Keep it to yourself

Residents Forum Questionnaire - Barnet Council

 

Barnet Council usually carry out their consultations using surveymonkey which Mr Mustard refuses to use (giving his data to some corporation in the USA which might get hacked or abused or sold on is not something that Mr Mustard will sign up to) and he always asks for a paper copy of the consultation, a not at all radical idea that the council struggle to deal with (his copy of the Saracens CPZ survey has not arrived yet; in the time it took to send him an email saying it would be sent it could have been sent; why do people do 2 tasks when 1 would be much better?) and means that their consultations don't reach the hard to reach groups who don't use computers and who should still have a voice.

The above consultation was going to be carried out merely at the now sparsely attended forums (compared to before they were neutered) and so the people who do not attend, as satisfactory answers rarely arrive and they have largely given up, had no chance to have their say as the consultation was not on the council's website last week as reported on twitter by Mr Reasonable (@ReasonableNB if you want to follow him on twitter) but now it is and whereas before it was going to be fully considered at the Constitution Committee on 8 July, now it can't be, as the consultation runs until 15 July - a whole 2 weeks. That will give time for 350,000 residents to be properly consulted, will it not? No, it won't, nothing like it. Some officer must seriously have thought that asking a couple of dozen people at 3 forums would bring in sufficient responses on which to base a logical decision. Even putting it on the consultation hub of the website won't do much good. The advertising of it on blogs will reach more readers. Who gets up on a Monday morning and thinks, "I know, I'll go and have a look at the consultation hub on the council website" (apart from very interested parties like bloggers)? Answer, nobody does.

The questionnaire needs widely distributing. It should be in libraries, every child should get a copy from school to take home for a parent or guardian to answer and perhaps discuss local democracy with them, a pdf could be added to every email the council issues (each survey for a particular week) copies should be handed out outside supermarkets and railway stations etc etc until the response rate climbs into the thousands i.e at least 1% of residents.

What is Mr Mustard going to put on his form? Being the new boy (still only 2 years old) Mr Mustard doesn't know about how forums used to be but they were well attended apparently and that is a good place to start; return them to how they used to be and then change them slowly by trial and error.

Changes Mr Mustard might otherwise make would be to have morning, afternoon and evening sessions of one forum, in a venue like a cinema or theatre (with access for the disabled), have the whole borough together rather than an artificial split across the parliamentary constituencies and have a main theme for each month (yes, monthly forums) and then in addition allow any questions whatsoever and sufficient councillors and officers there such that proper answers can be given on the day. Broadcast the whole thing on the web.

You can download your form from above and then post it in to the council or scan it and send it by email.

It is, in theory, your council. Please tell them what you want.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Let's appear to do something about the parking problem

The Parking consultation team at full speed

It must be at least 2 years ago that the residents of Chipping Barnet (or High Barnet as it is often otherwise known) were consulted about the operation of the CPZ. Since then, despite chasing by at least 2 of the neighbours nothing has been heard. There was a question about it at a residents' forum about 6 months ago and the answer was that there wasn't enough resource to deal with the answers (or more likely that the answers were not the ones that were wanted and so we got kicked into the long grass). Time for a question at the next residents' forum later this month (unless it is less than 6 months since the question was asked in which case we will be in the stupid position of being time-barred from asking about the ridiculous council delay - this is democracy as practised in Barnet) as, by some miracle, there has been plenty of time since then to get the Saracens CPZ onto the drawing board.

Having comprehensively messed up parking in Barnet in 2011 and set the whole of the borough's traders against them (well not the ones in Brent Cross obviously) instead of simply reversing the bonkers decision to remove parking meters the council simply blunder on despite howls of protest and constructive suggestions. Richard Cornelius and Dean Cohen simply tinker at the edges. A 30p reduction is meant to please traders? It shows an astonishing lack of understanding of the problems faced by Barnet's traders.

Anyway, the council, being bereft of ideas, decided to consult with traders. Mr Mustard should have been consulted but wasn't. The consultation end date was 28 September.

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12 September 

Dear Sirs

We have operated a business in High Barnet for 25 years. We should be consulted about parking arrangements. The Consultation

Please send the referred to letter.

Yours sincerely

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Guess what? Mr Mustard did not get a reply in time and missed the deadline. Never mind, it will be at least 2 years before anything happens so you can still write in if you like. Mr Mustard wrote again today.

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Dear Sirs

I don't know why you didn't respond to my email of 11 September requesting a copy of the letter sent to businesses about parking and so I have missed your consultation deadline.

I am sure that you won't yet have considered the results so there is no prejudice in you now adding my views to the ones received.

In 2010 parking worked; traders and residents were not, on the whole, unhappy.

In 2012 parking is clearly broken with the expected income in the first quarter down by £600k (money talks); traders and residents are very unhappy and there is open revolt in certain quarters and the council, by merely tinkering at the edges, is risking the threat of widespread revolt.

Therefore, in the short term, the answer is simply to reverse what happened in 2011. So put parking meters back that accept cash & add the facility for credit cards. By all means retain pay-by-phone and in the years to come its use will increase although what is more likely is that it will be overtaken by some other new technology. Also put the charges back to what they were at the start of 2010.

In the long term for High Streets the council needs to implement the ideas set out in the Portas review. Primarily there needs to be a free parking period so that people start to visit the local town centres again. I used to visit North Finchley purely to visit the book shop as you could park outside for a while for free and this despite there being, at that time, 2 bookshops in Chipping Barnet (North Finchley had a stock range which wasn't available locally). I would inevitably also go into other shops whilst I was there. Once the now closed Borders opened at London Colney and parking restrictions existed at N Finchley I simply didn't visit that High Street any more (not until in the last 12 months when I found out about Cafe Buzz and when I visit there I either do it by motorcycle which is free to park or I park the van on the edge of the CPZ and walk in).

In addition, all restrictive hours need to be reviewed, as they are a hotchpotch, to see if their times could be reduced, especially CPZs as we have some that are for 1 hour, others all day and some town centres (e.g. Totteridge) without a CPZ and restrictions which are only intended to maximise traffic flow at peak hours. Our High Streets need to be put onto a level playing field with shopping centres which offer free parking even if all day free cannot be managed as there simply isn't the free space.

The areas covered by some of the CPZs are huge and far bigger than the handful of streets envisaged by their enabling legislation. The spread of them should be reviewed to see if they can be reduced as during their hours of operation many roads in all day zones sit empty which is a complete waste of a resource.

In summary, radical change and less local government interference in parking would be a good thing.

Make it simple to park, make it easy to pay, make the charges reasonable, and people will come back to the High St.

Yours sincerely

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This email has been now been added to the response pile as Mr Mustard copied it to an Assistant Director to make sure something happened. 

Right, sit back and wait. Will it be days, weeks, months, years or decades before the results are published or will the answers simply be too unpalatable to the council and never see the light of day?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Now just remind me...

those were the days

FOI question ( 27 January 2012 )

From 1 January 2011 please advise the date on which the reminders were posted to residents in possession of a permit allowing them to park within the CPZ for each month since then up to February 2012 (which is presumably the most recent month for which reminders were issued).

Please make clear if there were any months in which reminders were not sent and give the reason/s.

Are the reminders posted first class or second?

Response ( 24 July 2012 - only 6 months! )

From January 2011 to March 2012 Permit reminder letters were being issued approximately 1 month before the expiry of the resident permit. In April 2012 we became aware that reminder letters had not been issued. This was raised with members of the management team in the Customer Service Organisation and the facility was switched on towards the middle of May 2012.

I cannot provide you with precise dates when reminder letters were issued because these are system generated letters based upon the account information. To clarify, there are no fixed dates when reminder letters are printed each month. It is dependent upon the date when the renewal period starts. The renewal period starts 1 month before the expiry of the permit. This varies on a case by case basis.

Reminders are posted second class.

Mr Mustard was aware that the system went wrong in April 2012 because that is when his own permit was due for renewal and fortunately he had his own record and applied in time.

If your permit was due for renewal between the end of March and mid-May 2012 and you received a parking ticket and paid it, this would be a good time to ask for your money back as your failure to renew was not your fault. Quite why it took from April to mid May to put right such a simple reminder system is indicative of the administrative complexity and lack of control caused by separating the service from customer service.

If you have failed to receive a reminder at any other time, and the council admit that they have no idea when they have sent out reminders, which is a truly shocking lack of record keeping, then you can ask Mr Mustard for a copy of his FOI response in support of your argument that you were not reminded.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard