Barnet PCN - 10 minute grace periods

The above rule, introduced by The Rt Hon 'Uncle' Eric Pickles MP, a fan of the Barnet Bloggers, stopped some of the predatory tactics employed by traffic wardens. It meant that if you were up to ten minutes late getting back to your car, as your meeting or whatever ran over, then you could not be given a PCN. The new rule came into force on 6 April 2015.

Mr Mustard asked to see the briefing which had been given to the NSL employed Barnet Council traffic wardens at the time that the new grace period came in. Here it is.

Official briefings really should be on proper paper.

Mr Mustard didn't find that to be a clear explanation of the new grace period but it is useful in other ways.

Firstly the new grace period means that if you have paid for a period of parking, on street or in a car park, or you availed yourself of a free parking period, which ended at 11:00 the earliest you can be given a PCN is 11:11.

Barnet Council have generously decided to not give you a PCN if you are visiting friends who live within a CPZ and the resident bay hours commence at 10:00 you will not be given a PCN before 10:11 (Mr Mustard is sure this is not being applied).

Similarly if you are in a goods vehicle loading bay, or other bay specific to a certain type of vehicle, which commences at 08:00 you will not be given a PCN before 08:11 (Mr Mustard doesn't think this is being applied either).

Blue badge holders who breach the 3 hour limit which sometimes applies now get an extra 10 minutes to get back to their vehicle.

Mr Mustard hopes that is clear. He will be checking all the PCN in his current workload as he can now probably report a few process errors.

You can find the above response on the council website, here, should you need to use it to argue your corner (ref 3278097). Isn't Freedom of Information wonderful. Mr Mustard doesn't ask much nowadays of Barnet Council, probably only one question a month, but they are usually very good ones.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Musatrd is off to put his feet up very shortly, drink champagne and eat too much food until 5 January 2017.

Internal audit now agree with armchair auditor Mr Mustard

For almost 2 years Mr Mustard has been reporting on the failures of the NSL contract. No-one at the council (well no-one in power anyway) seemed to care or even, Richard Cornelius told a public meeting that the contract was making savings, how would he have known? Finally, Internal Audit have caught up with Armchair Audit (forget External Audit who have their eyes on a bigger prize; the NHS).

Here is the accurate state of the One Barnet / NSL parking enforcement contract

Imagine if the enforcement and bailiff processes were also to be audited what a catalogue of catastrophe would come to light?

Mr Mustard has submitted some questions about this report to Audit Committee which is next Tuesday 29 April at 7pm at Hendon Town Hall with Lord Palmer (he is Monroe to the bloggers, a gentleman who now has bigger fish to fry in the House of Lords) and just to make his last chairing of a meeting memorable and exciting Mr Mustard is busy thinking up some devilish curve ball questions for him to try to hit out of the park.

Mr Mustard does hope that Monroe will be free for a glass of something refreshing in the Greyhound afterwards - an emailed invitation has been sent.

One Barnet, the commissioning Council, really isn't working.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The Camden High Street cctv midnight parking cowboys

We are lucky in Barnet in that the council never got their act together well enough (or they might have made a policy decision not to do so) to enforce parking restrictions by cctv. They did trial a $camera car last year but didn't find it to be sufficiently profitable so didn't order one. Thus Mr Mustard isn't very experienced at fighting camera issued PCN but he had to have a go as one of his PCN regulars left Barnet for an evening and got snapped. Their car was in the front section of the bay to the left of shot underneath the word "market". It was impossible to tell from photos taken, at midnight at distance, if the driver's side front wheel was perhaps half an inch outside of the different pavoirs which you have to assume is the parking bay. Mr Mustard is of a mind with Eric Pickles MP on this matter and his determination probably showed through in this appeal letter, that or Camden phoned Barnet parking to ask who he was and got told that every single rejected appeal goes to PATAS and Camden decided not to waste £40 in fees as the PCN is now at £nil value on the Camden PCN website.

I represent (redacted) as per the attached authority letter.

I don't usually send copies of parking ticket appeals to Uncle Eric, as he is affectionately known by the Barnet Bloggers of whom I am one (he is of course The Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles MP and I write the Mr Mustard blog) but given that he is proposing to step in and save us all from the scourge of inappropriate cctv parking enforcement, I thought he might like to see this one and I have permission of the car owner to email him but not for any publicity.

Here is what Uncle Eric said recently:

"We want to rein in these over-zealous and unfair rules on parking enforcement, so it focuses on supporting high streets and motorists, not raising money."

This caused some panic, by the looks of it, although they used the word "concern" at London Councils (they wrote on behalf of every London Borough but three don't use cameras for parking contraventions, namely Barnet, Greenwich and Kensington & Chelsea and well done to them) as their Transport & Environment committee wrote to Eric's colleague, the Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP on 20 November 13. In their letter London Councils trot out the usual trite nonsense about cctv being mainly used near schools, bus stops and major junctions.

Let's see where are Camden using it. Oh, in Camden High St, at 1 minute past midnight. No school open then is there? no bus stop and not at a major junction. I've just put the postcode of the Hawley Primary School into the Camden council website to find the nearest cctv camera. It's this very one (21C) in Camden High St. Just down the road there is another one. Neither of them can see the school. Is there a camera that can monitor the school? No.

I tried another Camden School at random. I chose Fitzjohn's Primary School, postcode NW3 6NP and the nearest camera is 600m away from where the school isn't visible.

I tried a third one. The Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children, postcode N1C 4PF, whose children must be particularly at risk of being involved in an accident with a vehicle. Is there a camera monitoring the school? No, the nearest one is 300m away in Crowndale Rd.

What should your camera operator be looking at for at midnight? I would suggest that violent behaviour (probably following alcohol intake) would be a better use of the resource. Your cameras are identified on your website as being for public safety. Issuing a PCN for trivial or non-existent parking contraventions does not fall under that heading.

Well done anyway. You have provided Eric Pickles MP with the perfect evidential riposte to the London Councils' letter.

Anyway, all of the above is comment to which your reply is not required or desired. Now I'll get to the substance of the representations.

Representations.

1. The contravention did not occur.

It is impossible to tell from the still photographs or the video evidence if one or more wheels of the vehicle is on the footway or not. Close to where the vehicle was stationary for a short while, note the headlights are still on, is a time plate

which permits parking overnight between the hours of 6.30pm and 8.30am the next morning. The problem comes in defining what area the parking sign relates to as there are no white lines to indicate the extent to which parking is allowed. Perhaps motorists are expected to guess that the area in smaller pavoirs, in the shape of an elongated trapezoid, is the area in which parking is permitted, but guessing should not be the order of the day on the public highway. Motorists are entitled to be clearly informed as to restrictions. There is no evidence that there is a wheel on the footway, in a part where footway parking is not allowed.

2. Is it carriageway or footway?

If the council are going to claim that the surface in the shape of a trapezoid is the carriageway, then I would argue that given that there is a kerb, that it isn't a carriageway, but in any event, unless the council has some sort of exemption from using the relevant markings from the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 (please send me a copy if there is such an exemption) there is a failure to properly mark out the parking area.

If the council are going to claim the area of the trapezoid is part of the footway then where are the signs that mark the start and finish of the permitted areas and the white lines to indicate the bay? The footway parking area is not properly signed.

3. Ambiguity

I am a lay person but I believe that ambiguity is normally construed against the causer so Camden Council should not profit from the confusion it has caused at this location and the PCN should be cancelled.

4. Trapezoid parking bay layout not legal?

I have seen only rectangular bays and parallelograms (for parking nose into the kerb at an angle) in the TSRGD 2002. Is this shape of parking bay legally allowed?

5. De minimis

If the council manage to prove where the footway starts and finishes their evidence does not clearly show a wheel on it and even if an adjudicator could work out from the evidence that perhaps the driver side front wheel is outside the trapezoid it can only be for a trivial amount (de minimis) and the law does not concern itself with trifles and so I ask for the PCN to be cancelled on that basis. The London Councils CEO Handbook says at page 54 that no PCN should be issued unless there is clear photographic evidence of an entire wheel outside of the bay.

I look forward to hearing from you that the PCN has been cancelled.

Yours sincerely



Mr Mustard

c.c. The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP (by email)

(Camden Council would have been sent this letter by email but they don't provide an address to which representations can be made).

Feel free to cut and paste any part of this argument for your PCN appeal at this location or any similar one where the same argument applies.

Mr Mustard thinks it would be hard to find a clearer example than this one, of a council (Camden probably no better or worse than others) using cctv for revenue raising from motorists rather than for crime prevention or detection.

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

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.

Surely not?

Mr Mustard is still trying to get answers from Barnet Council under the Audit Commission Act which allows as follows:

If you wish to inspect the council's accounts, which are to be audited and any books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them, arrangements will be made for you to view them within the council's premises.

We are of course dealing with the year to 31 March 13.

Mr Mustard is struggling to get answers.

He has asked to see the contracts for bailiffs for parking tickets. He is told "legal say no" but no further explanation is yet forthcoming. The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP has been informed.

He has asked to see the actual KPI for NSL's parking enforcement contract. The holy grail will turn up before those are issued. Do they exist?

He has been told there was no bailiff income at Barnet Council, in respect of PCN, between 1 April 12 and 31 March 2013.

If this is true then it is an utter disgrace that Barnet Council failed to properly collect parking ticket revenue that was properly owing. However, Mr Mustard does not think it is true.

Please settle the question by sending Mr Mustard proof that you paid a bailiff for a parking ticket from Barnet Council between 1 April 12 and 31 March 13. Send proof of payment to mrmustard@zoho.com Thank you.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

3 cheers for Uncle Eric

The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP

Eric Pickles acts to limit Town Hall chief's golden goodbyes

(Mr Mustard thinks that should be "chiefs' golden goodbyes" as it is referring to umliple pay-offs, not the payoff of one chief, but give that Uncle Eric is going to save us a packet at Barnet Council he isn't going to quibble for once)

A legal minefield that can pressure councils into handing out bumper pay-offs to chief executives they want to dismiss is to be scrapped, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles announced today.

Slow and costly bureaucracy that requires councils to appoint an independent person, usually a Queen's Counsel, to review dismissal and disciplinary cases for Chief Executives is to be changed. The Isles of Scilly Council has recently suspended its Chief Executive pending one of these investigations.

Councils seeking to dismiss a chief executive for misconduct or poor performance often pay out inflated lump sums to avoid the cost of taking this bureaucratic route. Mr Pickles intends to remove this expensive roadblock, which does not exist in other parts of Government or the private sector.

Local Government estimate the review process can cost between £100,000 and £250,000 in legal fees not counting independent investigation costs and salary for the suspended officer. One case cost £420,000 and took 16 months to adjudicate. Ministers believe decisions by full Council ensure proper democratic accountability, without the need for a centrally dictated process.

The post of Chief Executive is not set in statute, which means there are no central barriers to remove the role. It only takes a simple democratic decision by the council. Several councils have done this in the past year. The statutory Head of Paid Service role can be done by another senior officer.

Mr Pickles has also today written to the Local Government Association to urge them to take steps to improve their performance management of senior posts. Better management can make it easier to tackle performance issues quicker.

Eric Pickles said:

"A Town Hall chief executive costs a lot of money, but if they are simply not up to the job, councillors must be able to get rid of them quick smart without having to throw away thousands in parachute pay-offs.

"It is ridiculous that councils feel forced to give bumper pay offs to dismiss inadequate chief executives simply to avoid these unnecessary golden goodbye reviews from expensive lawyers.

"Scrapping this bizarre bureaucratic ritual will save taxpayers money and put the decision firmly back in democratically elected hands."

The Localism Act requires councils to publish their pay policies so that local remuneration arrangements - particularly for chief officers - are out in the open and provide value for money for local taxpayers. The associated guidance states councils should vote on pay deals over £100,000.

Mr Pickles announced he intends to toughen up the guidance before councils publish their pay policies for next year. For example, if smaller councils do not pay staff above £100,000 they should consider setting a lower vote threshold. Ministers will reserve the right to regulate should councils not act on it.

It also states that councils should also publicly justify any big bonuses; above inflation pay rises; hiring staff already in receipt of public sector retirement or severance money; and avoid any perceptions of minimising tax payments.

With a public worried about the cost of living and all parts of the public sector looking to make deficit savings, Ministers believe these steps will show taxpayers that value for money is being fully considered for top paid staff.

Notes to editors

1. The post of chief executive is not statutory. Councils are not required to have a chief executive. The Local Government and Housing Act 1989 allow regulations to require councils to adopt standing orders relating to staff. The Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) Regulations 2001 state that the full council must approve any decision to dismiss the head of paid service. The regulations state that "the authority must appoint a designated independent person" to investigate proposals for disciplinary action against the Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer or Chief Finance Officer because of misconduct, disciplinary issues or poor performance and that "no steps… are to be taken before a report is made" by that independent person" and "a local authority must pay reasonable remuneration to a designated independent person appointed by the authority and any costs incurred by him in, or in connection with, the discharge of his functions under this regulation." Ministers intend to amend the regulations so that all references to the independent person process are removed. There will be a consultation (no more than 4 week) before the changes are made in Parliament.

2. Pay evidence: Recent analysis by the trade press (external link - £) showed that salaries for newly appointed chief executives between January and June 2012 were on average 11 per cent less than before, which broadly reflects the trend since May 2010. 81 chief executives have moved post since July 2010. In addition Local Government Association figures (external link - pdf) suggest that, in 2009, the combined pay bill for chief officers and chief executives was £629.3m. An earlier 2008 survey by Local Government Employers (external link) revealed that the Chief Executive pay bill was £50.4m. The Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the public sector (external link) found top managers in local government had seen larger increases in pay than the lowest paid in their workforces and the pay ratios between local authority chief executives and the lowest paid in local councils have grown in the last ten years. Around 800 local government employees were in the top 1 per cent of all earners (earning over £117,523).

3. The Government has already taken action on excessive pay practices. The Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency in September 2011 requires councils to publish data on senior salaries and the structure of their workforce. This includes:

• senior employee salaries, names (with the option for individuals to refuse to consent for their name to be published), job descriptions, responsibilities, budgets and numbers of staff. 'Senior employee salaries' is defined as all salaries which are above £58,200 and above (irrespective of post), which is the Senior Civil Service minimum pay band. Budgets should include the overall salary cost of staff reporting to each senior employee;
• an organisational chart of the staff structure of the local authority including salary bands and details of currently vacant posts;
• the 'pay multiple' - the ratio between the highest paid salary and the median average salary of the whole of the authority's workforce;

4. An Audit Commission report, By Mutual Agreement (external link) which looked into severance payments to council chief executives in 2010 found that the designated independent person system has placed local authorities, as the employer, at a great disadvantage with the average length of time for investigation being one whole year. It estimated a minimum legal cost to a council of £100,000, excluding the cost of the investigation, preparing the case and briefing lawyers. Salary costs for a suspended chief executive also have to be met by the council.

Kiss me Quick - then Squeeze me slow

Mr Mustard talks to traffic wardens when he sees them out and about. Some run a mile and others shake his hand. He remarked on the new woolly hat that one of them was wearing for his winter duties and then, whilst thinking about the changes to parking charges over the 25 years during which Mr Mustard has had his office in Barnet, and his home for 19, he realised that Barnet Council have been slowly squeezing the life out of high streets and so a summer uniform hat sprang to his mind.

Do take a photo if you see a traffic warden wearing one next summer.

It is the role of a council to support its High Streets. The council manage many of the factors which dictate the success or failure of high streets chief among which is parking (both cost and method of payment). A shopkeeper could have fabulous bargains and an immaculately presented shop but if no-one is walking along the pavement then they are not going to step inside. The internet has taken some of the trade but not the cup of tea trade and for that people need to be easily able to park at reasonable rates (or even for nothing). 

Whilst he was searching for something else (on crossovers it was, he is still looking for that!) Mr Mustard came across the figures for the Special Parking Account for the year ended 31 March 2002. Great he thought, what a wonderful comparison that will make with 2012. Now Mr Mustard always tries to be objective, in which case any comparison has to take account of inflation and population growth. On to the Office for National Statistics he went and found indices of 174.5 from 2002 and 240.8 from 2012. That gives an inflation factor in the decade of 1.38. Mr Mustard took an educated guess at population growth and went for 10% although it was probably a point or two lower than that. Add .1 to 1.38 and you should have increased income of 48% if the council have kept a level playing field (one they haven't sold off of course). Here are the figures.

Parking income				Above
				inflation
	Actual	Adjusted	Actual	Increase
Item	March 02	March 02	March 12	%
Parking tickets	2,584,507	3,825,070	7,090,785	85%
Permits	211,290	312,709	1,228,592	293%
Paid for parking	1,021,678	1,512,083	3,793,484	151%
Costs	2,020,075	2,989,711	6,050,320	102%
Surplus	1,797,400	2,660,152	6,062,541	128%
Bus Lanes	0	estimated	1,200,000

Just to make sure you follow the numbers. If Barnet Council had been even-handed they would "only" collect £3.8 million this year from penalty charge notices (parking tickets to you and me). Instead they will rake in £7 million. This is what is squeezing the life out of the High Street. The council have upped the ticket issue rate, probably by employing more traffic wardens (to use their old familiar name) who are also more eager to dish out tickets due to the pressure they are placed under (Mr Mustard does not blame the wardens although he would rather they didn't cheat). Barnet Council are taking an extra £3.2 million out of the pockets of motorists which could go into the tills of local traders and make our High Streets more vibrant. 

The solution is to decrease the number of traffic wardens from the current 50 or so (does North Finchley really need 5 who seem to station themselves outside Cafe Buzz? - and Mr Mustard is often inside watching!) and reduce their number pro-rata down to 27 and then the same level of parking ticket income would be achieved.

Now it is when we get to permits that the real steal has occurred and it was one of the reasons why Mr Mustard started blogging. Prices have almost been trebled in real terms. This is a consequence of Mr Mustard's annual permit increasing steadily in price from £20 to £40 to £100 and also due to the cost of business permits being hiked. We are being right royally ripped off. 

The solution is easy. Go back to £40 for the first permit. There is no administrative justification for it to cost more. The CPZ was sold to us in about 1998 on the basis that it would only cover its costs. Poppycock. (Mr Mustard remembers an A4 card covered glossy brochure with a fold-out map being produced for the Chipping Barnet zone. If you are a hoarder please hunt it out as Mr Mustard would like to have a copy for proof of the basis of the introduction of the CPZ.)

Paid for parking has seen another increase of 151% above inflation. I do hope that Cllr Dean Cohen is not going to have another little tinker with pricing like Cllr Richard Cornelius did before him. It is not enough, it is not equitable and Mr Mustard is sending his findings to Uncle Eric (really The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP and not Mr Mustard's real uncle). To get back to parity the hourly rate should be 80p. Then once you have done that Mr Mustard will ask you what you have done Dean to actually help the High St because at 80p an hour the answer will be nothing, you will neither have helped nor hindered. Being a Cabinet member is going to get very pressurised for you.

Costs have doubled above the rate of inflation. They have increased faster than the parking tickets can be issued which simply shows that as the number of tickets increases the willingness to pay them diminishes. The administrative cost of issuing permits are unrelated to permit face values so the costs must all be to do with parking tickets. If the number of parking tickets was decreased then the number of back office staff could also be decreased; they might even have time to read your letters, the ones where you advance perfectly valid reasons that any compassionate person would accept.

As to the surplus which in any other situation would be called profit that has more than doubled, if you want any proof then it is here, from the surplus that you can see, that over the last decade the motorist has simply been used as a cash cow. Profit has gone from less than £3 million to over £6 million.

Bus lane income didn't exist in 2002 but it has been shown as part of the cost relates to that new revenue stream. Over a £1 million from one little stretch of road. Just stay out of the bus lane and stay out of trouble.

Vexation

Now here, whilst Mr Mustard is writing, is a funny thing.

On 1 October he asked for a breakdown of the income streams and costs of the Special Parking Account (SPA). His request was rejected on 16 October 20102 as being vexatious. Mr Mustard now has a score (that's 20 to you) of emails which say that his last 20 questions are vexatious.

By coincidence another person asked on 1 October for details of the Special Parking Account, and other information.

On 29 October they received their reply about the SPA without any mention of their request being vexatious.

Mr Mustard is starting to think that it is him who is considered as vexatious and not the question as otherwise why was his question refused and the other one answered. Not because he is a blogger surely, as that would be contrary to the FOI Act.

Conclusion

The conclusion that Mr Mustard draws is that we don't need income from car parking. If all pay by phone bays (except car parks where it makes sense) were converted into 30, 60, 120 and 240 minutes free bays there would be no need to install parking meters and motorists would be easily able to come and go from town centres and they would thrive. As the majority of the income comes from parking contraventions they would continue as before and more people in town centres = more scope for tickets to be issued.

So forget the £2 per hour, make all on-street parking free and then only those guilty of an offence will have to pay and shoppers will return in their hordes to the High St.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A question for PAYE experts and/or HM Revenue & Customs

No escape

Whilst trawling around the Internet and looking at the question of Town Hall Tax Dodgers (© Eric Pickles MP) Mr Mustard came across

The Social Security Contributions (Intermediaries) Regulations 2000

which came into force on 6 April 2000. They are quite short, only 8 pages, but are something of a specialist read and so Mr Mustard needs some help as he left the Inland Revenue in about 1980. You can find the whole text by googling if you want to read it but you might find the first part of the explanatory notes sufficient for you to see what Mr Mustard is driving at.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations, which come into force on 6th April 2000, make provision for ensuring that social security contributions payable in relation to employed earner’s employment remain payable notwithstanding the existence of arrangements whereby the services of the worker for another person (“the client”) are performed through another person (“the intermediary”) and not pursuant to a contract of employment between the worker and the client.

 

Regulation 1 provides for citation, commencement and effect, and regulations 2 to 5 contain definitions.

Regulation 6 provides that, where the worker’s services are carried out in pursuance of arrangements involving an intermediary, the worker shall be treated, for the purposes of social security contributions in respect of a calculated amount of payments or benefits made or provided under the arrangements, as employed in employed earner’s employment by the intermediary, and the intermediary shall be treated as the secondary contributor for those purposes. The regulation also provides that an officer of the Board of Inland Revenue may make a decision on whether the regulation applies in a particular case.

Now it appears to Mr Mustard that if you have an arrangement where you have the following money chain:

Barnet Council to Hays HR

Hays HR to Employee Service Company Ltd 

Employee Service Company to Employee

that one of them must make a National Insurance deduction and Hays HR and the Employee Service Company both appear to be liable to pay the National Insurance.

Any explanation of this legislation, in simple terms, would be gratefully received.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard 

What London Councils think the role of a councillor is

This is some pre-reading for you in advance of a post that is coming out at 8am tomorrow.

As most readers will know one councillor has had the habit for a long time of refusing to respond to correspondence that does not come from a ward constituent even  though he was on the Cabinet and he was the GLA member for the whole borough. If anyone else had been that councillor they would have been, Mr Mustard expects, prepared to correspond on any topic affecting a council tax payer in Barnet (and Camden).

Mr Mustard has also noted that other councillors have deleted emails unread. This is not an accidental deletion that only happens to Mr Mustard, it has also been noted by Roger at the Barnet Eye.

Mr Mustard has received deleted unread messages from the computers of the following councillors:

Maureen Braun

Daniel Thomas (although he probably reads them on his work system)

Kate Salinger (Brian reads them to her?)

John Marshall

Geoffrey Johnson

Agnes Slocombe

Anita Campbell

Alison Cornelius (just once, Richard could have told her the content)

Julie Johnson

It could be that they read the email on a colleagues machine or for technical reasons appear to delete unread. If that is you do please let Mr Mustard know that you at least read his emails even if you then forget all about them (if you like living dangerously as an email might come back to bite you).

Now Mr Mustard was wondering what support there was for his view that every councillor in every ward should listen to any resident from any ward and then today, whilst thinking about members' allowances he stumbled over the answer in the following report from London Councils from which ruling councillors, with the notable and honourable exception of the Salingers (look, they had tea with Uncle Eric afterwards) were happy to take advice to increase members' allowances.  

Mr Mustard though is more interested in the page giving the job profile of a councillor (some of Barnet's didn't read past the juicy allowances up to page 11)

London Councils Remuneration Report for Councillors

Let Mr Mustard repeat the key paragraph:

To contribute constructively to open government and democratic renewal through active encouragement of the community to participate generally in the government of the area.

Mr Mustard thinks that means that you cannot barricade yourself in your ward, stick your fingers in your ears going "la la la I can't hear you" and refuse to communicate with anyone from the borough of Barnet who is not in your ward.

Hello Mrs Angry. This other section will please you, sort of. It is from page 2 so councillors have surely read it?

A number of authorities have set up appraisal systems for councillors. We commend this initiative and believe that it should be widely adopted.

Widely would include Barnet one supposes. The sooner the council start doing appraisals of councillors the sooner they won't need to be richly appraised by you; do you think they secretly enjoy the fame of appearing in your blog?

Mr Mustard asks very little of councillors; really only that they do the jobs they are paid for.

Now a challenge. This invitation is open to any councillor to write a blog post about One Barnet, as short or as long as you like which Mr Mustard will publish in full, without changes and without sticking his comments in red all the way through. The purpose is to start a much needed debate with the residents of Barnet. Don't all rush at once.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Look out ALMOs - Uncle Eric is thinking about ALMO transparency

The good thing about writing to the fan of Barnet's bloggers who is warmly referred to as Uncle Eric (really the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP) is that you know that even if you don't ask for a reply, Uncle Eric will give your letter to one of his team to think about and you can be pretty sure of a no nonsense approach to the subject matter. Sometimes you just find that Eric acts to fix what you have written about as he already had the matter in hand.

Mr Mustard wrote to Uncle Eric in mid-May because although Barnet Council publishes spending information (quite badly but it's a start) as soon as spending is routed through a contractor, outsourcer or an ALMO (Arms length management organisation) such as Barnet Homes, then the spending information is simply not available. That is an unsatisfactory situation. Barnet Home manages about 15,000 properties and has an annual turnover of £27m. The public should be able to easily see the major items of expenditure.

Business Plan 2011-2013

Here is the email that Mr Mustard sent

Dear Mr Pickles

I am sure that you realise that an anomaly can be created by councils outsourcing and/or moving their assets into ALMOs (for good business reasons) who, as private companies, are not required to publish their over £500 spending data. Barnet Homes do respond to FOI requests but I don't know what to ask about if I don't see who they pay money to.

It was by accident that I came across the particular spend highlighted in my latest blog posting. broken-homes

Please could you have one of your team look at this area with a view to extending your guidance to all organisations to whom councils contract out service provision (Barnet Council have already contracted out the entire parking service and are planning on contracting out Customer Services and Development & Regulatory Services which will greatly reduce the amount of spending detail the council publishes; outline details attached).

The devil is always in the detail and there won't be much detail left in Barnet when one only sees a monthly payment to NSL, BT, Capita etc.

Best wishes

Yours sincerely

Mr Mustard

and here is the considered reply with some emboldening by Mr Mustard

Dear Mr Mustard,

Thank you for your e-mail of 15th May to the Right Hon Eric Pickles MP which has been passed to the Directorate for Local Government Policy in view of our local government transparency responsibilities and I have been asked to respond.

I would like to reassure you that this Government is committed to increasing transparency throughout central and local government. If we want local people to be able to hold politicians and local authorities to account, while fostering a new spirit of localism, we must provide them with the tools and information to do so. To support and drive this agenda forward, beyond the excellent start local authorities have already made on releasing expenditure over £500, this Department in September 2011 published the final Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency. The Code enshrines three principles of transparency, demand-led, open and timely. It also sets out the minimum datasets that should be published. Embedding a culture of transparency within authorities takes time. The department has committed to review the Code within 18 months of publication. Ministers do have the option to make the Code mandatory.

Thank you for drawing to our attention and sharing your concerns about the potential lack of transparency created when some councils outsource services or move assets to ALMOs who, in turn, might not be required to publish their spending data. We are aware of the issues and officials will be considering these in the round when reviewing the Code.

The Government's view is that it is important to make more data publicly and readily available to the citizen to enable them to challenge public authorities about how they are using taxpayers’ money, so citizens are better placed to raise issues and concerns.

We have noted your concerns and you will have the opportunity to feed in further views during the next phase of the Code review process.

Kind regards,

PJ (name redacted by Mr Mustard) 

| Department for Communities and Local Government | Local Government Policy & Productivity | Accountability & Transparency Division|3/J3 Eland House | Bressenden Place | London SW1E 5DU

 

Mr Mustard looks forward to the day when the spending of Barnet Homes is published although he doubts that they are.

 

Yours frugally

 

Mr Mustard