stopped in the taxi bay in mid March 2026. Mr Mustard does not approve of that, not even for a minute. The sign says 'No stopping' so 2 seconds is enough to commit a contravention.

Had Miss B been issued with a PCN by a 'traffic warden' on foot he might have told her that he is too busy with work to assist (which is true, he still has over £5m to collect on his latest work assignment so arguing over your £160/£80 PCN is not a good use of his time at present) but Brent Council sent a PCN by post relying on cctv. Mr Mustard knew that was unlawful and so he acted.

Mr Mustard did three things:

1. He made formal representations against the PCN on 25 March 26. 

2. He made an Information request to find out how long and how much this had been going on.

3. He sent an email to the monitoring officer, the council official who is responsible for ensuring the council follow the law.

#1 For this type of PCN a council must reject representations within 56 days or they have accepted them by default. Mr Mustard checked the on line balance every week or so. On 12 May it was still £80 and the finishing line was fast approaching. On 21 May, day 56, the balance had been set to £zero. Hurrah. Brent did write to Miss B saying they had missed the deadline but that was a tactical move, to not admit they had erred in the first place.

#2. The information was supplied on time.

 

As the error was spotted so quickly by Mr Mustard no PCN had reached the tribunal or a bailiff. 

On the face of it that is only about 3 people a week getting caught, pretty good compliance on the whole. However, the cctv only started on 6 March and ceased on 3 April so that was about 6 motorists a day getting caught. If you are not in a proper London black cab stay out of these bays, they are not for you.

#3. Nothing had come back from this official by mid-June but they may have been off sick, the out of office response not being 100% clear. Someone else should be covering. Mr Mustard was wondering about an email to the Chief Executive when the explanation arrived on 19 June.

This is an excellent response. The council could have acted slightly quicker as Mr Mustard pointed out the grave error on 23 March. Putting that aside the council have still moved reasonably swiftly and most things in councils aren't rapid. They agree with the legal analysis, they have stopped acting unlawfully, they have cancelled all unpaid PCNs and they have refunded all payments received (some of which will be from lease or short term hire companies and those companies should pass on the refund to the client and cancel the administration fee). You cannot ask for much more than that.

Well done Brent Council (they don't like Mr Mustard much as he keeps putting them to the sword at the tribunal but Mr Mustard doesn't care) thank you for your corrective actions.

Miss B had donated to the North London Hospice at the beginning.

The end.

Pothole PCNs

 

This width restriction / bus gate has been in Netherlands Road, Oakleigh Park for as long as Mr Mustard can remember. It used to be controlled by a barrier, the mounting box for which still sits in place but it kept being broken and parts had to come from abroad so Barnet Council changed it from a money spending exercise to a money making one by installing a camera.

In December 25, the daughter of a motorist who Mr Mustard only has to help now and then, came to Mr Mustard with a PCN for having driven through the bus gate. She hadn't, she had stuck to the left of carriageway, gone though the width restriction and then veered to the right to avoid the potholes you can see. The cctv didn't know whether she was coming or going and selected the footage for a human being to check and then issue a PCN if deserved. The human being got it wrong.

Mr Mustard challenged the PCN and after a while it got set to £zero.

In March 26 another motorist came to him, with the same problem

Potholes still there, same cctv system, probably the same incompetent human being checking the clips or going off to make tea whilst the footage runs. Same challenge made but this time Mr Mustard also emailed a parking manager, who he bothers occasionally about the worst excesses. he got a same day response as he usually does and the PCN was toast.

As Mr Mustard pointed out to the manager though if a car is short term hired or long term leased the fate of the PCN can be taken out of the hands of the driver and an administration fee be levied to add insult to injury.

Amusingly every time the mother of the first motorist above and Mr Mustard both now veer to the middle of the road as they exit the width restriction (except today when there was a bus going through!). Mr Mustard has driven in that eccentric way 50 times so far. Never a PCN when you want one.

The end. 

 

 

You need to think when you drive - be rational

 

When the J Sainsbury supermarket came to North Finchley many moons ago there was a concern about the number of cars which would drive along Ravensdale Avenue, a fine residential road. Therefore, the road sytem was engineered to force traffic to enter and leave the supermarket car park via the High Road. 

Some people think they can drive up the wrong side of the road and they rightly receive their comeuppance (Mr Mustard does not condone dangerous driving).

 

Don't make dangerous manoeuvres.

The end. 

How to get a bus lane PCN in London cancelled

It was a foul night but Ealing Council still wanted a bus lane PCN to be paid despite the terrible visibility causing a motorist to cut across the last part of a bus lane, one he knew was out there somewhere but couldn't see. This is a PCN that should either not have been issued or else cancelled exercising the council's discretion; no chance, they are desperate for your £130 or £65, the greedy fools.

This is the second consecutive blog in which Mr Mustard pays tribute to another PCN expert, one Ivan Murray-Smith, who unlike Mr Mustard didn't take it for granted that councils (& TfL) in London had done the necessary paperwork to properly authorise their use of bus lane cctv but checked and decided that officialdom had erred, big time.

The principal legislation which pertains to bus lanes is the London Local Authorities Act 1996 (as amended) which contains two provisions as to cameras.

The first is that it is a 'prescribed device' and the second is that it is 'approved' by the Secretary of State. Mr Mustard was going to set out the particulars for you but they are comprehensively discussed in the adjudicator's extremely well considered written decision in Duthieuw v London Borough of Ealing.

 

Before discussing the decision Mr Mustard just wants to ask all drivers to stay out of the bus lane during the hours of operation. No decision at the tribunal is a precedent and although this is a key case it is still possible that there will be a change in legislation which will change the legal position. (No decision by an adjudicator sets a precedent as that is what the legislation says but a key case on the tribunal website will almost certainly be followed by other adjudicators as the chief adjudicator must think it is of general application or it surely couldn't be so published).

Look at this, the seriousness of the challenge to one PCN worth £130 worried Ealing Council so much that they threw a barrister at the problem, a perfectly civil gentleman who Mr Mustard happened to see at the tribunal as he was there for another case. The barrister will have cost a pretty penny, far more than the £130 that Ealing would have not garnered if they had looked at the foul weather and cancelled the PCN in the first instance. Ealing weren't fighting Ivan alone, a whole host of experts were rowed up behind him in the shadows.

The barrister was given a hopeless case, the legislation is clear, and it would have been a travesty of justice if Ealing had won. There have been a dozen cases on this ground which each separate local authority had lost. Mr Mustard had deployed the argument to good effect in August against Barnet, some 3 months prior to the Duthieuw decision (and thank goodness for people like Davy Duthieuw who are prepared to risk losing £130 for the good of every other motorist and Ivan who spends a huge amount of his spare time helping the public for free).

Now you can see the argument, the camera is prescribed but not approved. The umbrella body for councils in London is called 'London Councils' (yes, not at all original). They covered this point in one of their committee meetings which Mr Mustard listened to on line as they are public. A small note was buried within the copious meeting papers

They left the word 'London' off the name of the legislation

and this simply didn't get discussed at the meeting.

This sets out the legal position. Councils in London and TfL can legally issue PCNs but if anyone makes representations against the Enforcement Notice and then, if rejected, starts an Appeal to an independent adjudicator at London Tribunals the council concerned can't produce any legally admissible cctv evidence so the Appeal must be allowed and the PCN must be cancelled (as a first step you will have to challenge the PCN and then get a rejection and wait for the Enforcement Notice some 30+ days later, so be patient). This is almost certain to be the answer if you enlist the help of an expert by posting your PCN on the sillily named but very useful website PePiPoo here where one of several selfless experts will step forward to help you for free, save for a charitable donation directly to their favourite charity.

The opinion of a solicitor friend of Mr Mustard's, a proper big city lawyer, now retired but helping various charities, was:

"With all due deference to Mr Rhimes, who did his best with what he had to work with, the 'it's not admissible, but I can fix that by watching it for you' argument is one of the daftest things I've read all year."

Now, let's assume you have a bus lane PCN or Enforcement Notice, what should you do? Fight it, you may have to fight both documents but the challenge to send is the same for both (you are allowed to repeat your arguments and need to for consistency). Go onto the council website, if they have one, otherwise email or write, and say this

'I deny the contravention occurred. I put the enforcement authority to proof that they have a valid Traffic Management Order and that signs were in place at the start of the bus lane which put me on notice of the time and days of operation of the bus lane.

Furthermore, I deny that the enforcement authority has the necessary approval of the Secretary of State in order to allow for their cctv evidence to be produced to an independent adjudicator and so ultimately the PCN must be cancelled. I rely on the key case listed on the London Tribunals website of Duthieuw v London Borough of Ealing - case 2220486482'

and add any other grounds which apply to your particular situation.

Any sensible enforcement authority will recognise a motorist who knows their rights and will cancel the PCN so as not to waste c. £30 of tribunal fees (which they can't get back from the motorist as you are not being frivolous, vexatious or wholly unreasonable and so costs cannot be awarded against you).

This failure by enforcement authorities won't last for ever. What are you waiting for, do your representations now, today, don't dilly dally.

The end.

p.s. outside Greater London you only get a PCN to fight, no Notice of Enforcement, as their bus lane legislation is different and this blog post does not apply.

This blog applies if you were filmed within this map and sent a Bus lane PCN and/or Enforcement Notice including by TfL.

 

Lewisham lose

 

A long battle which ended up with an order for disclosure.

One wonders why the council fought for so long to keep the cctv of one of their own vehicles out of the public domain as the image of the driver wasn't likely to be that clear, their name was already known, and a pixellated version could easily have been supplied at the time of first request.

The bigger question is what the council were up to sending a PCN to themselves, a monumentally pointless PCN which involves taking money out of the council's left pocket and putting it into the right one. All this time and expense wasted.

Mind how you approach Sainsbury's at Golders Green

Adjudicators have been split as to whether a car that goes across the road and down the side of Sainsbury's had actually turned right or not, with only the merest turn of the wheel being necessary to get there and the no right turn signs apparently intended to stop right turns into the Finchley Road.

Well the doubt will soon exist no more as the signs are to be changed on or about 3 June to mandatory turn left signs (the 'turn left' letters on the road not having featured in any adjudication decision that Mr Mustard has read). 

The junction is, of course, under the ever watchful gaze of a cctv camera which will automatically send you a PCN if you now fail to go left.

If you want to go to Sainsbury's best not now arrive via Rodborough Road or turn left, go around the clock tower and turn through 180 degrees, minding the camera on the yellow box outside the tube station, and then turn left into St Albans Lane or go up North End Lane and right into West Heath Drive.

If you think that there never was any conflict at St Albans Lane you are able to send an objection into the council at any time between now and 3 December, using the email address in the Notice above or by traditional mail.

Be careful out there.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

City of London caught out and agree to pay costs

Mr Mustard read the above before he had seen the Appeal decision. His first thoughts were that it was refreshing to see the City of London accepting it had made mistakes and would improve their service. He was also pleased that they did not fight the costs claim which was in any sense a flea bite to the City.

Then he read the Appeal & he was less happy but hey what a time to be a security guard and have or leave a cctv camera trained on your car.

How unlucky for the City. What poor records they keep. How many people get caught by their late posting of suspension notices? Ironic that the suspension for filming was itself filmed.

Now you can't always have your car parked outside your place of work with a camera trained upon it.

What can you do? Well if you have a satnav with a fitted camera, or a pure crash cam, then you have cctv evidence yourself of the state of the signage upon arrival at your destination.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

p.s. The PCN in this case was for £130 which would take Mr S a few minutes over 13 hours to earn (gross before tax and National Insurance). Penalty charges affect the lower paid members of society quite brutally. They really need to be lower.

The Tilling Road trap turn

The no left turn marked by the red arrow has caught out thousands of drivers and it is hard to fight against such PCN as the contravention is captured by cctv. The below photographs may assist you if you are out of time for the discount and wish to challenge your PCN and go to the tribunal. About the only prospect of success is to argue that the signage is not adequate.

You can download any of these photographs which you think help your case. These photographs and the annotations are from a grateful reader.

add the arrow on the road and the word 'slow' for more signs in view

You are on your own fighting PCNs at this location as Mr Mustard does not think he can prevail at the tribunal but a motorist in person might win.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Conflicts of self interest

http://www.whale.to/v/vaccine_research.html

Yesterday Mr Mustard commented upon a conflict of interest story about planning at Barnet Council.

Today Mr Mustard adds a serious matter of his own experience to the debate. Here is the email he sent to the Monitoring Officer earlier today.

Dear Ms Fiore

The following page from a government website sets out when planning permission is required for advertisements.

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/advertssigns/

In a recent County Court case Parking Eye stated that they have the following signs on the Barnet Hospital site

Type 3c - 600*700m - 17 of
Type 3h - 600*700mm - 1 of
Type 5a - 700*900mm - 2 of

And the council can see them on site for themselves.

So they have 20 signs which require planning permission and Parking Eye did not apply for it before erecting the signs in 2014. Parking Eye appear to be negligent when it comes to applying for necessary permission for signs and cameras (just one example)

http://www.chad.co.uk/news/local/parking-company-using-unauthorised-cameras-at-retail-park-1-7774133

Planning Enforcement action is, I understand taken by employees of Re:. That company is 51% owned by Capita.

Parking Eye is 100% owned by Capita.

No matter how independently minded an employee might be he/she will struggle to properly progress the necessary enforcement action (and for the avoidance of doubt I am making a complaint and asking for the signs and cameras to be immediately removed until such time as planning permission is applied for and granted) as Parking Eye have been breaking the law by issuing parking charge notices up to date, without putting their own position in difficulty or proceeding in a completely unbiased manner (we all tend to have a natural and possibly innocent bias towards our employer) or being seen to be unbiased if they take less than robust action.

It is for that reason that I am making this complaint to you, the monitoring officer, as you are responsible for ensuring that the council enforces the law. Please appoint an independent body or another local authority, who don't number any Capita company within their client base, to deal with the matter and demonstrate that conflicts of interest are taken seriously.

Yours faithfully

Mr Mustard

Let's see how seriously conflicts of interest are actually taken because this is clearly one such example.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Bacon Lane being cured (*sorry*)

Regular readers will know that in Bacon Lane in NW9 thanks to a row of trees down the middle of the road, that is where people parked, in the middle of the road, thus committing the contravention of 'double parking' despite them being nowhere near another car. Suddenly Brent Council started to issue PCN. They have now done the decent thing.

So well done Brent Council. Legitimate expectation is an argument that often plays well at the tribunal.

Could you now please take another look at Chamberlayne Road into Bolton Gardens and see if you can make the turn physically impossible rather than milk the motorist by all those cctv supported PCN. Thank you.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The elastic band has snapped

Borough commander talking about a fire call "and then we got a parking ticket" (maybe)

Mr Mustard doesn't know when the first cctv vehicle was introduced but supposes it is 5 or 10 years ago. He did tweet (no response yet) the British Parking Association wondering what debate there was before the cars were introduced (his guess is none at all nationally) and being in a charitable mood today he supposes that a car parking manager thought that they really would make the world a safer place and that issuing loads of PCN and raising money was not in his/her mind. Then the elastic band started to be stretched. 

More cars were purchased.

More councils got on the bandwagon.

Word spread at meetings of council parking managers.

Smart saw an opportunity to sell more cars (Mr Mustard used to have one, they are great, his motorbike has an engine twice the size so found the car a little slow but it was nippy enough)

Static cctv also became cheaper and more widespread (not in Barnet for PCN so well done again; Mr Mustard will take a little lie down for a minute, all this praising of Barnet he keeps doing)

Before we knew it the ruddy cctv cars were everywhere and NotoMob was out there fighting on our behalf.

Then the elastic band went twang because Uncle Eric, or the Rt Hon. Eric Pickles MP as others know of him, became the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 12 May 2010. Uncle Eric is truly a man of the people, he knows what is right and proper - sneaky PCN issued by cctv simply isn't. Uncle Eric is going to rid our streets of cctv for parking purposes (presumably it will still be allowed for moving traffic offences but even there he might say that the road layout should be altered to make banned turns more difficult and to stop PCN being issued for being only 25mm into a yellow box junction) and now follows the text of an email that Mr Mustard has received (twice, once to himself in reply to an email he had forgotten about and once through another interested party, possibly in Wandsworth; they know who they are)

Thank you for your email to the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP regarding recent announcements concerning car parking. I have been asked to reply and apologise for the delay in doing so.

Good and affordable parking provision can play an important role in rejuvenating high streets and town centres. Making it easier to park helps support local shops, local jobs and tourism by increasing footfall, giving them a chance to compete against internet retailers and out of town superstores.

Trying to find somewhere to park has become an obstacle course in too many of our towns, cities and seaside resorts. Confusing and difficult car parking practices are undermining the economic vitality of the high street, local parades of shops and tourist destinations. Over-zealous parking wardens have inflicted real damage on local economies, and given many towns and councils a bad name.

We’ve taken action to increase the number of parking spaces. We removed restrictions on the number of parking spaces for new developments, and we've just published new draft planning practice guidance which states councils should reflect the important role appropriate parking facilities can play in rejuvenating shops, high streets and town centres; pushes for more town centre parking spaces; and tackles the blight of ugly street clutter and aggressive 'anti-car' traffic calming measures like road humps.

We’re also taking steps to tackle draconian parking charges and enforcement. 

We’ve withdrawn guidance that encouraged councils to set parking fees to discourage the use of cars. And we’ve set out clearly in the new draft planning practice guidance that planning rules should not be used as an excuse for unfairly penalising drivers.

But there is more to do. Councils have a key role in promoting local economic growth and local jobs. Approximately half of all parking is run by local authorities. But the fact that local authority revenue from parking in 2010 was £1.3 billion shows why we need to review and rein in unfair town hall parking rules. The law is clear that parking is not a tax or cash cow for town hall officers. We want to see councils taking a clear and proportionate approach to parking enforcement.

So Cabinet Ministers, Eric Pickles and Patrick McLoughlin, have announced that the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport will in due course publish details of further reforms, which include stopping CCTV being used for on-street parking enforcement and providing new open data on parking to allow the public to ‘go compare’. The Government has also proposed to consult on updating parking enforcement guidance to support local shops, and on issues such as tackling wrongly-issued fines, reviewing unnecessary double yellow lines and increasing the grace period for parking offences.

Yours sincerely,

DCLG Contact Us Team

Keep up the good work Uncle Eric. CCTV to be used to keep communities safe. What a good idea.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Another happy "customer" (friend of a friend)

Penalty - then a Penalty Charge Notice - away fixture at Chiswick

Here is the story of a friend of a friend of Mr Mustard. It, or a similar story of everyday life, is doubtless repeated many times over across London every day.

My story – with a happy ending

One Sunday afternoon in early July I received a call from my 24 yr old son to ask me if I could pick him up from Chiswick as he’d injured himself playing football, couldn’t walk and didn’t think he could get home on public transport. I drove to Turnham Green Terrace, intending to park in the Pay & Display and help him back to the car. As there were no spaces and he was sitting on the bench by the bus stop – having been helped there by his friends – I stopped momentarily while my husband got out and helped my son to the car. I remained in the driver’s seat with the engine running. The entire procedure probably lasted less than a minute. A few days later I received a PCN. The controversial CCTV positioned under the railway bridge, allegedly to make the area safer for pedestrians at night, had snapped me during that short space of time. The photograph sent to prove I had been there showed me in the driving seat, and the other two people in the car could be made out if you looked carefully.

I contested the PCN, pointing out that I was collecting my injured son, had taken him directly to A & E and had stopped for less than a minute in the bus stop as there were no P & D spaces available.

My initial appeal was rejected and I was trying to decide if it was worth taking it to the next stage and risk losing again, when a friend told me about Mr Mustard. Mr M advised me that the wording in the small print of the PCN was inaccurate and strongly counselled me to appeal again. This I did, pointing out these facts, and submitting proof of my son’s registration at A & E at Charing Cross Hospital, barely 15 minutes after the alleged violation.

This was, however, again rejected and I filled out the PATAS appeal form provided to take my case in person to the independent adjudicator. (This cost Hounslow Council £40 and the motorist £nil)

I was given a date for this appeal.

10 days before the appeal date I received a letter from LBH parking management stating that after my submission of additional evidence concerning my son’s injury, they were not going to contest my appeal any more.

It’s because of incidents like this that more money was raised from Chiswick High Road in parking fines in the past year than any other street in the country ( link to story here ). 

My tale illustrates the bullying tactics of councils like Hounslow. They know that most people will drop their appeal after one rejection. So, all the more easy money in their coffers.

I would strongly urge everyone not to give up but follow through to the independent adjudicator. The PATAS form is very straightforward, and if you have a good reason for the alleged parking violation, just tell the truth about it and give your story. I wish I had done this last year when I had an appeal rejected the first time by Hammersmith & Fulham for parking in a Loading Bay for 4 minutes when I was dropping several hundreds of pounds worth of donations to our local British Heart Foundation shop at 10.30 am on a Sunday morning and I wouldn’t have ended up paying £55 for being a good citizen.

Thank you Mr Mustard for the support and encouragement to fight the bullies.

So it isn't only in Barnet that there is bluff and bullying. The council simply want your money and can hide behind faceless decision makers who show less compassion than a house brick.

You can win. Simply appeal three times.

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

Committee Room 1 - Den of Incompetence

Guess which box Mr Mustard thinks the council are in (no prize)

Mr Mustard does to lots of council meetings. He reads lots of rubbish reports which should not have reached the committee. The committee pass them anyway even if they are utter tosh. Mr Mustard decided to do something about it. Here is what he wrote to the leader of the council and copied to very councillor so that they can be in no doubt of the standard he expects to see.

To make sense of it you need to see all the questions and answers from the meeting

Public questions by MisterMustard

and now what Mr Mustard wrote:

Committee Room 1 - the Den of Incompetence

I expect you will recall Richard, from Constitution Committee of 10 April, that I commented for 5 minutes upon the disappointing way in which the previous meeting had been handled.

I also asked 29 questions as there were that many points which required clarification in just 2 sections of the constitution, the ones relating to procurement.

The conclusions I have drawn from attending many meetings are:

1          Chairmen are in too much of a rush.

2          Some councillors make no input whatsoever

3          Not all councillors read all of the papers in advance

4          Reports are strewn with errors

My comment concluded with me asking to see more and longer scrutiny meetings and self evident proof that every councillor has thoroughly read the papers. The way in which I expected that to be demonstrated was by councillors coming to committee meetings armed with questions which they want answering and with the Chairman having gone through the report before it is published so that all glaring errors and inconsistencies are removed. There should be little left for the public to ask about if reports are clear, concise and accurately written in plain English.

Now roll forward to Cabinet Resources of 18 April 2013 and the situation was still dire.

I looked in detail only at the CCTV item. The report had been prepared by James Mass, an iMpower consultant who has been seconded to the council and for whom we are doubtless invoiced a pretty penny.

I asked 9 questions and some need further discussion.

Q1       The answer revealed that the numbering of the appendices was incorrect. Seemingly no councillor attending had noticed this nor had any officer or if they had they couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. Could the reason possibly be that they don't read very carefully, if at all?

Q2       This answer is not exactly clear, accurate or helpful. The document which has now been produced refers to an Options Appraisal undertaken in November 2011 and is the very document I asked to see and should now be sent to me please. The point of my question was to look at the thought process and methodology at the earliest stage so I could see how we had got to where we were. What the document produced shows me is that in procurement the council allows the tail to wag the dog. The final question in the soft market testing report asks the supplier what contract length they would find ideal. What the council should be doing is deciding what length contract the council would find ideal, probably the lifetime of the equipment, and telling the contractor that is the contract period they can bid for. We are nowhere near out of the woods with procurement disasters if this is the typical way of going on.

Q3       The answer should simply have been "No". In answer to my supplementary question, Cllr Thomas had to admit that a one third reduction in staffing was a possibility.

Q4       Councillors should have had this information made available to them in the main report if they want to make considered decisions about options. Now take a good look at the answer given in writing. I only had 2 minutes before the meeting to study these and prepare my supplementary questions. A pity as the answer I have been given is wrong. You only have to glance across the rows and then look at the total for the in-house option to see that it is wrong. It jumped off the page at me today.

No councillor thought to ask why the contingency for the in-house option was £346,385 and £zero for outsourcing. Doesn't a contingency of £346,385 when spending a capital sum of about £947,000 (there is not a clear table of capital costs) strike you as a bit over the top? It is 36% and seriously skews the options in favour of full outsourcing; anyone would think that the report had been deliberately slanted that way with in-house costs over-stated to make the in-house option look unattractive.

You will recall that Mr Mass said that the extra £20,000 on consultancy was to pay an additional expert in specifying the CCTV and setting it up. Surely if we are paying an expert £20,000 we won't need a contingency of £346,385? Once that is taken out of the equation and Table 4 is updated with the correct figure for implementation costs it starts to look rather different, viz:

£	Out-source	Half way	In-House
Transition costs	215,250	215,250	322,875
Contingency	0	0	0
Income	(350,661)	(304,060)	(304,060)
Expenditure	6,577,821	6,881,390	6,552,547
TOTAL	6,442,410	6,792,580	6,571,362
CURRENT COSTS	7,255,920	7,255,920	7,255,920
Implementation costs	247,000	220,000	214,000
NET (BENEFIT) / COST	(566,510)	(243,340)	(470,558)

A 1.5% saving (the difference between projected outsourcing and in-house costs is only £96,000) does not seem enough compensation for the loss of direct control, data security risk and loss of flexibility which goes hand-in-hand with outsourcing.

The answer given by James Mass to my supplementary question was that there were an extra £20,000 of consultancy costs for the in-house option. Now go to page 56 of the report pack (page 18 of the CCTV section) and read this "Option 3: 250,000 additional consultancy costs to support specification of system". No councillor spotted this £230,000 sized error and nor did any officer who touched the report before it was issued. Sloppy work all round I would say.

Mr Mass is on secondment. Can we send him back to iMpower because we don't seem to be getting value for money?

I consulted Mr Dix about this report. This is what he had to say:

I don’t get the reason for the additional £107k transition costs for the in-house team - it is counter intuitive and not supported by any clear evidence. The contingency issue is fundamentally flawed because, subject to the judicial review, Capita will be responsible for procurement and, if anything, they claim to offer the best possible procurement opportunity because of their centralised resources. As such there is absolutely no rational for the contingency. They have also included £250k in option 3 expenditure for system specification yet in the document they have specified exactly what they want. Perhaps a small budget to fine tune the details but £250k seems completely out of proportion. That is the balancing figure with the contingency and transition costs that makes the in house option the least attractive instead of the most attractive. Without a doubt this is the most biased and unsound analysis I have seen and, based on the incorrect figures given at the CRC in reply to questions, incompetent, on the basis that they can't add up. Richard Cornelius should be utterly embarrassed that officers put out this flimsy business case in the name of efficiency and best value.

Q9.      Given that I showed that it might be possible to perform the service Sussex style for about half the cost in-house I think that what councillors should have done at CRC was to have asked for the Outline Business Case to be updated with more accurate figures and have it brought back to the meeting. Is it any wonder that the council ends up in so many judicial reviews when it is so cavalier with the money of residents?

Summary

Now how can councillors be giving due regard to their duties and value for money when they are galloped though an agenda of 171 pages in 44 minutes flat. I wrote down the time from my mobile phone that items 5, 6 & 7 were agreed at. They were all at 20:12

Item 8 at 20:14

Item 9 at 20:17 and so on.

You need to slow that Cllr Thomas down and every councillor needs to start asking questions. The subject matter is more important than an early dinner.

I will tell you this to your face Richard but officers and consultants are incompetent, reports are riddled with errors and councillors aren't doing the job that they get well rewarded for. You all need to pull your socks up to the point where no member of the public, in their spare time, can make you look to be such a blisteringly incompetent shower. I do hope that the next report I study is 100% accurate.

Have a nice weekend.

Best regards

Mr Mustard