Hapless Havering (Council)

 

This adjudication decision from London Tribunals (case 2250674991 & heard on 17 June) is, although couched in polite terms, a proper telling off.

Now as it happens Mr Mustard represented this same client the week before for the same weight limit at the same location (one visit to erect scaffolding and one to dismantle it explains the two visits) and the same thing happened to that PCN, a Charge Certificate was generated after the balance had been increased to £240 (although in the previous case not actually posted but that is another story) whilst a tribunal decision was pending as Havering have programmed their computer to send a Charge Certificate on day 29 which in normal times is too soon as the motorist gets 28 days from receipt in which to act and although 2 days are made as a service allowance Mr Musatrd posted an important letter to his solicitor and that took 8 days to get to Godalming from Barnet.

Mr Mustard knows that other experts are also experiencing the same Charge Certificate probably particularly with Havering but also with other councils, probably ones who rely on the same software or outsourcer.

What this experience tells you is if you have a Notice of Rejection from Havering Council which doesn't offer you the 50% discount you might as well go to the tribunal even if your case is hopeless as havering are hapless and will probably mess up. Just look how they were described

- Wholly improper

- Unlawful

- Oppressive

A local authority should be ashamed to be described in this way and holding an enquiry to fix where they are going wrong. However, they are too busy raising revenue to stop and do that, probably.

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.

City of Westminster: No, No, Yes.

Mr Mustard's client parked in the West End on 8 April 24. Mr Mustard hasn't asked but you really do need a good reason for it to make sense to drive into central London given that we have lots of public transport choices.

He parked in the bay on the right, where the grey van is.

There was a suspension sign in the bay.

Having looked straight across the road the driver could see that he was not opposite the Comedy Store so he stayed where he was and received a PCN.

There isn't a bay opposite the comedy store, only yellow lines.

It was 17 May before Mr Mustard made the informal challenge. The Notice to Owner had not yet been sent and any challenge sent up until then is known as an informal one. The discount had gone but given the factual error Mr Mustard expected a swift cancellation.

He was wrong, the challenge was rejected 4 days later in full denial of the facts. 

Mr Mustard went into standby mode. On 24 June the Notice to Owner was sent.

On 28 June 24 Mr Mustard made the formal representations on the grounds of the vague location.

It took a month, until 28 July 24, for Westminster to again close their eyes to the facts and issue a formal Notice of Rejection which opens the door to the tribunal.

On 18 August 24 Mr Mustard started an Appeal at London Tribunals.

On 19 August Westminster issued a charge certificate rasing the penalty by 50% to £195. That document could not by law be issued until 28 days after service of the 28 July rejection and only then if the penalty is not paid nor an Appeal started.

On 20 August Westminster noted the start of an Appeal.

On 21 August Westminster threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN.

Whether that was because the PCN was without merit or because of the procedural impropriety is not known but Mr Mustard expected to win on the vague location point in any event.

What this history tells you is that if you want to win you need to set your stall out clearly and dig in for the long haul, don't fret about the discount if you have a decent argument. Councils do stuff wrong all of the time.

The end.

Barking v Newham (Newham won).

 

Van starts to turn at about 7:52:42

Always fun to read the infighting between two traffic authorities to see who wins and why but many readers will think it is futile point scoring at a cost to the public purse.

This was the register entry from the independent adjudicator which caught Mr Mustard's eye.

Here, from the text of the decision, we can see what happened. One could be forgiven after stopping for failing to remember you passed a no u-turns sign a few minutes ago.

Mr Mustard obtained much of the file from Barking Council because it was caught under Freedom of Information as both parties are subject to FOI. Newham were pretty sure to lose at the tribunal because the restriction was well signed and the van did end up facing in the other direction. You might think it a bit unlucky to be caught at 7:53 a.m. but operators will be on duty if there is money to be made and computers don't sleep, they watch you go wrong 24 hours a day.

Here is what Newham's defence was 

'I did not perform a u-turn. The vehicle was stationary for 5 minutes. I then performed a legal 3 point turn. Under current legislation it's called a u-turn because you are able to turn your vehicle round to face the other way in one movement without using a three-point turn manoeuvre.'

That was a self serving interpretation of the mischief that the sign is intended to prevent. The flawed approach means that someone at Newham (it might be the driver or the council) has had to pay £130 to Barking of which c.£30 went on a tribunal fee. Still a hefty and simple net profit for them but Mr Mustard checked and it hasn't been paid.

Barking were on the case with the processing. The adjudication decision was made on 12 September and provided that email was chosen for communications the decision would have been served on Newham on 13 September. They then had 28 days to pay up, starting with 13 September as day 1. They didn't and on the 29th day Barking issued a charge certificate and put the bill up to £195 where it remains today.

Get the popcorn in, this may end up with a bailiff and the van will be hunted for to be clamped.

The good news for the public is that councils don't discriminate in whom they pursue, they will take anyone's money including another council's.

The end, for now.
 

Automated unlawfulness - Redbridge Council

Here is a recent tribunal decision about a PCN

Councils make enormous use of automation to keep their industrial quantities of PCNs on track, or in this case to run it into the buffers. This is not as rare as you might think. A Notice of Rejection informs the recipient that unless payment or an Appeal is made within the period of 28 days beginning with the date of service of the Notice of Rejection that a Charge Certificate may be served. Thus the public know what should happen but probably don't realise the effect of the council failing. Actual service is the date when the Notice drops through your letterbox and deemed service is 2 working days after the Notice was actually posted (which may not be the date on the Notice if councils are slapdash or something went wrong). The state of postal deliveries is well known at present, they could be better.

In this case the Notice of Rejection was, it appears, posted on 17 June.

That was a Monday.

In the absence of evidence about actual service it was deemed served on Wednesday 19 June.

That date, 19 June counts as day 1.

Thus day 28 will be a Tuesday and the motorist had up until midnight on Tuesday 16 July to start an in time Appeal (adjudicators have discretion to accept late appeals if there is an acceptable to them reason).

An Appeal was started on 14 July but would take one or two days to be registered (the tribunal are usually very efficient) and so just as they were about to be told about the Appeal, which freezes further processing until 28 days after the hearing decision has been served, Redbridge Council had, two days too early, already issued a Charge Certificate. Although they can't serve a charge certificate the mere issuing of it early would count against them as the council don't yet have the right to serve.

If this happens to you always point it out to the adjudicator and produce the Charge Certificate you were sent as that is absolute proof of it. That should then be the end of your PCN. You can quote the above decision number as being legally persuasive (adjudication decisions are not precedents).

How could a Notice of Rejection be issued in error? Mr Mustard hears you ask. 

Of course it should never happen. There are various scenarios which include the next progression date being manually wrongly set, the wrong next progression status being applied or the software having the wrong number of numbers set for the next stage. This happened in Islington not long ago and as that is a council which listens to Mr Mustard he suggested they add a few more days to the standstill interval in the automatic process in a certain situation and they agreed. Win, win. Mr Mustard doesn't have the same good relationship with Redbridge who are near the bottom of the table, in his opinion, when it comes to the parking process and complying with the law.

In summary, don't be mugged by a council, learn everything you can about PCNs and you will save money.

The end.

 

 

 

Westminster decide that 4 arguments do not a representation make

This might be a bit of a long read as a lot happened but if you want to know more about processing of a parking PCN it will be useful to you.

We start on 6 September 2023 with a PCN being put on the car in Albemarle St. which has, Mr Mustard finds, associations at different times with Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde

The sign, which the driver only spotted afterwards, was missed because it was within a suspended section and turned away.

After the event, on finding the PCN, the driver thought that the sign was the one above the suspended bay sign, the one we can see the back of. Mr Mustard wouldn't find himself in Westminster in a car but if he did he would be more inquisitive before concluding that a spot of free parking was in order. We were where we were. Although Mr Mustard acts regularly for the company which owns the car the driver decided to make their own challenge on the grounds of inadequate signage which they did on 20 September.

 

The City of Westminster rejected the informal challenge on the same day. Unusual and odd as the letter apologised for the delay in responding. Who said it was a cut and paste job? The letter didn't say why the challenge wasn't accepted just that they wouldn't cancel. This is an unhelpful trend which Mr Mustard has noticed creeping in during 2023.

 

All then went quiet, as the driver wasn't sucked into paying at a discount, as she knew that the company would refer to Mr Mustard who usually finds something which which to attack the ticket. On 6 November the Notice to Owner was issued to the company as the registered keeper. On 10 November Mr Mustard was instructed and he rustled up the formal representations on the same day. He found four strands on which to make representations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A council, or the City in this case, are allowed 56 days for an on street parking PCN in which to serve their Notice of Rejection otherwise they are deemed to have accepted and must serve a Notice of Acceptance and cancel the PCN.

 

Service of a Notice of Rejection at this stage opens the door to the independent tribunal which Mr Mustard attends nearly every week and where he was expecting to win on argument #4 as he has done five times already.

 

Mr Mustard keeps an eye on enforcement authority websites so he can glean if an Acceptance or Rejection has likely been issued.

 

Something unusual happened on 20 December which was day 41 of 56, the City of Westminster wrote to Mr Mustard's client:

Mr Mustard looked at the ticking clock and thought there was the possibility that a Notice of Rejection would not be served (sending isn't enough, it has to arrive) by the 56th day being 4 January 2024.

On 4 January Mr Mustard emailed the City of Westminster as follows:

 

Not long after sending that email Mr Mustard's client, who is also very efficient, sent him a copy of the Charge Certificate which had been issued on 2 January 2024 and was a procedural impropriety as a response to representations was outstanding so the file must be placed on hold.

 

Having raised his query at a senior level the job of responding was given to 'Customer relations' (this isn't going to end well). The sort of response which makes Mr Mustard happy is short, simple and apologetic, something like this:

'Dear Mr Mustard. Thank you for your email. You are quite correct. We have cancelled the Charge Certificate and the PCn and apologise for the inconvenience. Yours etc'.

Here is what he got instead, just the 'good' bits:

Oh yes it does. If there is a procedural impropriety an adjudicator is bound to allow an Appeal by a motorist.

The 'correspondence' that the City of Westminster received was all in the one document with an image of the authority letter inserted into the text of the document which was headed 'Formal representations'.

Apparently in the City of Westminster a fundamental challenge to the legal wording and thus the right to issue a PCN isn't a representation. Nor, it seems, is a challenge that the Contravention did not occur despite that being one of the statutory grounds specified in the legislation. What we can gather from this is that the City of Westminster decided to act as if Mr Mustard had not written a word which put his client into a position where having been deemed to not have made a formal representation within 28 days of receiving the Notice to Owner they became liable for the PCN by default and then saw the penalty illegally increased by 50%.

Clearly, the City of Westminster had forgotten the contents of their own Notice to Owner, viz;

 

 

The non apology continued:

The City of Westminster are in for a shock. Mr Mustard doesn't fight many PCNs against this authority but one of his expert friends does. There are already 6 adjudication decisions made by 3 different adjudicators covering 4 enforcement authorities where this wording has been found to be wrong. 

Here is part of a tribunal decision which went against the London Borough of Hounslow and which you can quote to any other enforcement authority issuing parking PCNs on street (not through the post, they have different rules) when you ask them to cancel your PCN.

When an enforcement authority writes to you telling you that they are right and you are wrong, stop and think what is in it for the enforcement authority, £130 possibly. Look at what happened in the Post Office, innocent people were told they were the only one. The difference here is that Mr Mustard and the band of PCN experts to which he belongs know the difference between right and wrong. Success with a particular argument cannot be guaranteed as the decision above isn't a precedent, it is under the law as it stands legally persuasive and likely to be followed because the adjudicator named above has been deciding the fate of PCNs for more than the 13 years Mr Mustard has been appearing in front of him and the second adjudicator likewise. They are highly experienced qualified lawyers and came to their decisions after careful consideration of all the arguments. It matters not a jot to an adjudicator if they Allow or Refuse an Appeal as there is no financial incentive for them to decide either way, they apply the law without fear or favour.

Mr Mustard's final word for the parking department. Mr Mustard isn't a 'customer' so has no need of 'customer relations'. The City of Westminster have zero respect until they learn to say sorry when they have right royally lashed up.

Pity the motorist acting for themselves as knowledge is power and Mr Mustard knows what should be what. The more you all know, the better.

The end.

 

Barnet Council - automation gone wrong - charge certificates

Mr Mustard mostly reads decisions about Barnet Council at London Tribunals the home of independent PCN adjudicators.

 

This isn't the first time that he has seen the premature issue of a Charge Certificate, which increases the PCN value by 50% (from £130 to £195) and contains dire warnings about the county court, bailiffs and extra charges if you fail to act.

 

The problem with charge certificates is automated progression of PCNs. Everything possible to push a PCN forward through the process is taken without any human input whereas steps taken by motorists, such as starting an Appeal at the tribunal, rely on manual processing to freeze the process. The computer marches on relentlessly, an oversight or staff shortage in manual handling means that mistakes are made and illegal demands sent.

 

Accepting that errors can occur, even in the best run workplaces, it is what you do next that matters. A motorist who was unaware of the proper procedure and has the philosophy that a council doesn't get things wrong (however bizarre that thinking should be nowadays) may have been bullied into paying up at an inflated price and cancelling their Appeal. 

Luckily this motorist is made of sterner stuff. The area where Barnet Council could improve is that if they make this error they simply leave it until the hearing for the adjudicator to sort out, they may even get away without the error being noticed. The motorist is left worrying, in this case, for 10 days about the possibility of an increased financial loss.

Mr Mustard was brought up to admit to error. What Barnet Council should do when they make such an error is to contact the motorist without delay, apologise and tell the motorist that they have been put back to the correct place in the process. If what has taken place would lead to an adjudicator cancelling a PCN the council themselves should take that step.

Parking departments generally lack good manners.

End.

Charging ahead

 

Mr Mustard sees quite a few Charge Certificates but not normally if over two years ago Barnet Council wrote to him to cancel the PCN. That is a bit odd and very worring for the recipient.

Mr Mustard tried a PCN enquiry to check the status which returned this answer which means either a typing error was made (Mr Mustard didn't) or the PCN is over.

Finally he tried to pay the PCN as if the PCN was cancelled you do get told in that screen. Mr Mustard thinks you should be given that information if you do an enquiry in order to avoid uncertainty and as the council keep the data on file for years, they just hide if from you, the person who the data is about.

So what has happened? A gargantuan cockup that's for sure although what and how Mr Mustard can't work out as this PCN shouldn't be able to have a Charge Certificate printed when we know the balance is zero. The balance within the PCN software though is probably calculated by taking the full PCN balance and subtracting any discount that is due and any payments made and then adding any charge certificate uplift or court registration fees. There should be a flag that says if the PCN is completed or not and somehow somewhere it has gone wrong.

It can't be the case that only one PCN has gone wrong which happens to be for a person represented by Mr Mustard as he only touches about 0.01% of the PCNs issued in a year.

Mr Mustard will find out.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Here is the council's explanation. Management are to be commended to almost always responding to Mr Mustard's enquiries within 24 hours.

I have looked into this PCN and can advise that it is closed and no enforcement action had been taken on these cases since 20/12/2018, when a Notice of Acceptance had been issued . It was noted that an action was undertaken on the 06/07/2021 to clear up our case records, which inadvertently re opened the case and issued a Charge Certificate and would like to apologise for this. I can confirm that this notice was immediately cancelled and should not have been posted. This has been raised with the relevant supervisor to look into as a matter of priority.

I noted that you had asked how many incorrect documents have been issued and what has been done about them in the way of sending follow up letters telling the recipients that the erroneous document should be ignored as it has been reversed. This matter is currently being looked into and a letter should be sent to any identified customers that had been affected by this matter, to advise that no action should be taken and that their penalty is closed.

I hope that this information has been of help to you and would like to reassure you that no further action is being taken regarding this penalty.

Enfield Council - perplexing the postman (or postlady).

 

The unfortunate resident of Mayfield Avenue, who will will call Mr R, who came to Mr Mustard for help, had unfortunately driven past a 'flying motorbike' sign three times in late 2020, and back again, so clocked up six PCNs on his leased vehicle. He had received six administration charges from the vehicle supplier and knew to expect six PCNs from the council. He received only five which Mr Mustard challenged at the tribunal. Two were cancelled and three were upheld so they were paid. Mr Mustard knew that sometimes a PCN gets cancelled rather than passed on to the vehicle user and so he didn't worry about the one missing PCN, Mr Mustard doesn't rock the boat in case he falls into the water.

The reason why the sixth PCN didn't reach Mr R, became apparent when he received the Charge Certificate, sent because he hadn't responded to the PCN that he hadn't received. Here, minus the name, is the document in question.

Mr Mustard spotted the omission of a street number. Perhaps the regular postman was on duty that day and knew which number, out of the 33 choices, Mr R lived at but on the delivery day for the PCN it got sent off to Belfast where poorly addressed mail gets dealt with by the Royal Mail. Whatever the reason Mr R is indebted to his postman for the dedication to delivery.

Mr Mustard went online to send Enfield Council a message as you can't phone them which would be much quicker in this sort of situation.

A possible third reason to cancel was that half the signs had been defaced.

Mr Mustard rather thought that having been told of their lack of street number error Enfield Council would cancel the PCN (they were too late to issue a new correct one). He was wrong.

A number of points arose. An enforcement authority has a wide discretion to consider representations (they don't mean 'Appeal' that is the tribunal stage) made out of time (although given the lack of service no right to make representations had actually arisen).

The issue of a charge certificate doesn't, in and of itself, stop the council from exercising their discretion to cancel a PCN which they issued and hold the fate of in their hands. It isn't the issue of a charge certificate which counts but the service of one. We were lucky this one was served as otherwise it would probably have been the bailiff that Mr R first heard from.

The right to serve a charge certificate only arises if and when a PCN has been served, in this case Mr R said he did not receive it and if he had he would have fought it at the tribunal is the logical thought.

Mr R was incensed that the council wrote 'apparently' not received. His word rebutted the presumption of service unless the council could prove he was lying. In addition, the balance of probabilities is that a piece of mail sent without an address may well not get properly delivered. Furthermore a PCN which is not properly addressed is not a valid PCN.

The council's power to register the PCN as a debt at the County Court (Traffic Enforcement Centre) is a discretionary one and subject to the approval of the Court which should not be assumed as being granted without demur and charge certificates shouldn't be issued automatically but when the council thinks one is appropriate (they are of course issued automatically, as night follows day). When registering debts an officer of the council has to certify that they have served a Charge Certificate. Given that the PCN was not served they cannot properly certify that they have served a (valid) charge certificate and so should not have threatened this step.

The council know that steps 2. and 3. are not applicable so why confuse the motorist by suggesting them? Mr R can't be expected to know PCN procedure as well as Mr Mustard does and is entitled to be treated fairly by Enfield Council, he wasn't being.

Before Mr R had received the above letter Mr Mustard saw on line that the balance had reverted to £65 so emailed the parking manager as this was an unusual case.

In a separate email Mr Mustard asked for a copy of the complete case report in case it noted down the return of the undelivered PCN. Instead he got sent copies only of the statutory documents. He then emailed the manager again saying he hadn't got what he asked for and could it be sent. Today he checked the balance on line again and saw it was now £0.00 and then this letter came in the post.

Finally a sensible decision had been taken. The moment the council became aware, as Mr Mustard told them, that the PCN was inadequately addressed they should have cancelled it. 

They seem to regard PCNs as sacrosanct once issued and this is a defective way of thinking which needs to be eliminated. You do wrong and get a penalty for £130, the council get it wrong and they want a penalty from you of £65 or £195 if you don't agree.

Mr Mustard thinks that 99% of motorists would have paid up when Enfield Council wrongly threatened them with the County Court. Sadly their illegal bullying doesn't have any costs consequences, it should.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Hackney automation breaches the law

Everyone knows that councils automate as much of the back office PCN management process as they can. The relevant laws however, usually only that they 'may' take certain steps, they are not obliged to take them as in this section of the moving traffic legislation, the snappily titled London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003.

Hackney Council came unstuck on their use of automation, which means that ahd pre-decided they were going to issue a charge certificate before they were entitled to think about one, when they forgot to turn off the automatic process after an Appeal had been made, an action which freezes things until 28 days after the Appeal has been decided.

It is worth closely checking through the evidence pack you are sent on Appeal, even if you don't get a charge certificate in error, to see if the system has been set to automatically send you one on a future date (look for a case history, if there is one). The tribunal case to quote in support of your Appeal if that does turn out to be the case is 2210111508. It is not a precedent but could just be a useful get out of jail free card if you are otherwise not going to win.

You can find the original decision in the tribunal register, here.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Are Harrow Council deliberately incompetent?

Readers with good memories will recall that Mr Mustard wrote about Harrow being horrible at the start of 2018, the back story is here.

It might have been the case that Harrow Council just got a little bit behind and their slowness was a one off which they should then have fixed. Unfortunately that is not the case as twice this week Mr Mustard has been contacted by clients who hadn't heard from Harrow Council for a year and then suddenly they did. If his clients thought the PCNs were over due to council neglect they would be correct in principle but wrong in practice as Mr Mustard checks every PCN twice a month to make sure nothing gets away from him.

The case with the worse delay has the following timeline:

You can see that Harrow Council have been sat on their hands for 33 months.

The Order for Recovery was sent to the same address as the PCN. Luckily the recipient had not moved home. If you had moved home in 2018 would you notify the council of your change of address from 2016? No, I didn't think you would. Nor would you have a postal redirection for more than 12 months, most people probably only have 3 or 6 months of redirection given how so much documentation now arrives by email.

Mr Mustard recommends that if you have had a Harrow PCN in the last 5 years that you contact them and ask them for the number (give them your car registration and date of purchase) and ask them to tell you the current balance of every PCN ever issued since you bought the vehicle and if it is not zero, to tell you the dates of all the statutory documents they have issued.

If you have moved you could do this even if you don't think you have had a PCN as it may have gone to your old address. Mr Mustard also recommends leaving a note for the incoming resident with your new address, as he did recently for a house he sold and he left a few parking visitor vouchers to help them in their moving in period - they were very pleased and have already dropped a final utility bill letter through his door. (Another tip, he read the gas, electric & water meters hours before they moved in and left a note of them at the property to save the buyers the time of performing the same task.)

What happens next to a PCN, if you don't file a witness statement (or statutory declaration in moving traffic cases) is that a bailiff will be instructed. If the bailiff finds the car, and most people don't move far and bailiff vans have ANPR, is that it will be clamped. As all of the paperwork will have been sent to your old address and you haven't been served with at least one obligatory statutory document Mr Mustard does not think you have been properly served but it is you who has the problem, a wheel clamp on your vehicle, which you may need urgently, so you end up paying. This is grossly unfair.

In this way, by being incompetent, Harrow Council and their bailiffs profit at your expense. That is unjust.

Once Mr Mustard has the current PCN sorted out, he will file a complaint with the council and if they don't apologise he will go to the LGO. He will also complain to the Iinformation Commissioner as the council, having abandoned enforcement of the PCN by their failure to act expeditiously, they no longer have the right to process your data.

After writing this blog post Mr Mustard decided to look through decisions made at the tribunal in October 19 & he found this one:

Councils are meant to learn from the decisions of Adjudicators, Harrow haven't learnt a thing and are plouging ahead with PCNs which they know is prejudicial.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The TEC & Hackney Council - doubly unhelpful

Within the regulations which govern penalty charge notice processing there is a procedure which rewinds the process so that motorists do not lose out if a document goes missing in the mail. In a recent case Mr Mustard's client, let us call him Ben, did not receive the Notice to Owner and he knew this as after the PCN issued to the vehicle the first document he received in the post was the Charge Certificate.

Mr Mustard therefore drew up a witness statement for his client to sign, a form TE9, and submitted it to the TEC (Traffic Enforcement Centre). He kept an eye on the balance on the Hackney Council computer and for weeks it was stubbornly stuck at £195, rather than having reverted to £130, and a fresh Notice to Owner did not arrive.

Sometimes things go wrong so Mr Mustard emailed the TEC so that they could tell him if they had processed the form and on what date.

This was the thoroughly unhelpful answer he received.

We have been unable to process your request for information on the above Penalty Charge Number.

We would advise you to contact the London Borough of Hackney to ask for the information you require.

Very odd as the standard acknowledgement from the TEC contains the following line:

The current status of the Penalty Charge (e.g. has my document been processed?) - Within 10 working days.

The TEC are able to answer, when they say they are 'unable' to do so. They mean, of course, unwilling, for some unknown reason.

Oh well, thought Mr Mustard, time to ask Hackney Council what they did about the revoking order that the TEC should have issued in response to an in time witness statement (without knowing if they had actually processed it or not) so an email was sent to Hackney Council to ask them.

The response was as unhelpful as the one from the TEC and left the motorist completely in the dark and unable to take any steps & denied him his rights to fight the PCN:

Thank you for your e-mail. Please note that the form should be sent to the Traffic Enforcement Centre and you would need to direct any enquiries regarding an update to a submitted form directly to themselves.

The action plan to tackle this which Mr Mustard decided upon was to submit a Subject Access Request to Hackney Council which would force them to provide the requested information and also to send a complaint to both bodies with copies of the two useless responses and ask them to agree who would respond.

Mr Mustard had drafted the requests and the complaint, a week after Hackney's useless response, when he checked their website and found they had closed the PCN so he had reduced the balance from £195 to £130 to £zero. How nice.

What this told him was:

1. The TEC had processed the witness statement (they could have replied to that effect in 2 minutes).

2. Hackney Council had not issued a fresh PCN as soon as they were able to (although they were still in time).

3. The request for information caused Hackney Council to look at the file and decide to close it (which they should have told the motorist who clearly wanted to know).

All is well that ends well but this has been a right palaver that less experienced PCN fighters would have really struggled with.

Enforcement authorities and Courts have huge powers. They really need to wield them in a professional manner and give out vital information promptly when requested. (All authorities, please take note.)

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Taking flipping Liberties - or TfL for short

Mr Mustard's client received the above Notice to Owner, but hadn't got the PCN and thus the location description was too vague to satisfy the requirement to set out the grounds on which a penalty was due.

Mr Mustard made the formal representations on line & in time, that due to the vague description on the Notice to Owner, the contravention was denied (his client often being in the Stamford Hill area & not having a PCN from the relevant date).

TfL wrote this:

Mr Mustard ignored the letter as formal representations had already been made which TfL were obliged to accept or reject within 56 days, the letter itself confirming that representations had been made. There wouldn't have been any photographs on a PCN given out at the roadside.

TfL neither accepted nor rejected the representations. After 67 days they issued a Charge Certificate as if no representations had been made and that increased the balance due by 50% to £195

Mr Mustard has now lodged a complaint which TfL will, if they do as they usually do, fail to respond to. Then Mr Mustard's client will be forced to lodge a witness statement in order to obtain a tribunal hearing. TfL will have wasted the £8 debt registration fee and the £30 tribunal fee and will lose the Appeal because they have not followed the set procedure. It is just plain wrong to put the client through the mill like this, a mill he shouldn't be anywhere near.

Mr Mustard has noticed a few enforcement authorities acting in this way (Islington & Camden to name but two, not Barnet generally). They receive formal representations which are valid but they don't like what is said so they engage the motorist (the Owner technically) in correspondence which is not within the Regulations which govern the Appeal process.

Mr Mustard thinks an extra letter would be reasonable if it was to the benefit of the motorist, something like:

Dear Sir / Madam

You have made a representation that your blue badge had slipped off the dashboard. If you provide a copy of that badge to us within the next 14 days we will cancel your PCN. If you do not do so we will reject your representations and you will then have the right of Appeal to an independent adjudicator.

Yours etc

That approach is in accordance with the letter of the Regulations and the spirit of exercising discretion in suitable cases (not likely though on the 20th time your badge falls off the dashboard).

If you are sent extra correspondece of the less clear kind Mr Mustard advises counting 56 days from the date of your representation being delivered to the enforcement authority for parking contraventions and 90 days for other, moving traffic, contraventions and then telling the authority that in the absence of their Notice of Rejection they have accepted the representations by default and that the PCN must be cancelled. (If their Notice of Rejection has actually got lost in the post you will have to go down the witness statement route in any event).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Enfield Council in time travel trouble.

Mr Mustard complained about the use of the non-statutory pre-debt reminder to Enfield Council on 26 January. He had previously complained about it in November and was told that all his points were valid and the reminder would be changed. The revised version was so similar that Mr Mustard didn't notice the subtle differences, he having expected radical change & possibly withdrawal of the use of the reminder as Haringey Council decided at about the time that Mr Mustard complained to them.

This is what Mr Mustard wrote on 26 January:

Dear Mr Parking Manager

Nothing has yet changed with the pre-debt reminder?

I don't think the contravention description is substantially complaint (sic) as looking at the meter on google streetmap it looks to have the red dash sticker on it. That means that payment could have been made by phone, which is not part of the alleged contravention. Surely this should have been a code 11, parked without payment of the parking charge and your PCN is unsustainable?

In the circumstances you could please cancel EF00123456.

Many thanks

Mr Mustard

There then followed a game of email ping pong which culminated in Mr Mustard's complaint being sent from parking to the complaints department from where it will end up with the Ombudsman who, his recent report Fairer Fines shows, is currently concerned about the fair treatment of motorists.

As there had been a pre-debt reminder Mr Mustard knew that a charge certificate had been issued. His client had not received the Notice to Owner and was awaiting the Order for Recovery so that the process could be rewound to the Notice to Owner stage.

On 27 January Mr Mustard's client sent him a copy of the Order for Recovery. Mr Mustard duly submitted his client's witness statement to the TEC the very same day.

On 9 February the council, as they were perfectly entitled to do, issued a fresh Notice to Owner.

On 15 February Mr Mustard's client sent him a copy of the fresh Notice to Owner and on the same day Mr Mustard went on-line to the Enfield Council computer and made representations that the PCN had been issued for the wrong contravention code.

Imagine Mr Mustard's surprise when he received a Notice of Rejection on 16 February which had been written on 14 February and which contained the following:

The order set out in the legislation is simple, it goes like this:

1 - Notice to Owner

2 - Representations against the Notice to Owner

3 - Notice of Rejection (or Acceptance) of the Representations

4 - Appeal to the tribunal (done!)

Enfield Council have decided to make Mr Mustard's email of 26 January which pre-dated the Notice to Owner of 9 February into a document which was issued 2 weeks later after the Notice to Owner.

In the four years that Mr Mustard has been fighting PCN he has never seen such a blatant procedural impropriety. They are defined as a failure to follow Parking Regulations but you could simply think of them as a council blunder.

He know has an Appeal pending which technically he shouldn't have but which he has no doubt will be allowed if it reaches a hearing which it probably won't as Mr Mustard will be filing a further complaint with Enfield Council. Mr Mustard will be making a claim for costs, which is very rare for him, as the council have been wholly unreasonable.

Mr Mustard doesn't suppose, or rather hope, that Enfield Council are playing guessing games about the representations that ordinary members of the public intend to make on a future date. If they are though, the public don't know the correct procedure like Mr Mustard does.

What the council's actions do disclose though is an indecent haste to reject Representations not yet made by Mr Mustard.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard