A costly bank statement

 

Mr Mustard had his attention drawn to this tribunal case by another expert. Both play with a straight bat with the tribunal as anything else would undermine your future credibility. Mr Mustard has accidentally said things which turned out not to be true and if that comes to light he puts his hand up during the hearing to admit he was wrong and to explain why or even in a later hearing with the same adjudicator. That is why his unsupported word as to facts can be accepted.

Not so in this case. One problem for the motorist is that if there were a league table of enforcement authorities and their diligence with PCNs Camden Council would generally be in the top 3.

The initial Appeal hearing did not go well for the motorist (often in the Court system an Appeal is against an earlier Court decision but in PCN circles it is an Appeal against the council's refusal to cancel).

The payment was thought of as a user error. The story could have stopped there with £160 to be paid. The motorist decided to ask for a 'Review'. These are rarely granted as that is how the system is designed because one hearing is proportionate to the penalty at issue. That hearing went badly for the motorist.

A back pedalling motorist isn't a good look. It looks like a narrow escape to me. Camden Council however, had done a lot of work and although costs are, by law, rarely awarded, they had put a lot of work in and wanted a contribution. There therefore had to be yet another hearing and the motorist was still keen to be heard:

The motorist's behaviour was found to be 'wholly unreasonable' which is one of the legal tests, frivolous or vexatious being the others.

Trying to hoodwink an adjudicator is pretty stupid, they do hundreds of PCN Appeals. They also have to be legally qualified and have been so for 5 years before they are eligible to become an adjudicator, they have doubtless assessed lots of evidence during their careers and won't easily be fooled. Just tell the truth and pay your PCN if you are bang to rights.

The end.

Barking & Dagenham Council dig themselves a big hole

For years council staff could tell the public anything they liked about a PCN and the public would accept it was true and meekly pay their PCN. There were a small number of PCN experts but they were spread quite thinly. Nowadays, with the explosion in PCN numbers the number of experts has also grown and they help each other to learn and share knowledge. Thus, council staff are regularly tested and in rare cases councils are having to appoint barristers to fight us at the tribunal as we have uncovered fundamental flaws in the legitimacy of their PCNs.

Why, with the increased scrutiny, council (or possibly outsourced provider) staff, opposed in a tribunal case by an expert with an eye for detail, think they can tell a whopping great lie in a witness statement is a mystery. Here is the statement. Mr Mustard has redacted the officer's name as this case may be sent to the council's fraud department. ('Officer' just means member of staff).

Mr Mustard had watched the footage, the camera didn't move which suggested a fixed installation and he also didn't think staff would be poring over cctv at gone 5.30pm on Christmas Eve so he asked what sort of camera was in use.

So there we have it. A Witness statement which is patently untrue and leaves the witness open to prosecution. Mr Mustard will now ask the motorist (whose Appeal was decided on the grounds that the PCN was invalid so the witness statement wasn't considered) if he wishes to report the officer to the Fraud department. The council take fraud by residents sufficiently seriously to put it in their policy, will they equally investigate fraud by their own staff?

 The end.

Blue badge misuse - please don't do it

Auditors at Barnet Council looked at PCN cancellation processes last year. Here are some of the points they were concerned about:

Best not to cheat by using a blue badge when you shouldn't or use the same untrue excuse time after time as you'll put yourself under the microscope. In addition, Mr Mustard will not assist you if he thinks that you may well have cheated.

If you are a cheat, take the hint and stop now.

End.

N.B. CAFT = Corporate Anti-Fraud Team.

Whistleblowing

Lots of things go on at the council which employees are not happy with. It could be damaging for their career to go to their line manager or higher if that is where the problem sits. Barnet's bloggers always like to know what is going on so you can send them paperwork in confidence knowing that the source will not be revealed. One way of stopping your identity from coming out is by using an anonymous email address which disappears without trace not long after you have used it so even Mr Mustard won't know who you are so cannot possibly reveal your identity.

Here is a possible provider of a temporary email address and lots more are available with an internet search but don't use the council computer to do this. Don't leave a trail either by sending yourself a spreadsheet or other computer document. A printout scanned off site would be safest.

Mr Mustard is equally happy to hear from any current or former employee of a supplier to the council such as Capita or NSL if there is skulduggery afoot.

Regular readers will remember this story, the £2million fraud, and a not all that quick follow up has revealed further problems, the full details of which are not yet in the public domain. This from a report going to the Audit Committee on 30 October.

If you know what has been going on do feel free to send an email to mrmustard@zoho.com

or you can post documents to him at 21 Carnarvon Rd, Barnet EN5 4LX

The council should not be allowed to sweep things under the carpet. They are spending our money.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Capita are bluffing & have a bloody nerve

Just delete anything you don't have to agree to by law, as here.

It is really boring to have to keep telling a council a fact which hasn't changed when you are duty bound by law to tell them if your circumstances change. Of course there will be some people who try to get away with claiming a discount that isn't due but we need a targeted approach to find those rather than the blunderbuss approach which is being taken.

Having asked on twitter Mr Mustard discovered that many of the ladies in the Older Women's Co-Housing had also received these letters. It is pretty dense of the council and Capita, who gave the scheme planning permission, and know that this is a collection of homes for single ladies of a certain age (or uncertain as Mr Mustard's elderly French professor used to say)

(sorry ladies, your apostrophe has gone missing in the heading)

If officialdom can't trust these pioneering ladies, there is no hope for society.

Mr Mustard doesn't stand for being pushed around so he has penned a letter to Crapita, which will go off to them tomorrow:

Mr Mustard's property isn't the one in which a fraudster was found to be residing who made 62 fraudulent payments to himself for non-existent properties. That of course, was Capita.

So before questioning Mr Mustard about his property it would be a good idea if Capita were to get their own house in order and leave honest council tax payers alone.

You too can make a Subject Access Request to Capita on the same lines as Mr Mustard has. You are entitled to all the date they hold on you, free of charge and within a month. If this procedure becomes too expensive for them to process, they will change their behaviour. If you only declared you were the sole occupier a few weeks ago, complain about them writing to you again so soon, whilst you are about it.

Mr Mustard nearly forgot to mention one important fact. The reason that Capita are so keen to get you off the discount list isn't the obvious one, it is that they get a share of the saving for every person who stops claiming, even if out of fear when they have done nothing wrong.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A horror in Haringey

You will struggle to believe that a council, a body with a legal duty to be fair

R-v-Secretary of State for Home Department ex p. Doody (1994) (House of Lords) per Lord Mustill : "Where an Act of Parliament confers an administrative power there is a presumption that it will be exercised in a manner which is fair in all the circumstances" (The noble Lords clearly forgot to add 'except in Haringey' )

could stoop this low, or maybe you think that all parking departments are venal and rapacious. Certainly there are plenty of examples of a complete lack of ethics when it comes to PCN.

Here is the alleged contravention from the postal PCN

and here is one of the two photographs from the council website (the second photo is of the time plate)

Look at the bottom of the photograph. The photograph is timed at 18:32 so unless the driver decided to reverse back into the space and somehow avoid being photographed and also avoid being given a PCN or having one stuck to the windscreen (which of course they didn't) then at 18:34 the car was half a mile up the road.

Mr Mustard wonders if this should be treated as an attempted fraud and reported to the police. Despite this being obviously mischeivous the car owner still has to make representations as otherwise they will become guilty by default, which is one of the flaws of the way that the legislation is written.

If you have a PCN which has been dished out by CEO (traffic warden) 542, Mr Mustard would suggest you study it very carefully for any signs of trickery.

Perhaps the time of the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Nick Walkley could be better spent in instilling honesty into parking staff and contractors (this will of course be the work of just one rogue traffic warden, yawn) instead of faffing about spending thousands on wretched logos.

Almost the new Haringey logo:thanks Alan

Any lawyers who happen to be reading are invited to comment upon possible actions that could be taken against Haringey Council. Mr Mustard will deal with the PCN itself.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard won't help a fraudster

If you get a PCN due to fraudulent use of a blue badge don't ask Mr Mustard for help as he won't give it.

Barnet Council had been asleep at the wheel on this issue for 5 years but with the arrival of a new permanent (as opposed to interim) parking manager, they have woken up.

You have been warned.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

NSL: Never a dull moment

The main moments, so far.

14 December 2011 - Cabinet Resources Committee

AWARD OF CONTRACT – PARKING ENFORCEMENT AND RELATED SERVICES
(Report of the Cabinet Member for Environment– Agenda Item 12)
For the reasons set out in the Cabinet Member’s report, the Committee;
RESOLVED –
1. The contract for the provision of Parking Enforcement and Related Services is awarded to NSL Ltd for a period of five years with an option to extend for a further two years.

---

26 January 2012 - Mr Mustard emailed every councillor as follows:

Dear Councillors

I do not think that NSL are going to enhance the reputation of Barnet Council if they display the sort of behaviour that a tribunal has found they did in Westminster.http://nutsville.com/?p=3791

Of course you will say that this sort of behaviour will not be allowed in Barnet but leopards don't change their spots and Barnet Council has an ignominious record when it comes to the monitoring of contracts.
 
Yours frugally
 
Mr Mustard

to which absolutely no response was received

---

13 March 2012

Mr Mustard sends in an FOI request to Barnet Council for a copy of the financial viability study of NSL which should have been carried out at an early stage, the Contract with NSL if signed or the expected date of signature and a copy of the Parent Company Guarantee or Performance Bond as the case may be.

---

17 April 2012

The Mail Online reports on the case of the NSL traffic warden who was sacked, because he says, he exposed the alleged employment of illegal immigrants. The name of the Operational Support Manager who was alleged to be behind this was Adebowale Onadeko. The case goes against the sacked worker who was the whistleblower.

---

26 April 2012

The FOI response is overdue so Mr Mustard sends a gentle nudge. Silence continues.

---

I May 2012

The Ham & High reports that there is to be an appeal in the NSL illegal immigrant case as further evidence has come to light.

---

1 May 2012

NSL start to provide the parking enforcement for Barnet Council. They put all existing back office staff on gardening leave and they are at risk of redundancy. Parking wardens get new uniforms & machinery and carry on patrolling the streets as their job location has not changed.

---

28 May 2012

Bedfordshire on Sunday reports that a manager of NSL a traffic warden firm, one Adebowale Onadeko has been ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work (is this the new name for community service?) and pay costs of £85 for trying to buy an iPhone with a fake credit card, an event which goes back to October 2011. If you go back to the 17 April entry one can only imagine that this event won't help NSL contest an appeal by a sacked worker whose boss now has a conviction.

---

31 May 2012

Mr Mustard asks Barnet Council for a review of his FOI request which is 6 weeks late in being answered.

Mr Mustard discovers that Adebowale Onadeko was on the Barnet contract in May 2012 but suddenly there is now a vacancy for his role. The parking staff are very worried that this individual, so capable of fraudulent activity, has their bank details from their personnel files.

---

What can we learn from this sorry tale?

Well for a start you need to take a good look at your potential supplier and google them to see if they have any skeletons in the cupboard (have we seen them all yet?).

You need to have the backbone to say "stop, let's take another look at what we are doing".

Maybe that when bloggers ask questions you should stop and think about them and not go into a bunker mentality; bloggers want a better borough too, you know.

That if you outsource you do not outsource risk and problems. What you lose is the ability to check the background of staff and to choose the best people for the job yourself.

That giving information, like credit card details, to third party suppliers (like Verrus Pay-by-Phone) means that you cannot control who sees them or where they go to in the world.

That this was the first outsourcing under the One Barnet umbrella and it has got off to a very bad start. What on earth will go wrong when the much larger & multi-faceted DRS contract is passed to third parties and sub-contractors?

One Barnet is not the panacea for all ills.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

MetPro - Licence to Bill

There has certainly been a spy movie in the MetPro drama but no Bond, well no performance or surety Bond as there wasn't a Contract to support. Plenty of actors though pretending to be licensed security guards. MetPro must have thought that they had won Thunderball when they submitted invalid invoices and they were paid. Lots of senior officers at Barnet Council probably now trying to beat The Living Daylights out of each other in order that Tomorrow's excessive pay packet Never Dies.

There has also been a disaster movie - in the Accounts Payable department which will henceforth be known as Casino Royale as its a gamble as to what will happen when an invoice is submitted ( that is probably not true; I expect that 100% get paid; they say Never Say Never Again to the thought of not paying - the remittance advice which goes with each payment is probably headed From Barnet with Love )

Let us have a look at what Barnet Council think a valid invoice looks like as below is one they have paid. Think of it as A View To A Bill ( sorry!)

click to enlarge

So what might be missing from this invoice ? the red shading is rightly there to cover the bank details which Barnet Council redact to prevent the risk of fraud - there are evidently a load of stand-up comedians at Barnet Council - so the Talent & Performance Manager is doing something to earn his keep - the goings on at Barnet Council are a performance and a half. I digress - back to the joke - how Mr Mustard laughed until he remembered that it was his money that Barnet Council chuck around with gay abandon - TO PREVENT FRAUD - you have already been defrauded Barnet Council. Your name isn't even on this invoice which is a basic requirement of Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs Service ( not Secret at all - the requirements for a valid vat invoice are on the revenue & customs website for all to see ) and Mr Mustard cannot see a VAT number either - it must have been For Your Eyes Only - so VAT should simply not have been paid until a valid VAT number was supplied and the invoice checked against the Contract - ah, that's Mission Impossible isn't it. What a Carry On ( Carry On Regardless of course )

Mr Mustard is amazed at the administrative burden that they have created for themselves by having someone write on every invoice the words "Shopping Cart No." ( Mr Mustard now has visions of Councillors and Officers in a huge trolley dash for goods and services, just chucking them in any old how, grabbing supplies off the shelf in a hurry and not checking what they are for - oh, and in this trolley dash nothing is free sadly ) and the number itself and then what looks like "u/Order number" but he can't be sure as if you remember getting lines at school by the time you wrote line 100 your hand had gone numb and your writing was terrible - brains have also gone a bit numb at Barnet Council - and then the number itself and then "G/receipt number" and then the number itself. The Chief Finance Officer is paid £1,000 a day. Is this the most efficient system one can get for £1,000 a day ? - you must be joking - another stand-up comedian at NLBP.

Mr Mustard has just checked the Companies House website for company number 07491321 and on 2 June 2011 MetPro Emergency Response Ltd changed its name to Evolution Emergency Response Ltd. Well they were not going to get any nice juicy Council Contracts ( or arrangements ) under the old name now were they ?

So the Audit Report for the meeting of 16 June 2011, the next production of Barnet Council which Mr Mustard thinks will be full of drama - he hopes to be able to buy a ticket ( who bought what for whom at the Council to get this nice little MetPro earner off the ground is a question that may yet come to light ) but he doesn't take a Quantum of Solace from the Council's assurances that things can only get better. Well they certainly couldn't get any worse. Except that they will if OneBarnet keeps on going.

Remember Barnet Council, The Bloggers are Watching

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard