Parking Policy - Dear Mr Millard - #2

Dear Mr Millard

Further to Barnet’s request for feedback on its proposed parking policy I invite you to consider the following suggestions:

· Issue all correctly applied for permits and blue badges within 24 hours of receipt of the application.

· Refrain from issuing PCNs for parking vouchers which do not bear the vehicle registration number but which are otherwise properly completed/scratched off.

· Issue warnings for minor contraventions as the default position and only issue PCNs where a motorist has received two warning notices within the previous 12 months.

· Insist on CEOs adhering to the same rules that motorists are required to follow – i.e. they should park any vehicle they use in the course of their duties in a safe and legal manner, clearly displaying a permit from the council making it clear that their vehicle has permission to park without payment.

· Do not issue PCN’s for infringements that occur after the event has finished for which a time-limited parking restriction has been put in place.

· Publish regular reviews of the impact of parking enforcement on those with disabilities or who are otherwise vulnerable such as the elderly.

· Make all decisions about challenges to PCNs (both at the informal challenge and formal appeal stage) by Council officers and not allow NSL to take any part in such processes other than to provide evidence (if required by a Council officer) and to dispatch the correspondence.

· Publish all TMOs online within 7 days of their approval but in any event before they come into effect.

· Issue a written apology and pay the appellant 50% of the amount of the disputed PCN when the appellant is successful at PATAS and deduct the costs of so doing from the fees of the contractor which incorrectly issued the PCN in the first place, or, if the error is related to an act or omission of the council, donate that share of the fee to a panel of local charities and charge it against the budget for official travel.

· Ensure that no bailiff used in recovery has any connection whatsoever, direct or indirect, whether by shares or contracts, with NSL or Capita or any individual who provides services to the council whether personally or through a service company or as an elected member or council officer.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide suggestions on your parking proposals.

Regards

Parking Policy - Dear Mr Millard - #1

Following Mr Mustard's suggestion a number of residents wrote to Mr Millard, the Parking Improvement Policy Manager of Barnet Council, with their own parking policy ideas. Here is #1

Dear Mr Millard

Having read through your parking proposals I am writing to suggest that you talk with Mr Mustard since he is clearly in tune with the local residents of Barnet. I have read through his suggestions and he is most definitely 'putting the community first' which is what residents of Barnet want and your headed paper claim to do.

Since the parking system was introduced my visitors and I have been patronised and made to feel like:

liars - 'have you REALLY used up all your visitor vouchers? If you want more you'll have to POLITELY write in to ask very nicely for more’ - so you’re controlling how many friends, visitors and builders I’m allowed(?!)

cheats - visitors have incorrectly scratched the wrong day or date on their visitor voucher resulting in a fine

criminals - the carpenter who attended my house for many days once put the visitor voucher upside down on the stack of vouchers that he had law-abidingly used throughout his time working for us, Or the incident where the voucher for another builder fell on the floor of his car.

Not to mention the time when my mother stood on my doorstep to hand something to me saying 'no dear, I won't come in as I'm In a hurry' then turned around to see the parking attendant tapping into his machine. When I called the parking office and spoke to Christine I was told 'oh what a shame, why didn't your mother call you to tell you that she was coming, you could then have been standing on the roadside waiting with a ticket to hand over'!!!! I'm sure you will agree that this suggestion is quite ridiculous. I see that in your proposal there still is a zero minute wait time before issuing the ticket. Surely a few minutes grace is more realistic.

As a resident living near to Barnet hospital, who charged huge amounts for their visitors to use their car park, we could hardly ever park outside our own house. This was particularly difficult when returning home with bags of food shopping and 2 young children in tow. Since the hospital was not going to remove or reduce their charges we agreed to having parking restrictions put outside our house. This has resolved the problem, however now we live in fear of getting a parking ticket if we make one of the above errors. My friends and family can no longer call in for a couple of minutes to drop something off without needing a visitor voucher. Is this really how the system is supposed to work? For who’s benefit - I would suggest that this is not really putting the community first.

You may also wish to know that after waiting nearly 2 months for my parking permit to come through and chasing up the parking team several times, it turned out that my permit was sent to a random address in zone H (I’m in zone C). Justine was very helpful in eventually sorting this out (after others before failed). During this time my husband had received his permit straight away but after approx. 2 months received a PCN(!) It turned out that his permit was also printed with zone H on it although his one managed to be sent to our house. My husband spoke to the parking office who said that they’d resolve the problem and cancelled the PCN but when Justine phoned me back, the same day, in relation to my problem, I was told that both our vehicles were still registered against zone H(!). We have now both received the correct parking permits - Twice(!).

Finally, last week, I received a letter notifying me that a payment for visitor vouchers failed to go through due to a problem with your system. I am going to query whether this was a legitimate letter from yourselves as it suggested to make a bank transfer to a co-op bank account? With IP fraud around us I am concerned that possibly this was a scam letter as something did not feel right about the quality and style of the letter.

So there’s a brief summary of some of the problems I’ve had with your scheme and that I’d like you to take into consideration when visiting your new parking policy.

I do not tend to complain about anything however the headaches and trouble that this parking scheme has caused since it’s introduction is, quite frankly, time consuming, stressful and a nightmare! …but one that can easily be improved upon by genuinely “Putting the Community First”.

Thank-you for taking the time to read my email.

kindest regards

Consulting you whilst tramlining you - Equalities Act?

The council want to consult you about parking policy but only insofar as they want to hear the answer. The consultation is here and runs until tomorrow.

You would think that the council would be pleased to receive all viewpoints in any form imaginable including in writing from those who do not have a computer, but you would be wrong

So what can you do? You can get all of Mr Mustard's policies into the survey and/or complain that you don't have a computer and so have to write in order not to be disadvantaged.

Here are some of the questions from the surveymonkey survey (you can answer anonymously and use any local postcode)

Mr Mustard suggests strongly disagree to all of those so that whatever pre-decided ideas the council asked these questions to support, are stymied.

You might think that if you said Strongly Agree to Support Local Business you would be answering correctly but that might be intended to give support to the idea of,say, more shared loading and parking bays but they get misunderstood and lead to PCN so Mr Mustard suggests you strongly disagree to everything again.

You can agree with the 85% rule as that is a recognised standard. Mr Mustard suggests you remain undecided on the other question.

Please strongly disagree to both of these. The answer is to have drop off zones for those who have to drive and issuing camera car PCN will only lead to improved revenues for the council, not improved compliance (otherwise after several years of camera cars there would surely be 100% compliance already).

In this road there is a house split into 5 rented rooms. if they all need a car for their travelling salesman jobs then they all need a permit or if you have 3 grown up children who can't afford to move out.

This question is not about safety but about getting public approval to issue PCN by camera on yellow box junctions and the like and to make lots of lovely revenue. Is there a huge problem with blocked yellow boxes in Barnet? Mr Mustard hasn't seen it, most people are sensible. Best to strongly disagree otherwise go an inch into a yellow box and stop and a PCN will drop through your letterbox.

 These two questions are all about revenue raising. Strongly disagree with the first question and strongly agree with the second. Provided the width of a wheelchair remains then having  2 wheels on a kerbstone is not a heinous crime nor is parking on the concreted approach to your own gate which happens to cross a very wide (5m+) grass verge for which you can be ticketed. There questions are harder than they at first appear.

as above.

Look, no mention of cash parking meters. you can have any payment method you like which the council have pre-chosen for you. Lots of people still want to pay with cash, they visit other boroughs instead of Barnet.

Mr Mustard's preferred method when he has to pay is still cash.

Now is the chance to put Mr Mustard's policy into the frame. After all, the council asked for any extra points. Give them Mr Mustard's, they really do want to hear them.

You can go to this link and copy and paste the entire policy suggestions into box 25.

Let's make the council listen to us for once.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Too generous by half

So sorry everyone that Mr Mustard missed this on his reading of the policy review, perhaps due to its gargantuan size.

The council are very generously going to consider cancelling your PCN if you parked legally and then half an hour later they paint a parking bay around your car and signpost a restriction. 

It isn't that you tried to park legally as the proposed policy suggests, you did actually park legally and the council changed the rules of the game whilst you were away from your vehicle.

Are we reaching the point that in order to protect ourselves from revenue driven enforcement that we have to take a photograph of our vehicle every single time that we park?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking policy - review

Please do not park like the car on the right

The council have been tweeting away to try and get people to respond to the consultation about their draft parking policy which you can find here. Mr Mustard needs to warn you that there are 16 appendices. He read the whole thing and found it mostly rather vague and so he drafted up his own points that he felt should be considered by councillors and they are below:

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Suggestions for Barnet council parking policy from Mr Mustard (Derek Dishman)

Preamble.

The purpose of penalty charges is to dissuade motorists from breaking parking restrictions.

The objective is 100% compliance, with no penalty charges.

Source: Secretary of State for Transport.

My policy suggestions are divided, as far as they can be, into stages of the process.

Before any PCN is issued

Have a choice of payment methods to provide for the needs of all customers. PayByPhone, cash at a meter, vouchers, credit card at a meter (insert and contactless), PayPoint, Oyster and/or Barnet Payment card (a Barnet Payment Card could take the place of cash completely provided it was flexible enough i.e. it must not have a cost to provide and can be charged up with any payment amount, is widely available and the nearest stockist is signposted at every bay where payment is required).

Don't issue PCN on Bank Holidays except for on crossing zig-zags and dropped kerbs on request by a resident.

Reduce the hours during which PCN are issued. Traffic wardens should not be roaming the streets from 7am to 11pm.

Stop treating the Special Parking Account (SPA) as a target i.e. if quarterly projections show it will be missed, don't take steps to generate missed income from elsewhere.

Don't issue Visitor Vouchers with a 3 year life. The money paid for them didn't expire.

Issue all correctly applied for permits and blue badges in 24 hours.

Organise courses on how to park legally in order to help people to comply with what is a complex parking regime.

Remove the CPZ entry signs (except the Saracens ED zone) and put signs on all single yellow lines. Only 10% of the borough has a CPZ and they are widely misunderstood or the entry signs are missed.

Reduce the vast size of the Saracens ED zone and change the time of it to one hour at the usual kick-off time.

Make a note of vehicles parked that would be in contravention if still there when the suspension sign is erected so that any PCN issued to them can be cancelled. Put up clearer suspension signs as ones that say 2 bays outside numbers x and y of a street will not be clear if three cars could park outside those two residences.

Publish the list of pavement parking locations which are not enforced even though the pavement is not marked out for them. This was promised to me in the Environment Committee meeting of 24 July 2014.

Use some of the SPA surplus to educate drivers about the most common parking errors. How many motorists, for example, know that you can't park on the pavement, except where marked out, anywhere in London? Not enough given the number of PCN which are issued for this contravention.

Traffic wardens (CEO)

Don't issue a PCN for a missing registration mark off a parking voucher (especially if it is only for 1 hour as it isn't very likely to be re-used) and remove the requirement from the next print run.

Don't issue a PCN for a Visitor Voucher that is out of date and remove the expiry date (3 years) from the next print run.

Make less use of Regulation 10 (drive-away) PCN as inadequate observation time is being given as to what the motorist was doing.

Allow 14 days grace for an expired resident permit. Give the car a leaflet that the permit has expired.

Give 10 minutes grace for all offences (except on crossing zig-zags and genuinely dangerous parking).

Issue a warning for minor contraventions if the driver returns. (Para 40 Sec of State Guidance).

Don't issue a PCN for being outside the bay marking when the two halves of the car are both in bays which the car is entitled to be in.

Don't let traffic wardens park their car or scooter in any manner other than legally (although without payment is OK)

Don't issue code 24 PCN (not parked correctly within the markings of the bay or space) unless one wheel is wholly outside the parking bay (London Councils CEO handbook)

Don't issue PCN in the first or last 2 minutes of a restriction (London Councils CEO handbook).

Don't issue PCN for being parked on the footway unless a complete wheel is on the footway, not just partially on the kerb.

Provide offices at which cash payments of PCN can be made.

Don't issue a PCN where the signs or lines are clearly defective - report them instead.

Back office

Cancel a PCN if it turns out that a valid permit exists but wasn't on display for some reason. If the traffic warden has this information about there being a permit he should not issue a PCN in the first place.

Cancel the PCN if there is a delay in processing at any stage of 6 months (this is the law for a Notice to Owner to be issued) i.e.

1    between the Notice to Owner and the Charge Certificate

2    between the Charge Certificate and the Notice of Recovery

3    between the Notice of Recovery and instructing the bailiff

Accept reasonable instalments if offered up to say 6 months. These motorists would not qualify for the 50% prompt payment discount.

Write a policy about how vulnerable individuals should be treated.

Cancel PCN where the wrong vehicle or wrong location has been paid for.

Cancel all permit issue delay PCN.

Cancel PCN if a permit reminder was not sent.

Cancel a PCN issued within the Saracens ED zone to any motorist who is resident within it and issue a permit to them and tell them about visitor vouchers.

Inform all medical workers who challenge a PCN on the grounds that they were attending to a sick patient about the Health Emergency badge scheme in case they may qualify for it.

Do a DVLA address check at both the Charge Certificate and Order for Recovery stages as people move a lot and otherwise may not receive these vital documents. I think the cost is about 20p per application.

Tell motorists if their formal representations are being disregarded as being outside the 28 day time limit from service of the Notice to Owner.

Make the decision about all challenges in-house as the law requires (even if NSL then issue the decision)

Put the email address on the PCN (para 70 of Sec of State guidance) and provide a telephone number for the use of the disabled who may not be able to communicate in writing.

Produce an Annual Report (Para 114 Sec of State guidance).

If the council get it wrong, apologise sincerely and compensate the motorist.

Find out why regular offenders are regular and offer them help and advice to avoid parking wrongly rather than clamping and/or removing the vehicle and negotiate settlement of their outstanding PCN by agreement if possible. Your power should be wielded with discretion.

If a motorist tells the council that the Charge Certificate is the first notice received the council should offer the opportunity to pay the PCN at the full rate (not +/- 50%) (para 224 London Councils Code of Practice)

Update the cancellation policy that was used prior to NSL being contracted (copy attached).

Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) - Northampton County Court

Don't oppose out of time witness statements where the customer says they have not received documents and are not clearly lying.

The council is allowed nearly a month to decide upon these. During this time the motorist may have been deprived of his car. The policy should be to decide upon them within 48 hours.

A council officer should decide on these, not a contractor.

Bailiffs

Don't send bailiffs to Old Age Pensioners, Blue Badge Holders or Motability car drivers as they are a vulnerable section of society and other methods would be better i.e. phone them up if they don't pay to see what the problem is. A bailiff is not meant to take a car of a blue badge holder and certainly can't touch a Motability car as it doesn't belong to the debtor so avoid error and put temptation out of the bailiff's way.

Parking management, not NSL, should monitor the activities and charges of bailiffs to make sure they behave in a proper manner and do not overcharge.

Cases should be sent to bailiffs every month and without delay once the process of challenge has been exhausted.

Before instructing a bailiff in a case where the motorist has not engaged in the process at all make telephone, postal (Signed For service) or even personal contact with the motorist to find out why they have not responded. They may have moved away, had an accident or died.

Management should monitor the success rate of each firm of bailiffs. A success rate of 17% as in Enfield (Barnet's not known but likely to be equally dire) is no success at all. Either the bailiff is cherry picking the cases they are pursuing or the quality of what they are being given is too low.

Do not allow a parking enforcement contractor to use a bailiff that they own or a sister company as there is an inherent conflict of interest if the parking enforcement contractor makes the decision as to whether or not a particular car can be removed. In addition it is not possible for the parking enforcement contractor to independently investigate a complaint about a bailiff. The council should in any case make the investigation, using an independent person to make a recommendation, as they owe a duty of care for the behaviour of their bailiff (the warrant is in the name of the council).

Bailiffs have to take care of goods in their possession. One that was impounded for more than 6 months was not washed, its tyres were allowed to deflate and the battery was discharged and had to be replaced. This requirement should be stipulated in bailiff contracts (even though it is a well known requirement).

If the council decides to release a vehicle that has been impounded without payment, the council should deliver the vehicle back rather than make the motorist collect it from Nazeing (where Newlyn send vehicles to be stored).

End.

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Now you could go through the questions on the survey that the council have asked which include "do you like our policy as it is set out"? (pretty please) but Mr Mustard thinks that you might prefer his.

If that is the case you could send an email to paul.millard@barnet.gov.uk (he is the rather grandly titled Parking Improvement Project Manager - he's probably a consultant brought in just to do this project) saying that you agree with the all of the proposed policies that Mr Mustard sent to him on 26 September (c.c. mrmustard@zoho.com please) or you can copy and paste the ones you would like to see and send an email containing those alone to Mr Millard. The more people that respond the better as parking affects most people in the borough, the current policies are dire and some are simply aimed at raising revenue and this is your chance to make parking policy fairer.

Feel free to come up with your own policies if you don't like Mr Mustard's either. That's democracy. You have until 28 October but why not do it now?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Glossing over the Bailiffs

Mr Mustard had a meeting with the Chief Operating Officer in December 13. It covered a number of topics raised by both sides. Time was short and so Mr Mustard agreed to send in his thoughts afterwards about where the council were going wrong on their use of bailiffs. He did so on 2 January 2014. The COO has not replied.

Mr Mustard also carefully copied his thoughts to the Parking Process Manager as Mr Mustard was aware of the upcoming Parking Improvement Project (supposedly to improve the public's perception of parking which is dire) so that if there was the germ of a useful idea in any of them they would be studied and possibly incorporated into Parking Policy.

It looks like Mr Mustard doesn't know a thing as this is what the Council's proposed policy says about Bailiffs

Why Mr Mustard thinks that is a little thin as the following were his thoughts:

The use of bailiffs for the collection of Penalty Charge Notices for parking & bus lane contraventions in the London Borough of Barnet.

Executive summary:

•    Council not properly overseeing or auditing bailiff use.
•    Use of bailiffs should be better targeted.
•    Policy for vulnerable individuals should be published.
•    Bailiffs should be instructed regularly and in a timely manner.
•    Success rates should be monitored.
•    Witness statement handling should be speeded up & a decision policy tree written.
•    Conflicts of interest should be removed.
•    Seized goods should be properly looked after.

Introduction

In most legal proceedings it is necessary to show that the defendant has been properly served with the relevant paperwork. In the case of PCN the default position is that if a motorist does not take any part in the process then they become liable for the penalty by default. This is an advantage, doubtless put into the legislation on the grounds that local authorities can be trusted to use their powers wisely, which should be balanced by judicious and careful consideration before a bailiff is instructed.

If a motorist does owe a penalty then there is a duty on the council to try and collect it but at the same time motorists who are actually innocent of any wrongdoing should not suffer

Fees

When the council employ a bailiff they incur no costs which is why the service is so attractive. Bailiffs recover their fees from the motorist. The council still have a duty of care as it is the council’s warrant that is being enforced. The fees that are charged to debtors make the original PCN value increase up to 9 times the original value. A charge of £992 is a disproportionate penalty for having parked where you shouldn’t for a few minutes.

Under their duty of care the council should have oversight of the charges that are being levied by bailiffs and should be verifying that overcharging is not taking place. Any overcharge by the bailiff will have a negative effect on the council’s reputation as it is the council’s warrant that is being enforced. I do not think that any oversight of bailiff actions is currently taking place.

Common problem

I noticed on two cases that the motorists were unaware of the PCNs in question until the day they were wheel clamped.

The council’s records will have shown that there was no engagement in the process by the motorist. These are the cases which I think should be reviewed by a manager before the warrant is sent to a bailiff. Prior to a bailiff being instructed a junior officer could attempt to make contact with the motorist by telephone and, if that fails, by recorded delivery letter. I don’t know what other council records you can legally cross refer to but it would be sensible to check council tax records which may show that the motorist has left the address in question. A DVLA check to ensure that the motorist still owns the car would be useful so that a new vehicle owner does not find himself clamped due to a PCN incurred by the previous owner.

I note from the Notice Audit Details that Pre Debt Checks are made but I don’t know what they entail (and would like to).

How does the council know that the notices which are said to have been posted, actually have been by NSL / RR Donnelley?

Vulnerable individuals

My cases have included a heavily pregnant lady, a disabled pensioner in receipt of higher rate mobility element of DLA and thus eligible for a Motability car, and a 93 year old man. The council should have a policy as to how their instructed bailiffs deal with vulnerable individuals. I have recently asked Redacted for a copy of the policy but am not yet convinced that one exists as absolutely no quarter was given to those individuals by the bailiffs. It is the sort of document that should be on the council website.

As a Motability car cannot be clamped or seized (Redacted made proper amends for the one that was and thus avoided a formal complaint) then those cases should perhaps be screened out of those being sent to bailiffs in order to avoid the problem of erroneous clamping.

Erratic use

As part of the public Audit arrangements I asked about bailiffs. I was told that no monies were recovered by bailiffs in the year to 31 March 13. Apart from the fact that I don’t think it is the case, it is an odd state of affairs. If PCN are being issued every month then cases should be sent to bailiffs every month so that the debts are fresh as otherwise they die of old age. In any event, under the London Councils Code of Practice (not law but the council profess to follow it) there should not be a delay of more than 6 months at any stage of enforcement so if bailiffs haven’t been instructed on that timetable the PCN should be written off. It would be useful to see a table of the number of PCN sent to bailiffs each month for the last 3 council years and the amounts of money recovered from them.

How does the council know, with reasonable certainty, that all PCN income collected by their bailiffs has been properly accounted for and that improper fees have not been applied or improper practices have not been used?

Recovery rates

The percentage of PCN actually recovered by bailiffs is quite low. I don’t have statistics for Barnet that I can rely on but in Enfield the recovery rate is a mere 17% which means that 5 times of out 6 work is being wasted by the council, NSL and bailiffs. I would question whether the light is worth the candle and also look at how recovery rates could be improved, perhaps by a detailed analysis of the factors that led to recovery or non-recovery. Maybe the council should focus on motorists who have more than one unpaid PCN in a 6 month window and simply write off the rest?

Witness statements

A safeguard in the system is that a person who didn’t receive a Notice to Owner or whose formal representations weren’t responded to or who appealed to PATAS and didn’t get a hearing (basically covering lost in the post situations) can apply to wind the process back to the start. There is a time limit for doing this and often people are, through no fault of their own, out of time. If they are out of time they submit their TE9 application along with form TE7 explaining why the application is late. In the two cases I dealt with this was because the documents were not received. NSL simply relied on having sent the documents and didn’t properly consider whether the motorist might have been telling the truth. It would be interesting to know what percentage of TE7 cases are allowed (I suspect 100% are opposed which cannot fit with the legal requirement on a council to be fair) and to compare the stats for the final calendar quarter of 2011 with those for 2013 to see how differently, or not, NSL act compared to how the council itself used to.

I did catch NSL not telling the whole truth in a witness statement by omitting to mention that a document had been returned by the Royal Mail and thus that PCN should not have been with the bailiff at all.

The other problem with dealing with forms TE7 is that the council move very slowly. Approximately a month is allowed for the council to decide whether to accept a TE7 out of time and during that time an innocent motorist is deprived of their transport and I think the council should aim to deal with them in 48 hours. The motorist will have enough delay if the TE7 is rejected whilst they wait 2 or 3 months for a County Court hearing date for which they will also have to pay £80.

Given that granting an application to wind the process back to the start merely allows the motorist to engage in the appeal process I think the default setting should be for the council to allow them all unless the TE9/TE7 application is a misuse of the procedure.

Conflicts of interest & complaints

NSL own the bailiff called Task and they are retained on half of Barnet’s cases. They should not be. This is a clear conflict of interest. In one of my cases the car was removed by Task and then NSL took the decision as to whether or not to accept an out of time witness statement (TE7/TE9 procedure) and allowing it would have meant that an NSL subsidiary would have incurred costs that they definitely couldn’t recover and so the decision was made to reject the application. The decision should be made by someone who doesn’t have a significant financial interest in the outcome (the council have a minor interest as the PCN value is a fraction of the total costs charged to the motorist at this stage).

Similarly bailiffs are usually left to investigate and respond to their own complaints. If NSL were to respond they are less likely to find wrongdoing on a Task case than a Newlyn (the other bailiff) one. At the minimum, all complaints should be investigated by and responded to by a council employee. Having seen the unsympathetic, inadequately researched and inaccurate response sent by the parking client side to the lady who was 6 months pregnant I would suggest that parking really needs an independent person to consider complaints.

Duty of care

Cars are seized and then forgotten about. A car was seized in July and the Court ordered in November that an appeal be allowed. During that time the car was left outside and was returned in a filthy condition, with flat tyres and a completely discharged battery (a claim may follow as a mechanic had to be employed to get the car going again). As a bailiff has a duty of care then a car should properly be stored indoors and possible under a cover or given a monthly wash, the tyre pressures should be checked monthly and the motorist should be asked for the keys so that a trickle charger can be connected to the battery. That way, the car can be driven away if it has to be returned and its value is preserved if it does go off to auction. The benefits of providing the keys should be explained in writing to the motorist.

The motorist who was deprived of his car for 5 months was initially expected to collect his car despite it by then being uninsured, declared off the road and not in a fit state to drive. Redacted made an exception for me in this case but I think that as a matter of policy that any car removed by a bailiff should be returned to where it was taken from free of charge if the PCN is subsequently allowed to be appealed as the motorist is innocent at that point.

Since January 14 Mr Mustard has been consulted on other bailiff cases, three in the last month alone, and they involve cheating, lying, bullying and a complete failure by the council to control activities or charges. One case is now being investigated by the parking manager as it does appear that the PCN has been chased in error. Enquiries continue.

Mr Mustard will put the main points form the Executive Summary into his draft parking policy which he hopes to publish soon.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Find your car stolen & get no help from Barnet Council / NSL / Capita

probably stolen, joy ridden & then dumped

Regular readers will know that Mr Mustard has an agony uncle column in the local Times newspaper group of papers and he gets requests for help from time to time. One that didn't get into the column but onto the front page was the case of Lili who was unfortunate enough to have her car stolen and then find she had 11 PCN to deal with (she hadn't quite realised the scale of the problem).

Lili had told NSL the car was stolen but they wouldn't take her word for it until the local paper got involved when suddenly she was telling the gospel truth (and she was on her way to Church when she found her car missing - if you can find something that is missing?)

Here are some extracts from the correspondence:

extract from the Met Police victim of crime letter

So, clearly a motor crime has been committed, quite possibly the crime of TWOC-ing - taking without the owner's consent.

Barnet Council / NSL's first response of 29 May

so this first response doesn't think of the victim of crime as an innocent citizen, a law abiding citizen deprived of her mode of transport worth £25,000, oh no, what is more important is that she might be trying to avoid a series of PCN worth £110 each. Very generously, the council offer the innocent pensioner the opportunity to pay £55 for a contravention that she did not commit and as there are 11 of these PCN presumably the council would be happy to relieve an honest citizen of £605 for not doing any wrong.

email of 1 June to Barnet Council / NSL

So, the crime reference is provided. It seems highly unlikely to Mr Mustard that people would go round making these up. You can tell from the tone of the correspondence that the case is genuine (27 years of debt collecting means that lies jump off the page for Mr Mustard)

letter of 11 June

A follow up as a 70 year old keeps up with her correspondence faster than NSL do.

Data Protection Act; the Police will not tell Barnet Council anything

This final letter, before the matter came to the attention of Mr Mustard and the local paper, at which time things suddenly changed, is the unhelpful product of a closed mind. Sadly, after a while, many parking people succumb to the philosophy that motorists are lying scum and any cancellation is a let off. That is misguided thinking which needs to be changed.

The funny thing is that as soon as a journalist asks about the PCN they are all magically cancelled (except they are currently live on the council computer so reams of paper will still arrive) without any further evidence being provided.

The system is wrong. It needs to be changed.

Firstly, the honesty question. A Notice to Owner contains the following declaration.

A person who knowingly or recklessly makes a false representation regarding an important fact is guilty of an offence and on summary conviction may be liable for a fine of up to £5,000.

Mr Mustard thinks that the whole way that parking PCN works is the wrong way round. If you do nothing, and don't engage with the process, you end up being automatically guilty of the misdemeanour of others and could end up with a bailiff seizing the car that was previously stolen and returned because you missed a deadline or didn't respond.

Even when you do respond the council expect you to jump through a load of hoops rather than believing you.

What should happen?

There should be a helpline (not with ruddy Capita who have nothing to bring to the party except a call centre which has to deal with a myriad of call types and don't have the ability to actually cancel a PCN - unless you know otherwise?) which you telephone and give the relevant car registration and your contact details.

Then when a PCN is about to be issued to the stolen car, the hand held equipment erupts in a cacophony of sound, notifies the office, and then NSL telephone the owner, on behalf of the council, to tell them that the vehicle has been found and where it is.

A PCN is not issued (hasn't the motorist got enough to worry about without stupid paperwork?). Any or all PCN which have been issued during the period of the theft are automatically cancelled without further ado.

Result: the motorist thinks the council are wonderful.

Mr Mustard has added this idea to his draft parking policy.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Help set a better parking policy

Out today is a consultation, link here, about parking policy.

The current way of going on with parking in Barnet was described to the Transport Select Committee as venal and rapacious by a Mr Fraser Mitchell (a man of strong clear opinions which Mr Mustard is all in favour of). Now that takes us so far in letting our council know we are unhappy. What we need next is a clear steer to them as to what we want changing. Mr Mustard got in early when the first draft of the parking policy landed in front of councillors at the Environment Committee and Mr Mustard was rather liberal with his questions and here they are:

Public Questions & Responses - Environment Committee - 24.07.14 by MisterMustard

Now hopefully that has given you some ideas about how you would like parking policy to be changed. As well as responding to the consultation please comment below with a short list of the ideas you have submitted.

Let's put pressure on the council to stop using parking as a revenue raiser and to only use it to control real serious parking problems.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Councillors need to get control of officers - Environment committee

Mr Mustard appears in the above video, thanks Barnet Bugle, from about 1h45m.

Mr Mustard had been somewhat hyper-active at last night's Environment Committee having asked 36 questions which you can find on this link and that is because he thinks there is so much that is wrong with parking policy and he was trying to get councillors to be brave enough to tear up what officers had proposed and make it much more resident friendly.

There were three things that troubled him and the Bugle (himself a former councillor who knows about council procedures) and which they were whispering about in the public gallery.

1. When councillors proposed some changes to the draft policy which is to go out consultation they were told by officers that there wasn't really time to incorporate them. Why did officers not allow time for councillors' amendments to be incorporated rather than simply say it wasn't really possible and then suggest they would stick an extra piece of paper with councillors' comments in at the end? Officers should assume there will be changes and make the timetable accordingly. Councillors set policy, it is why they exist.

2. Councillors were told by a staff member that they should complete the consultation like ordinary members of the public should. Er, no. Councillors will consider the consultation feedback of residents and make their own suggestions at the next committee meeting to consider this, councillors are not the public in this regard, they represent the public. Officers need to remember this.

3. Both parking and Re: (The stupidly shortened name of Regional Enterprise, a council joint venture) officers / staff handed out papers to councillors at the meeting but did not put any extra copies on the table for the public. The public are entitled to see all papers in advance of the meeting as the opportunity to ask public questions was denied and the public were completely in the dark about the detail of what was being discussed. Nothing has been learnt since Tuesday's Audit Committee when an item had to be postponed for a week because councillors had not been given the papers in advance. Governance please take note.

Mr Mustard is off now to email governance and he will copy in the Chief Operating Officer who was also spectating from the public gallery.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard