RAC report on excessive council parking surpluses

Barnet Council - figures from SPA reports

The RAC Foundation have produced a great report on council parking income, here.

They have used the figures found in official returns of income and expenditure but Mr Mustard thinks they show a misleading picture (don't blame the RAC) and so he has done a comparison to the figures shown in the SPA, the Special Parking Account, which he thinks shows a clearer, more accurate picture. The SPA excludes income from off-street car parks which for 12/13 was £444,000 & which was down on previous years, due in the opinion of Mr Mustard, to the removal of cash parking meters and the hiking of charges during the rein of Cllr Brian Coleman as the cabinet member with responsibility for parking (he would disagree of course! & the council committee report blames the recession).

Barnet Council parking surpluses

Year	RAC £	SPA £
09/10	2,904,000	2,744,694
10/11	1,307,000	2.088.340
11/12	-156,000	5,708,039
12/13	unknown	7,193,142

What is clear from this table is that the way in which parking income and expenditure is reported leads to lower reported surpluses overall than are actually the case. The RAC say Barnet Council's costs doubled over 2 years which is not shown in the SPA figures, which apart from the year of getting ready to out-source, with attendant costs, shows costs are steadily reducing.

Year	Costs £
09/10	6,751,712
10/11	6,271,885
11/12	6,567,971
12/13	4,661,253

One thing is clear; Barnet Council is making excessive surpluses from parking and the effects are visible in empty High Streets and this is a policy they have been following since 09/10 to steadily increase the surplus from parking which, in effect, subsidises council tax.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Footnote: Mr Mustard wonders if the reason for the loss in the RAC's figures in 11/12 is because c. 450 parking meters were thrown on the scrap heap and the depreciated capitalised cost remaining on the books had to be written off. If there were 450 meters at an average installation cost of say £5,000 were written off on a straight line basis over, say, 4 years then the Accounts would have taken a one-off hit of £1,125,000. Mr Mustard can't ask the council as they are refusing to ask his perfectly reasonable questions on parking. You can ask.

£165,504 saved

The worry for Robert is if the council manage really well without him and start to wonder what they got for their £165,504 per annum.

From: First Team

Sent: 29 May 2012 16:01

To: AllStaff

Subject: Message from the Chief Executive - Director of Children's Service secondment

I am writing to let you all know that our Director of Children’s Service, Robert McCulloch-Graham, will be seconded to the National Troubled Families Programme at DCLG for 12 months. This is a significant opportunity for Robert and for the council that reflects Barnet’s strength in this field and the commitment of Robert and staff in the service to support children in the most troubled of circumstances.

As you know, we have long argued that effectively joining up a range of public services around a service user’s needs is central to how this council should support residents in the future. Our work with troubled families is the perfect illustration of this and reflects national support for our work.

Given that there is a Senior Management Restructure underway, I have decided, in consultation with the relevant Cabinet members, that Kate Kennally, Director of Adult Social Care and Health, will take on the additional statutory Director of Children’s Service duties. This allows all of the Children’s Service Management team to remain in place and provide as much continuity as is possible. I will be working with Kate and Robert and their management teams to manage the transition. This will involve asking both Jay Mercer (Deputy Director, Children’s Service) and Dawn Wakeling (Deputy Director, Adults) to take on additional duties and I am grateful for their support.

Nick

A good plan. Take out the top man and get his salary paid from elsewhere. The top of the tree is often simply a figurehead and the lower orders do the real work anyway, the passed on duties will cause a cascading of tasks down the line to the very bottom. The one thing that "non stick" didn't say was whether or not the 3 people taking on more duties, but no more hours, are going to get any extra payment? Mr Mustard does hope not as they get more than enough pay already. Of course, we are only losing Robert for 12 months which soon goes and so making any permanent changes without taking account of his return in 2013 would be silly.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard