Newham Council - an open letter to the Local Government Ombudsman

17 August 2024

 

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH

 

Dear Sirs

Decision 22 001 827

 

I refer to the above decision which dates from January 2023.

I help people to challenge PCNs. I am assisting a lady with PCN reference PN37240236 which was issued in November 2023 and in view of your decision I made the following enquiries of Newham Council.

to which the council duly responded

 and

to which a self incriminating response was received.

It seems to be that Newham Council are treating the LGO with disdain and the public with contempt whilst simultaneously breaking the law.

 

By chance, I also came across four decisions of an independent adjudicator of London Tribunals on the subject of defaced signs in Newham, all for the same motorist, one is set out here:

which serve to show ongoing improper behaviour.

I'm not sure of the powers you hold to compel Newham Council to follow paragraph 28 of your decision. I thought I would bring this to your attention in case a nudge by yourselves to the council might bring about a desire to follow the law. If not, I could raise a complaint, with due authority, on behalf the lady who is still being chased for PCN PN37240236 for which the relevant sign looked like this:

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully

Barnet Council's PCN bailiffs not properly scrutinised

Here is a report by the Local Government Ombudsman. The first 15 paragraphs have been omitted as they don't add anything useful to the story.

The decision catalogues a litany of errors. It seems to Mr Mustard that NSL, contracted to provide back office services to Barnet Council, aren't properly supervising bailiffs employed by Marstons and yet decisions taken by NSL affect the income up stream. Perhaps this is because NSL now belongs to Marstons. You can't properly supervise your bosses if you want to keep your job. Perhaps Marstons shouldn't be appointed by any council which already employs NSL? or vice versa.

In addition, Barnet Council haven't covered themselves in glory either. They aren't properly supervising NSL or managing their own internal processes. The trouble is that very few cases reach the Ombudsman, not because everything is perfect, but because most people give up the fight once their car is clamped, whether legally or otherwise, as depriving a person of their possessions is a very powerful action. This will not be the only case where bailiffs have exceeded their authority, Mr Mustard sees it all the time.

What is really needed is a panel of independent persons who can consider all complaints without having an interest in the PCN revenue and by that method the council could improve its procedures and reputation.

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

Irony alert - Barnet Council failing to issue PCNs when demanded.

 

Paragraph 8 is correct in the context of this decision (Mr Mustard expects but the location is unknown) but adds the caveat that you can't park across your dropped kerb during the operational hours if you are inside a CPZ and there is a single yellow across the drop. You have been warned.

Paragraph 17 is amusing. Here is part of a case Mr Mustard is handling at the tribunal next week.

In this case the council issued a PCN without a request from the occupier and won't back off (although Mr Mustard has emailed the parking manager so that attitude may change very suddenly). The Highway Code is merely guidance and is incomplete advice. In England we hold a Driving Licence not License (grrr).

The tribunal have previously told Barnet Council not to say the CEO is a credible witness. That is a matter that the adjudicator will decide.

What is incredible is Barnet's attitude to the motorist, getting them to produce a letter from their sister which might be as convincing as a note from your mum to the school that you were sick yesterday, when you were skiving and wrote the note yourself.

Paragraph 20 doesn't say that the council charge you to have a white line painted.

Paragraph 21 is the one which will kill the PCN at the tribunal. Given the behaviour of the council in resisting the Appeal it looks like Mr Mustard will be making his first claim of 2019 for costs on the grounds of their wholly unreasonable behaviour. He only made one such claim in 2018 but council performance has steadily gone off in 2018.

There is a better solution for the council than making residents phone up for enforcement. Have an app developed. then residents can sit at home, press a button, send a photo if they wish, and have the request pinged to the hand held equipment of the nearest CEO. Mr Mustard doesn't defend people who park across the dropped kerb of others without permission.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Help the LGO

In the nature of a guest blog, although the LGO didn't ask for one, they were volunteered and it is volunteers they are looking for.

---

Dear Sir / Madam

At LGO we constantly seek to improve the service we provide and want to ensure that any changes are informed by the experiences of people that have used our service. To help us in this we established an advisory forum to provide us with challenge, insight and feedback on our service. We hold meetings of the forum three times a year in our headquarters in Coventry, although we occasionally ask for views outside of those meetings through email and online surveys.

The group mainly consists of members of the public that have recently used our service. It also includes representatives of the bodies in our jurisdiction who handle complaints and a range of people that act as advocates for the public, such as advisory bodies, MPs and councillors. The forum offers a channel to provide feedback on the user experience directly to me and to my senior team. You can take a look at the notes from the meetings we have previously held on our website.

We would like to invite new members to the forum and encourage you to be involved in this important work that allows us to draw upon the experiences of people who have brought a complaint to LGO to improve the service we provide to others in the future. Whilst this is a voluntary role we will offer travel expenses for attendance at the meetings.

The first meeting will take place towards the end of November 2014.

If you would be interested in joining this forum please send us a short statement, of no more than 500 words, explaining why you would like to be involved and details of any other relevant experience you have. Please send this by email to advisoryforum@lgo.org.uk or by post to Advisory Forum, Local Government Ombudsman, PO BOX 4471, Coventry, CV4 0EH. The closing date for expressions of interest is Friday 17th October 2014.

If you would prefer to provide your statement over the telephone please call our advice line on 0300 061 0614 and we will arrange for someone to speak with you.

Decisions on who will be appointed to the forum will be based solely upon the statement. No interviews or other selection procedures will take place. Should you need any further information about the Forum please use the same email as above.

Please note: We are not able to respond to any specific issues about individual complaints you raise through your application. Correspondence to the email or postal address above will be treated as expression of your interest in the forum only.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Dr Jane Martin

Local Government Ombudsman

Chair, Commission for Local Administration

Harrow Council Bailiff's "special" offer - a 75% discount

First of all Mr Mustard is going to say something nice about Barnet Council, he realises he doesn't so it very often but he is all relaxed and happy, just back from 10 days in Sri Lanka being a guest at a wedding and seeing some of the sights. Also, haggling with Tuk Tuk drivers over a £2.50 fare when they were tyring to fleece him for £5 which looks very small beer when compared to a Newlyn bailiff acting on behalf of Harrow Council. This story simply would not happen in Barnet as Mr Mustard has good contacts with two of the in-house parking managers (he cuts out the middleman NSL as they don't really get him) and they would have realised that what had been done was wrong and sorted it out following amicable discussions.

Sadly we are dealing with Harrow Council who are a different kettle of (rotten) fish altogether.

Now you are going to have to concentrate here as I give you the time line. All names are fictional.

1 November 11 - John Johns buys a car, a small people carrier which is perfect for use as a mini-cab. He slightly naughtily registers the car at his work address, Maestro Minicabs.

5 March 12 - He sells the car to Harold Smith who registers the car to his home.

18 March 12 -  Harrow's cctv spots the car, at 2am, on a double yellow in a service road in front of shops. The driver has been to a late night shop.

28 March 12 - The vehicle record has not yet been changed at the DVLA and a postal PCN is sent to John Johns.

7 June 12 - The car is sold to John Smith (Harold & John are related but live at different addresses) who registers the car to his home.

31 July 12 - Fred Brown's Car Hire Ltd is incorporated. It trades from the same shop unit as Maestro minicabs and there is also a beauty business in the same unit.

10 September 12 - Fred Brown's Car Hire Ltd buy the car for £2,900 in cash and rent it out straight away to a taxi driver.

19 July 13 - Fred Brown's Car Hire Ltd rent the car to Alan Alans for a year.

6 January 14 - The bailiff finds the car near to Maestro Minicabs (not surprising as Alan Alans gets his fares from there) and clamps it and doesn't believe there has been a genuine sale when there have been three. This is because a friend of Fred Brown's who is helping them is called John and the bailiff thinks this is John Johns when it is actually John Roberts.

So starts a long round of complaining to the council, Harrow councillors and a local MP, Matthew Offord, none of whom seem to be at all interested. Rather than spend money on legal fees Mr Mustard thought the Local Government Ombudsman would see how wrong the seizure was, but he was wrong. Legal action will have to be next.

There are some interesting aspects to this case.

Harrow Council told the Ombudsman that the law is that they can only ask DVLA once for keeper's details. The LGO accepted this. In Mr Mustard's view that is bunkum. He will catch them in future months doing just that on another case, for sure.

There was no action by Harrow Council after issuing the Charge Certificate in June 12 until the Order for Recovery in August 13. As John Johns was no longer working for Maestro Minicabs, and as they destroy driver's records 6 months after they leave, it is unsurprising that John Johns did not respond to any PCN paperwork. The undue delay of more than 6 months at any stage in the processing of a PCN is, per London Councils, reason to cancel the PCN and would almost certainly have lead to a cancellation at PATAS if the case could have got there.

The Ombudsman refused sight of the Charge Certificate and Order for Recovery to Fred Brown's Car Hire Ltd on the grounds of data protection, as they do not know John Johns. So their car can be taken without sight of any document about the relevant PCN and they have no rights of appeal. A right Catch 22 that one.

The DVLA supplied all the ownership dates. They show that the PCN was issued to the wrong keeper, it should have been to Harold Smith. The LGO, the bailiff and Harrow Council are not concerned by this.

In all this time the vehicle has not been sold by the bailiff which indicates a certain nervousness on their part. They are right. There is going to be one hell of a claim against them.

Why was the car taken in the first place when it was clearly tools of the trade?

The vehicle has now been in storage for over 200 days.

The bailiff has provided the following figures for the debt at 1 August 12; best take a deep breath here and sit down.

Item	£
150 days storage	7,200.00
Bailiff fees	963.02
PCN itself	172.00
Total	8,335.02

which is a storage rate of £48 a day (it must be at Heathrow Airport in the short term car park?) Why have only 150 days been charged for when the car has been in storage for over 200? Doesn't that 2p really hurt!

But, if Fred Brown's want to make payment to take the vehicle (note that the bailiff isn't planning to return it even though it won't be in a drivable state; it will be filthy, it will have flat tyres and the battery will be as flat as a pancake despite the bailiff's duty to take care of seized goods) then they can pay a mere £1,980 as follows:

 

Item	£
150 days storage	1,016.98
Bailiff fees	791.02
PCN itself	172.00
Total	1,980.00

So why is the bailiff offering a discount of 75% and doesn't that evidence the excessive nature of bailiff's fees?

The main reason, in Mr Mustard's opinion is that they know they are in the soup and they hope to negotiate their way out of it.

Imagine a bill for £8,335 for a vehicle which cost £2,900, what sort of idiot would pay that?

Even £1,980 is ridiculous as the vehicle has depreciated in the "care" of the bailiff. They will be lucky to get £500 for it at auction without a log book or keys so returning the car if they can get more for it that way from the owner than at auction makes for more profit for the bailiff.

Mr Mustard thinks that they are going to find themselves in front of a County Court judge explaining why they took a car away from a company that didn't even exist when the PCN was issued and who aren't liable for the PCN which is in any event in the wrong name. Mr Mustard is looking forward to the hearing when he will sit in the back row, smiling to himself, saying nothing, quietly taking notes and watching the bailiff sweat.

This story isn't over yet.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

You pay your parking ticket and then the bailiff clamps your car!

This story simply shouldn't have happened.

23 September 2013 - The Chipping Barnet 'D' CPZ zone, near High Barnet tube, was extended. The lady in question, Miss H, a lady in her late seventies, applied twice for a permit but partly due to the judicial review result her applications didn't get processed as her cheque was for too much money. This left her without a permit when the zone started. A dispensation was issued but no-one told Miss H that it would expire.

3 October 13 - A permit was issued but not put in the car immediately.

9 October 13 - A second PCN was issued, for £110 (the first one was paid in full).

11 October 13 - An informal challenge was made.

11 November 13 - A Notice to Owner (NtO) was issued.

?? November 13  - Formal representations were made in response to the NtO.

28 November 13 - The council (NSL) reject the representations but said £55 would be accepted if paid within 14 days of the letter (no time allowed for delivery as is customary).

6 December 13 - A cheque for £55 is sent by Special Delivery at a cost of £6.22

11 December 13 - The cheque is cleared.

18 December 13 - A Charge Certificate is issued for £165 less a credit for the £55 paid. This is a blunder of the first water and is an illegal demand for money and threatens to register the non-existent debt at the county court and then send in the bailiffs. Miss H was abroad on holiday. This was one reason why she had paid up (she wouldn't have paid anything if she had been introduced to Mr Mustard sooner than she was).

9 January 2014 - An Order for Recovery is issued.

24 January 14 - TASK bailiffs write to say they are investigating and will respond within 28 days. Mr Mustard doesn't know what prompted this letter from TASK apart from some correspondence from Miss H that was probably sent to the council (which means NSL who own TASK).

18 February 14 - The Warrant of Execution is issued.

18 February 14 - The standard first letter is sent by TASK bailiffs.

20 February 14 - Miss H phones the bailiffs and is asked to send proof of payment (which Miss H will have sent off.)

14 April 14 - A bailiff arrives at the home of Miss H, clamps her car and then knocks and asks for £408.52 which she pays as she needs her car to get about.

16 April 14 - Mr Mustard visits Miss H at home at the request of a charity who happen to know of his expertise. Miss H is upset, shocked, annoyed, seriously out of pocket and innocent of any wrongdoing.

16 April 14 - Mr Mustard emails the Parking Manager at Barnet Council (thus cutting out NSL) and outlines the above. His email includes the following paragraphs:

What should happen now is that the sum paid to the bailiff of £408.52 is refunded as it was not due for payment and in compensation the PCN value paid, of £55, should be refunded. A letter of apology should also be sent by NSL Ltd to Miss h as she has had the worry of this to deal with and can ill afford to be without the funds paid to the bailiff.

This whole mess has come about because permits were dealt with in one place (I have not studied it in detail but Miss H did try to get a permit in good time and had two applications returned by the looks of it, probably due to the judicial review of the price), customer service calls in another and enforcement in a third. The system that is in existence in Barnet is simply not fit for purpose. I know it is not your decision to be set up in this way but it isn't properly serving the residents of Barnet.

Our senior citizens should not have to suffer the attentions of bailiffs as a result of the administrative incompetence of NSL Ltd, the parking enforcement contractor of the council.

30 April 14 - Mr Mustard reminds the parking manager that he is waiting.

30 April 14 - The parking manager says he is awaiting feedback (presumably from NSL who must now be in a right sweat - this event isn't going to do their KPI any good)

20 May 14 - Mr Mustard reminds the parking manager that he is waiting.

20 May 14 - Mr Mustard receives a full reply.

Dear Mr Mustard

I apologise for the lateness of my reply. I had again been called away unexpectedly.

Miss H should not have been subjected to the Bailiffs nor paid any additional money. I confirm that a full refund of all monies paid to the Bailiff will be refunded with immediate effect. I confirm that our service provider have internally identified why this error has occurred and will be taking appropriate action. An apology letter will be sent to Miss H confirming the refund.

I apologise on behalf of the Council for the poor level of customer service Miss H has experienced. As a means of making amends I have requested 40 visitors vouchers be sent to Miss H at her address in zone D, they should arrive by the end of the week.

If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to email me.

Kind regards

Parking Manager

So, there is the happy ending that you were promised.

What went wrong? Just about everything.

Permit issuance was in-house back in September (it is now being dealt with by Capita which won't make things any better) and instead of rejecting the application the council should have banked the larger cheque and then sent a refund. That way Miss H would have had her permit on the day the zone extension came into force. Why this was still a problem when the council had declared on 2 August that they would not contest the parking judicial review decision is unclear.

The council should have cancelled the PCN as they knew Miss H had been issued with a permit. The fact that it had not been put in her car within a few days is not a heinous crime and she should have been given the benefit of the doubt.

When the council sent their letter of 28 November 13 they probably didn't set the computer properly to stop all action if £55 was paid by 11 December 13.

When the payment of 6 December was banked no-one thought to stop all further processing as this was an agreed full and final settlement. This is probably because cheques were sent, at that time, to Worthing and that is the offices of RR Donnelley and their job probably finished at the point of banking. It would be up to someone at NSL in Croydon to review the list of receipts and then update the processing software. That probably wasn't anyone's job either.

It looks like TASK, who shouldn't even have been involved at 24 January 14, as there isn't a Warrant in existence at that date, didn't properly follow up the promise made in their letter. NSL should not have given the query to their sister company TASK to investigate and really shouldn't use their own group company bailiff at all as there isn't sufficient scrutiny of what the bailiff does or enough independence.

It looks like the proof of payment sent in by Miss H didn't get looked at properly.

The amount charged by the bailiff was excessive (this one was under the old pre 6 April rules) even if the £117 was owing, which it wasn't.

So this is what you get when you outsource your parking enforcement to NSL and TASK. The mistreatment of pensioners. That is what One Barnet means. Remember this when you vote tomorrow. You didn't find this One Barnet outsourcing in the 2010 Conservative manifesto. What has been left out of the 2014 one? more of the same but worse?

Mr Mustard will see the apology. It had better be a good one.

At least he hasn't got to send this case to the Local Government Ombudsman, unlike Harrow Council who haven't yet twigged that when Mr Mustard sends them a complaint, that there will be plenty to complain about which they should take seriously. In Harrow they (the Newlyn employed bailiff) have removed a car that doesn't belong to the person named on the warrant which is a big no no. The compensation due will be sizeable. Mr Mustard gave them every chance to return the car and be reasonable.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Printed, promoted and published by Derek Dishman, 21 Carnarvon Rd, Barnet EN5 4LX

Why do councils ignore operational guidance?

who is meant to be serving whom?

Local councils exist to provide services to residents, businesses and visitors. Parking is often described as a service which part of it is but much of it is a vast money making machine serving itself and taking your money. Councils are rightly concerned at the cost of providing services and always try to drive the unit cost down and a favourite method is to nudge you, or force you, to channel shift i.e. to make you use the method which is the cheapest for the council to process. If they can ramrod you into using a webform or eform (probably also have other names but basically a box or series of boxes on their website into which you can only enter certain details and these then get entered directly into the correct fields of the relevant software then you have taken the data processing requirement away and reduced input cost to zero) then you are using the quickest and cheapest method for the council. However they have forgotten they are there to serve. If you complete a webform you only get a copy of what you have done if the council send you one and this could be vital evidence in a PCN appeal.

The council have placed their administrative convenience in front of the customer's and have made us their servant by this forced channel shifting. In Mr Mustard's case this usually backfires as he simply refuses (unless there is no option) to use webforms. The reason is simple, if he is helping people with their PCN then he has a number of appeal points which he uses time and time again and it is easier for him to have all his emails together in neat files in the parking ticket section of Outlook from which he can easily cut and paste into a new email than to navigate his way through up to 17 pages of a webform (Camden council's form has only 5 pages to wade through som isn't the worst but really!). Mr Mustard has this year handled appeals in at least Barnet, Harrow, Islington, Camden, Hammersmith & Fulham and Haringey although he prefers to stick to Barnet as he knows their process errors inside out. He should be able to contact them all by email and letter but often he sees the dreaded webform being put forward as the first option. The upshot of this is that unless Mr Mustard is bang up against the deadline, he uses a traditional letter, for which he gets a free proof of posting, instead of the webform and thus the relevant council is faced with the most expensive method to handle. Hard cheese!

Mr Mustard decided to do something about operational guidance being ignored. He happened to have two PCN to appeal for a blue badge holding friend in Haringey and so he lodged a complaint. He has no particular beef with this borough who aren't actually the worst offenders (they are going to suffer when cctv for parking gets taken away though).

Here is the complaint.

I wish to complain about the fact that PCN issued by Haringey Council do not include an email address for appeals to be made to. This is a general complaint and not about a specific PCN.

I attach a copy for your convenience of Operational Guidance from the Department for Transport. Paragraph 1.4 points out that information printed in Comic Sans is something that authorities must have regard to.

In paragraph 10.4 it says, (in Comic Sans) that you should include an email address for motorists to use. The council does not do so. Please amend your practice as soon as possible to include an email address for appeals within a PCN.

Here is the response.

Thank you for your enquiry.

We have ( with our IT contractor) developed a more sophisticated online representation / appeal service for motorists.

This replaced the previous email offer. We do not intend offering the email option in addition to the online service and feel that we not only comply with recommendations and guidance in the Operational Guidance, but have gone beyond that expected.

How you can go beyond something you don't actually do is an interesting use of language.

Mr Mustard restated his complaint.

I refer to the below answer. We could debate for some time whether a webform (the system to which I think he refers) is more sophisticated or not than an email but that is the not the question at issue (something more sophisticated may not necessarily be more convenient or better).

I have no complaint with the council choosing to offer a webform in addition to email but not in place of it. Interestingly you offer both for complaints but not for PCN.

The council is not complying with Operational Guidance and so my complaint stands.

The council then said they were not going to change.

Thank you for your further enquiry with regards to the Council not complying with Operational Guidance.

I note your reference to paragraph10.4 of operational guidance and we are satisfied that this places no direct obligation on us or any other authority to explicitly offer an email channel for appeals.

We do comply with operational guidance and I am also satisfied that the channels we provide to motorists to appeal comply with statutory requirements.   As stated in our previous response, we have (with our IT contractor) developed a more sophisticated online representation / appeal service for motorists that you can use if you have internet access, something also needed to send an email.  Therefore  it remains our clear view that we have not removed any access channel that will disadvantage any motorist wishing to appeal a Penalty Notice.

Since the introduction of our online system (in line with many other authorities)  we have had no appeals to PATAS  based on grounds similar to that which you have outlined. In fact motorists are far happier to receive direct confirmation from our online appeals system that the appeal has been logged and immediately receive a receipt/ reference number for any future reference that their appeal, rather than simply sending an email.

I hope that you are satisfied with my response to your complaint. If you are dissatisfied, we cannot consider your complaint further under the Council’s complaints procedures. This is because your complaint related solely to the application of a council policy, which I have concluded has been properly and fairly applied. However, you may complain to an independent complaints service, the Local Government Ombudsman, who may be able to help you.

Mr Mustard sent a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman who has a huge postbag and a reduced budget so takes some convincing to take up the cudgels and is currently resisting. How did Mr Mustard have to submit his complaint, yes you guessed it, only one method was offered, by webform which of course discriminates against the poor who can't afford a computer, the computer illiterate, the disabled, the elderly & Mr Mustard. He duly filled in it. To be fair he was sent a copy but you can see how Mr Mustard was forced to present his complaint whereas he would have preferred to wax lyrical in his own way.

The omens for Mr Mustard's complaint were therefore poor from the start.

So Mr Mustard got to thinking about if other boroughs were better or worse than Haringey. He knew for example that Barnet's PCN (and he is only talking about ones attached to vehicles, not those sent by post) only allow on the back for written and webform representations but they do actually accept them by email to barnet@nslservices.co.uk even if their auto-acknowledgement is somewhat confusing in saying both that they do and don't accept representations by email! NSL have to print out your email, scan it and put it on the relevant PCN file which they often get wrong by forgetting to scan or attaching to the wrong file so using email is fraught with danger, but danger is Mr Mustard's middle name (actually he doesn't have one, his first name is Morris, any suggestions for middle names gratefully received).

So Mr Mustard duly sent off an FOI to every London Borough and the City on 1 October 13, although Mr Mustard didn't bother Barnet as he knew the answers. In theory by 1 November every borough should have replied but FOI (and Mr Mustard has rather too much experience in the field!) is rarely responded to on time by every London borough so there are gaps in his information which will be filled in as FOI officers read the blog and are now embarrassed (I know you all talk to each other about who this bloke is in Barnet who asks questions & insists on proper answers) and rush some answers out.

That is the good folks in Barking, Bexley, Brent, Enfield, Harrow & Lambeth, who subject to Mr Mustard being shown to have overlooked something, get "nul points".

please email corrections & additions to mrmustard@zoho.com

The answer in the letter column is, and should be, yes every time as that is specified in the Appeals Regulations 2007.

The email column should really also be a yes everywhere but it isn't. There are seventeen good boroughs and 10 bad ones in this regard, including the afore-mentioned Haringey.

The using the council website column has 19 yeses (so a method that isn't required features more often than the one that is specified in operational guidance, go figure). 14 of these councils do the decent thing and also offer email as a choice so should be praised for offering the choice. The 6 who only offer webforms and not email should be castigated or nudged back into line by the LGO.

Camden
Greenwich
Hackney
Haringey
Sutton
Westminster

please sit yourselves on the naughty step and reflect upon your behaviour. To get off the naughty step all you have to do is to add an email address for representations on the back of your PCN and you will go into Mr Mustard's reformed characters box.

Special praise goes to the City and almost as good as them Southwark. The City will hear from you in almost any way that you want to communicate with them and Southwark are also very considerate. It is easy for the City to be helpful & generous as they don't rely on parking for their income and have far fewer streets than most to worry about.

The phone option should be offered for those PCN which are glaringly wrong and can thus be cancelled at the first opportunity and for the benefit of the illiterate, the disabled, the blind (don't laugh, they may own the car and have a driver) and for anyone else who can't at this moment write a letter (broken arm maybe, etc).

Interesting to see the fax machine hanging on in 6 offices, it is a bit of a relic although many people now have all-in-one scanner/printer/fax machines so may have made a slight comeback from approaching obsolescence.

Having given out the prizes the wooden spoons (three are needed) go to

Hammersmith & Fulham
Havering
Lewisham

all three of whom insist on receiving representations by letter alone. Please bend over whilst the spoon is forcibly applied. You should be red-faced as well as red-cheeked.

Would any council who just happens to read this blog post please have a look at your policies and see if they could be improved? Barnet are, despite him getting nearly every PCN he touches cancelled, very helpful to Mr Mustard in this regard and when he brings to their attention, by direct email to a parking manager, some glaring ticket issue error they are usually pretty quick to agree and get it cancelled. Not all is perfect as the council won't give way on the moribund 2011 PCN which they are desperately still trying to collect and Mr Mustard is trying to kill off wholesale. They need the money!

Mr Mustard also asked a question of all councils at the same time about the extent to which each council implements the London Councils Code of Practice on Civil Parking and Traffic Enforcement. The entertaining answers to that, sent as a business as usual question rather than FOI, will have to wait until another day.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard