DVLA - terrible at data management

Mr Mustard made a Freedom of Information request to DVLA. He did this because a lady, let us call her Jayne, purchased a used car, and posted in the V5C with her complete and accurate address. Mr Mustard has a copy of what was sent to DVLA. Somehow her car got registered to a non-existent address in Mansfield, a town she has no connection with and has never visited.

Let us suppose the motorist lived at 4 Shakespeare Court, 111 Woodville Road, Barnet EN5 4LX (Mr Mustard's former address by way of illustration as he can't use the actual one for Jayne).

Using the Royal Mail postcode checker we can see the following:

Mr Mustard surmises that because the flats had a block name which precedes the street number, blocks don't come up when you search using the DVLA's method. Staff also can't be expected to know every location. There are 1.3 million postcodes and goodness knows how many blocks of flats.

Searching by road name alone brings up the correct address as the fifth choice. An under strain or slapdash DVLA employee might select the wrong one.

It is only by inputting the complete postcode, a maximum of 8 digits, that you can be sure of getting the correct locale.

The system that the DVLA are employing is more likely to end up in error with their partial matching method, which looks to have a huge flaw within in.

Mr Mustard is going to ask a follow up question to test his hypothesis.

In Jayne's case, she correctly wrote on the form an address in London N2, which is a flat in a block which block has a street number. Somehow, perhaps because of the name of the block, her car was registered in Mansfield.

What is worse is that it was registered at an address which doesn't even exist. Using a different address as an example. If the physical address used was 12 Regina Court, West End Lane the postcode used was for 12 Regina Court Lane which did exist but still wasn't Jayne's address and gave the postman a delivery problem.

The first she knew of the PCNs was when the bailiff knocked on her actual front door and demanded £2,000 at the risk of having her car removed and so she paid up even though she had received nothing at all in the post. It has taken Mr Mustard 3 months to ascertain the cause of the problem, which is one he hadn't ever seen before. He much prefers to keep PCNs out of the hands of bailiffs. It isn't clear that the bailiff had a valid warrant as it may have still had the out of date (and obviously invalid) Mansfield address on it. That is a blog for another day.

Some of you might have noticed that you had purchased a car but not received the 'logbook' from DVLA a month later, others wouldn't. As you don't need it unless you travel abroad or decide to sell your vehicle Mr Mustard thinks the non arrival is an entirely understandable oversight. If you buy a used car, make a note for a month later to chase up the missing registration document ('logbook').

Having watched much of the Post Office Horizon Inquiry Mr Mustard is no longer shocked by the incompetence at high levels in large organisations but DVLA's data processing disaster method is of the same ilk. He has seen complaints on the internet in which a resident complains that an unknown person has registered a vehicle at their address. The suspected rogue clearly isn't always a scam artist but could be the DVLA.

The end, for now.

Greggs - Ballards Lane, Finchley Central, London N3

Mr Mustard had to meet a lady about her PCN & car tow away in Brent and as she lived nearby they arranged to meet in Costa in Ballards Lane N3. Mr Mustard was stood outside as he was, as per usual, early. He heard shouting from across the road. He saw an apparently homeless man sitting quietly minding his own business on the pavement at the left hand edge of the Greggs shop and to the right, next to the open front door, a female Greggs employee with a mop & bucket. She was washing the black frontage. She shouted at the homeless man to 'go away' more than once. Mr Mustard, who used, once upon a time, to volunteer in the Crisis at Christmas homeless shelters, felt very uncomfortable with this. Then he sadly realised what was going to happen when the man didn't move, which was that the employee sloshed her bucket of water onto the ground in front of the shop, just to the left of the front door.

Now you can't drop a bucket of water on the floor without it spreading sideways in all directions and it duly reached where the poor homeless man was sitting and it caused him to move pretty sharpish. At this point Mr Mustard took to Twitter as he didn't have time to get further involved.

Mr Mustard has now got back to his office and had time to have a quick look at the social responsibility pages on the Greggs website, which includes the following snippets,

Clearly at senior level Greggs have the right idea but the message has not reached to one member of shop staff.

Firstly, why didn't the employee simply say to the man 'Please could you move for a few minutes as I want to wash the shop front?' as an innoffensive homeless person is deserving of as much decency & politeness as customers of Greggs; remember he was simply sitting there minding his own business. If he was being uncooperative then maybe you just wait and wash the shop front later?

The second thing is that the pavement fronting onto Greggs appears to be the public highway so she had no right to order him about, she would not have done it to Mr Msuatrd if he had stood there on his mobile phone. The homeless man is not a lesser being, he is a human being, in a lesser state at the moment. The pavement is his home. Homelessness is not, in a way, our, society's, problem, it is the problem of the homeless themselves. Once you hit rock bottom, no home, no job, no money, no food, no doctor, no shelter or safety, no toilet or shower facilities, no friends, no family, no health & no prospects, what you don't need is to be shouted at and splashed with water (luckily it is a warm sunny day but getting wet is one of the biggest problems to face the homeless) but some help, a place of refuge, some help fixing the drink &/or drug and/or mental health problems which may exist and then perhaps some work may be possible, is the solution that is needed and an advanced society's duty to assist.

Mr Mustard can easily appreciate how no food business would want a person camped out outside their shop making it look untidy & perhaps innocently sending customers elsewhere (30 years ago Mr Mustard lived in Potters Bar and the local tramp was no fool, he used to sit quietly on the wall near the cashpoint and the bakers where people fed him and gave him money) but the misguided actions of this one employee (Mr Mustard is assuming this event was a one off unless you know better, residents of Finchley Central) are not the answer. Mr Mustard does not want the employee to be sacked (as losing your job can lead to losing your home) but to be educated about her attitude, manner and behaviour.

Greggs have got far more financial resources than most and perhaps could help in London by working once again with charities and local authorities to try and get some of these people off the street with a helping hand rather than trying to get them washed away.

Moving on the homeless is not the answer, the street is their home. You wouldn't want to be there.

Mr Mustard started the day at 7am the happiest he has been in a long time. This unfortunate event marred his morning & made him sad. Hopefully Greggs, who will be tweeted a direct link to this blog and will hopefully update us as to what they have done about this member of shop staff, will become part of the solution rather than be a problem. Don't just think of the PR aspect Greggs, think what you can do to help as that will naturally bring benefits to you & make Mr Mustard happy again.

Now, back to parking tickets.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Helen Michael silenced (not for long)

That pesky cafe owner, Helen Michael, of Cafe Buzz who has been vocal on the subject of the removal of cash parking meters, as they adversely affected her business, is still on the warpath. This time it is about traffic wardens being over zealous and giving out PCN like confetti on a suspended 15m stretch of parking bay opposite Cafe Buzz as it makes customers and potential customers nervous to even visit North Finchley. Helen's view is that traffic wardens were targeting the spot, which was ambiguously signed, just to raise revenue as she saw wardens down there on foot at 8pm when usually it is only the scooter riders passing by who stop and dole out PCN.

So, fed up with seeing traffic wardens take photographs and driving away her trade, Helen tweeted a picture of a traffic warden at work, like this one

You won't get such lovely food as at Helen's, in the above establishments

with the small difference that Helen left the traffic warden's face visible.

This led someone, whether the traffic warden, NSL or Barnet Council isn't known, to complain about Helen having breached twitter policy, or some such, and for now, until she sorts it out, Helen's account is suspended. Here is some legal advice I was given for free:

The general rule for street photography is that if you are taking a picture of a street scene, which happens to have lots of people in it, that is fine.

If you are taking a portrait of a particular person, as in this case, then you need them to sign a consent form.

Mr Mustard thinks it must be the traffic warden who complained as she is now, according to other local business owners (most of whom are very grateful to Helen and support her efforts to get the council to be sensible) going around making uninvited improper remarks about Helen to other business owners such as referring to her as "a bitch" and telling them (at least 3, statements are being written as we speak) she is "a horrible person" (she isn't; she is lovely) unless of course the definition of a horrible person is someone who prevents people from getting PCN in which case Mr Mustard will have to be renamed Mr Horrible.

The problem with the enforcement last week outside the premises of Tally Ho Discount (soon to be Tesco) is that the 15m stretch which was suspended was described as being outside 770-774. Now Tally Ho is number 770 and is about 13m wide so that left only an adjoining 2m elsewhere which was suspended. The other buildings are not numbered and so without making further enquiry, which should have been unnecessary, motorists didn't know if the other 2m were to the left or right of Tally Ho. Traffic wardens didn't care, they simply ticketed any vehicle outside any part of McDonald's and blithely told motorists that they could appeal (Mr Mustard doesn't expect to be summonsed for an offence that he hasn't committed, such as say burglary when his swag bag is clearly empty and be told that it's fine, you can appeal). Mr Mustard politely asked a different traffic warden how motorists could know where the 15m stretch started and ended and her answer was that it wasn't her job to put the signs up and that motorists could always appeal. She couldn't answer therefore how she decided whether to ticket or not (the answer of course is always to issue a ticket, to the innocent as well as the guilty). Mr Mustard hung around for a while to stop people getting tickets. He moved a fellow motorcyclist along 5m to be out of danger. The rider spoke to the traffic warden who told the rider not to listen to Mr Mustard (she clearly not knowing of his knowledge on the subject in hand). Mr Mustard doesn't think it is in the job description of traffic wardens to instruct the public to not have expert help in contesting PCN; they might just be an incy wincy bit biased?

Mr Mustard talks to most of the traffic wardens he meets (some though don't seem to have a tongue in their head and stupidly give residents the silent treatment which is enraging) and they are happy to explain anything he asks. Others just walk away. This is what the contract with NSL requires (try hard not to laugh so much that your feet fall off)

The atmosphere where traffic wardens are seen as Ambassadors for the council seems to Mr Mustard (and we are 3 years into this contract) to be like this

or maybe it was an auto-correct error and Ambushers was the word that was meant to be included in the contract?

It might be a good idea if parking management were to move the slandering traffic warden to another location well away from N12 and took a long hard look at how traffic wardens behave on the street by following them around and checking first hand what antics they get up to.

Do feel free to send your traffic warden stories to mrmustard@zoho.com or to the local Times newspaper

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Finchley re-zoned as Hendon

Here is the text of a recently received email:

Dear Mr Mustard

You recently successfully appealed a PCN for my husband. I have today received a PCN on my car parked outside my house in Finchley, displaying its permit. What I didn’t realise until closely inspecting the permit is that although it is up to date the area is HC2 and not FN. I’ve had a permit for this car since they were introduced and have renewed it on time each year. I just didn’t notice that the zone was incorrect this time. I would hope that this is excellent grounds for a successful appeal…!

Can you advise me what to do?

Mr Mustard did advise what to do and the PCN was quickly cancelled as it was, not to put too fine a point on it, complete rollocks. The council issue the wrong permit to a resident of 23 years who has had the same car for 9 years so why should they check the council has done its job properly as that is the least one is entitled to expect and what the resident has paid for.

So now as well as checking your permit is in date you had better check it has the correct zone identification letters on it such that they are the same as the ones on the signs in your street. How a North Finchley resident (FN) got a permit with the letters HC2 (a sub section of Hendon central) is a complete mystery although this is the second time that Mr Mustard has come across the problem, the last time the resident did live in Hendon and simply received the wrong Hendon zone permit and it took months to sort out. Perhaps the council is getting better at sorting out its cock-ups given how many it makes?

Mr Mustard wonders if the permit zone defaults to a particular zone or to the last one used whereas it should default to null and force the processor to input one. Having been given the idea here, Mr Mustard is sure the council will sit up and take notice. There is zero tolerance on errors in parking so 100% of permits should be correctly issued.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard