Newham Council are Cheats - #10

 

PCNs are used these days as a blunt instrument of revenue raising to fill holes in council budgets. Humanity, service to residents and fairness seem to be alien concepts in council parking departments these days (Mr Mustard does get to see them when he approaches senior management but those cases are the exception, he can't deal with the 5m+ PCN issued a year in London). 

Mr Umar is a good man helping his elderly and disabled grandmother into a wheelchair and to transfer to the car. He has been abused by Newham Council. Luckily he has a backbone and a sense of right and wrong.

He was cheated out of a Notice of Acceptance.

He was cheated out of hours of his time:

- in starting an Appeal to the tribunal which he shouldn't have had to fight

- spent in considering the voluminous evidence pack, probably 100 pages

- spent in preparing his case and appearing on line and explaining his case, clearly in quite a lot of detail, to the adjudicator

- spent worrying that surely a council must surely be right and he would end up having to pay £130 as the discount was long gone.

Councils need to reflect upon the results of their actions and 99.9% of what they write should be accurate, not the usual sleight of hand responses which Mr Mustard gives a good kicking to because of his profound knowledge.

Brent Council - a deliberate lie?

If you look at Mr Mustard's immediately prior post about battery failure you will be up with the story.

Mr Mustard wanted to establish the factual basis on which an indivdual made the decision to accuse the motorist of failing to maintain their maintenance free battery. The obvious way to do that was to make a Subject Access Request for the motorist's data, on which the letter of rejection was founded (relevant extract below).

Here is the request:

and here is the response:

Now you might yhink that the response was a standard one and that the writer simply picked the wrong paragraph to insert into the letter but that doesn't excuse the writer as they should carefully check any letter with financial implications.

Look, bold and CAPITALS, thus the most important part of the letter as far as Brent Council are concerned; show us the money!

Mr Mustard has suggested to the motorist that a complaint is lodged, there has been a failure to adhere to the Nolan principles, in particular 'honesty'.

Have you had a similar letter from Brent Council about your battery? don't pay up, make them prove their case.

The end.

Nolan Principles / No Principles

The seven principles of public life are

and in the last 18 months Mr Mustard thinks he has heard them talked about only the once and even then probably in the pub by the bloggers and not within the council chamber.

He is particularly interested in the Objectivity principle which states:

 
In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on merit.

Now take a look at the first section of this internal email from Andrew McLaughlan (the One Barnet Communications Manager - hence why you have never heard of him, he hasn't communicated with the public?) of 25 March 2011 which clearly states that in-house is not an option (quaintly phrased as "rather than providing services itself") 

(He only "expects" that the services will be cheaper. "Expect" isn't good enough for Mr Mustard and it shouldn't be good enough for councillors.)

Quite simply as the in-house option has not been given a look-in on DRS and on NSCSO the councillors in the Cabinet have not adhered to the Objectivity principle of the Nolan principles. It looks like Mr Mustard will have to talk to his lawyers.

What disturbingly closed minds the ruling councillors in the Cabinet have. 


Yours frugally

Mr Mustard