Barnet Council - Covid-19 parking permit changes

From worse to bad - looks like a phishing attempt

Mr Mustard heard about the above letter being very poorly presented and is now lucky(?) enough to have seen a copy of it. There wasn't a letterhead nor a named contact and signature. One could be forgiven for throwing it away as it couldn't possibly have come form the council or one of their contractors, or could it? Probably thanks to complaints received a revised letter was cobbled together but it really isn't much better.

The second letter is marginally better in that it has the borough logo on the bottom but would have benefited from all the usual address and communication details in the top right. It still looks dodgy.

What really made the recipient think it was fishy (the no cash parking council offering to accept cash?) was that they never paid by debit or credit card in the first place.

They paid by cheque, which has already cleared.

Well done Crapita, down to your usual standard.

Best send a properly drawn up third letter (don't charge us council tax payers for it please).

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Permits figure differences - Mr Mustard has some of the answer

Mr Mustard finds that in his not as yet dealt with FOI responses he had some weekly figures for permits. The visitor vouchers and annual car permit vouchers are included in one column with bay suspension income and all types of vouchers and permits but the two main strands of income are visitor vouchers and annual car permits.

It is easy to see that the reason why income is over budget in the first 2 weeks of the year is because residents were taking the final chance to buy concessionary visitor vouchers at £1 before the £4 price made them a penal rate. After that sales fall off a cliff and even the fact that 90% of residents are forced to renew their annual permit at extortionate cost does not make up for an even larger fall in the sale of visitor vouchers.

Mr Mustard feels some sympathy for the parking manager in this situation as he was never going to be able to make the budget (which will have been closely related to the previous year) once Brian's bonkers "brainwave" came into effect.

	Permits & suspensions
Dates	Budget expectation	Received	Variance	Cumulative variance
1 - 9 Apr 11	£11,111	£34,895	£23,784	£23,784
10 - 16 Apr 11	£39,216	£48,446	£9,230	£33,014
17 - 23 Apr 11	£82,316	£38,866	-£43,450	-£10,436
24 - 30 Apr 11	£76,092	£17,338	-£58,754	-£69,190
1 - 7 May 11	£61,632	£18,601	-£43,031	-£112,221
8 - 14 MAY 11	£35,451	£40,885	£5,434	-£106,786
15 - 21 May 11	£61,775	£52,536	-£9,239	-£116,025
21 - 28 May 11	£47,939	£39,998	-£7,941	-£123,966
29 May-4 Jun 11	£44,323	£28,268	-£16,055	-£140,021
5 - 11 June 11	£46,296	£49,822	£3,526	-£136,495
12 - 18 June 11	£87,462	£63,115	-£24,346	-£160,842
19 - 25 June 11	£76,571	£54,846	-£21,725	-£182,567
26 Jun - 2 Jul 11	£74,628	£46,364	-£28,265	-£210,831
3 - 9 July 11	£65,334	£43,205	-£22,129	-£232,961
10 - 16 July 11	£57,504	£47,492	-£10,012	-£242,973
17- 23 July 11	£75,916	£48,062	-£27,855	-£270,827
24 - 30 July 11	£64,155	£44,273	-£19,883	-£290,710
31Jul - 6 Aug 11	£60,269	£37,532	-£22,737	-£313,447
7 - 13 Aug 11	£56,352	£48,088	-£8,264	-£321,711
14 - 20 Aug 11	£76,648	£54,860	-£21,788	-£343,499
21 - 27 Aug 11	£63,623	£39,829	-£23,794	-£367,293
28 Aug - 3 Sept 11	£62,413	£30,982	-£31,430	-£398,723
4 - 10 Sept 11	£43,442	£39,614	-£3,828	-£402,550
11 - 17 Sept 11	£62,352	£30,145	-£32,207	-£434,757
18 - 24 Sept 11	£51,916	£31,707	-£20,209	-£454,966
25 Sept - 1 Oct 11	£55,095	£52,821	-£2,274	-£457,240
2 - 8 Oct 11	£49,959	£30,936	-£19,023	-£476,263
9 - 15 Oct 11	£44,155	£40,668	-£3,487	-£479,750
16 - 22 Oct 11	£72,803	£51,137	-£21,665	-£501,416
23 - 29 Oct 11	£65,516	£42,335	-£23,181	-£524,597
30 Oct - 5 Nov 11	£61,434	£49,000	-£12,434	-£537,031
6 - 12 Nov 11	£63,499	£47,325	-£16,174	-£553,205
13 - 19 Nov 11	£62,776	£41,616	-£21,160	-£574,365
20 - 26 Nov 11	£55,455	£39,415	-£16,040	-£590,405

So the price of not standing up to Brian is a hole in the budget of £590,405

This makes his taxi bills look like small potatoes.

The role of the Chief Executive

It is the case that councillors decide on policy and officers have to execute it but as ever life isn't that simple. Nick Walkley should have seen that the excessive permit and voucher increases were going to end in tears and as part of the requirements set out in the role summary of the Chief Exec. is "Commercial acumen is also essential" he ought to have had a quiet word with Brian Coleman (is that possible?) to challenge the decision and save embarrassment for the whole council, officers and members alike. Mr Mustard doesn't know the full career history of Nick Walkley but he does know that it involved spells in local and national government and possibly as a lecturer. If it doesn't include any spells in industry then perhaps the members chose the wrong man for the job.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard