Calling all thespians

This is a surprise guest blog by one of Mr Mustard's shy and retiring PCN customers - Mr Mustard was emailed with this information and thought it was well worth sharing with you all, thespians and philistines alike.

Fellow Thespians

Hampstead Theatre are again streaming one of their current productions called Wonderland on Saturday 26 July 7.30pm over the internet and free on hampsteadtheatre.com and theguardian.com

An on demand version of the Wonderland live-streaming will be available for 72 hours immediately after the live stream on Hampstead Theatre and the Guardian’s website.
 

Details

It's written by a lady named Beth Steel (daughter of a coal-miner) and it's about the miners' strike in 1984 which in my my view changed British society forever.

Sophie et moi will be at the theatre in person, so if you start the stream early, I'll give you all a wave (I'll be the one wearing a gold lame jacket and Speedo shorts, so that you'll be sure to pick me out!).

Barry

PS If you can't work out how to stream, you should be deeply ashamed. Don't ask me how, because I won't help you.

Are you being served?

Strangely enough; this isn't over the entrance of Hendon Town Hall

Mr Mustard was pondering about service of a PCN for a man up north who, as he drove away from his parking space, saw the traffic warden throw the PCN through the open window and so he threw it back out again (in some boroughs he could have had a littering fine as well?). Mr Mustard remembered two PATAS cases he had read on the subject and so here are the relevant extracts for your enjoyment (cases are 2130205720 and 2140141941 for parking experts who want to read the complete originals). One PCN was cancelled and the other was upheld.

The snatcher

The Appellant denied that he was served with a PCN at the road side. The Authority said that the PCN was handed to the driver.

The enforcement officer's notes indicated "HTD" i.e. handed to driver but also stated that the Appellant snatched the PCN from the printer and threw it to the floor before threatening to run her over. While the Appellant taking the PCN from the printer amounts to good service, I do not see this as likely nor can I see how this can be described as handed to driver.
I am not satisfied that the PCN had been properly served. I am allowing the appeal.

The thrower

Miss N's second point is that the Penalty Charge Notice was thrown at her when she was inside her car. For a Penalty Charge Notice to be enforceable, it has to be affixed to the vehicle or handed to the driver. "Handed" can extend to it being given to the driver in any other way. The Civil Enforcement Officer may have acted impolitely and in an unfriendly manner but I am satisfied that the PCN was issued to the driver to the driver, as indeed is acknowledged by Miss N.
I dismiss the appeal.

Advice

Don't have your car window open anywhere near a traffic warden who might be about to give you a ticket. 

Don't get into a dialogue or a heated dispute.

Just drive calmly away and make a note when you get home of what happened. If you think the traffic warden has behaved badly get in first and make a complaint about their behaviour. Send it to first.contact@barnet.gov.uk and a copy to one of your local councillors who you can look up here using your postcode. You will need to put your car registration in the email.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No need to be bugged - official

You do know your blue bin is bugged don't you, it is the black circle in the bin above (which is on its side and you are looking at the underside of the top lip). All those leaflets you were sent about the new recycling system and not a single one told you that your every discard would be weighed.

The council claim this is for a points scheme in order to encourage recycling but that sounds like a bonkers idea which will cost more in administration than it will save in landfill tax. Far better to educate people who don't recycle to do so or to actually getting around to giving blocks of more than 5 flats the necessary bins. Shouldn't that have started in January? A friend of Mr Mustard's, who lives in one of 8 maisonettes, has no way of recycling at all.

At Tuesday's council meeting, Cllr Alan Schneiderman asked a question about the bugs (RFID) and here is his question and the answer from the "leader" of the council, Richard Cornelius

So you can ask the council to "deactivate" the microchip although given that it doesn't have a power source Mr Mustard isn't quite sure how that could happen. Mr Mustard's view of deactivation is to unscrew it if you can Heath Robinson a tool to do so, or to take his direct approach: gloves, safety spectacles and a large screwdriver and simply lever it out and put it in the back of a drawer somewhere. Mr Mustard's approach doesn't require you to trust the council not to sneakily weigh your blue bin anyway, doesn't allow the council to change their mind and saves on administration.

Bin that bug!

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Armchair Auditor Objection

The council's TMO had one fault (not 4)

Mr Mustard and Mr Reasonable have been separately busy pouring over a tiny fragment of the Annual Accounts of Barnet Council and looking at the backup documents. Our work continues as we struggle with Capita to get what we are entitled to see (they are trying to fob Mr Mustard off with a draft of a contract when he is entitled to see the actual contract with anything top secret crossed out - if Mr Mustard doesn't see a contract with redacted signatures and actual dates, how does he know a contract was signed?). The struggle is well worth it as some juicy stuff is to be found if you know which stone to look under. The bloggers also look under several decoy stones!

Mr Mustard tries hard to point the external auditor Paul Hughes (of Grant Thornton) at what he sees as terrible wrongdoing but Mr Mustard has yet, despite trying 5 times last year, to get him to issue a public interest notice or apply to the Courts. Mr Hughes is currently sunning himself, is Mr Mustard's guess, as he has an out-of-office set up (one of those infuriating ones which says if your enquiry is urgent do something about it yourself as they couldn't be bothered to make sure your emails are even glanced at whilst they are away) so you can read the Objection before he does.

Dear Mr Hughes

The London Borough of Barnet

Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2014

Notice of Objection

I am told by Barnet Council that in the year ended 31 March 2014 they issued 4,827 Penalty Charge Notices (PCN) within the Saracens Event Day zone with an estimated income of £217,215 which I believe they have collected unlawfully.

I request a public interest notice as per section 8 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 that Barnet has unlawfully derived income of £217,215.

I request you apply to the courts under section 17 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 to have the income derived from the £217,215 of PCN declared as illegally derived income.

The reason why the income is illegally derived is that the Traffic Management Order did not contain a definition of what constituted an Event Day and consequently there were no days whatsoever on which a PCN could legally be issued for failure to comply with Event Day signs. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not claiming that the TMO was invalid, as it has to be contested within 6 weeks of being made and that did not happen, but on the contrary that it is valid but does not permit enforceable PCN to be issued.

The council are well aware of the deficiency as on 13 March 2014 they made TMO 2014 No. 28 in order to completely replace the defectively worded TMO 2012 No. 70.

All income from PCN issued inside the Saracens Event Day CPZ prior to 13 March 2014 should be refunded to the public.

A copy of this Notice of Objection has been sent to Mr C Naylor.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Should you still have an unpaid PCN issued inside the Saracens Zone before 22 March 14 then do feel free to get in touch with Mr Mustard as they are a doddle to defeat. Later ones might prove to be a little harder but properly approached, they too can be beaten.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update 18:07

Unlike the Capita man who had left halfway through the afternoon one of Mr Hughes's staff is still hard at it in his central London office and has thanked Mr Mustard  for his objection. So polite.

Public Service - Capita style

Mr Mustard has been busy with his annual public audit of the council's accounts as has Mr Reasonable. It has been like pulling teeth as it always is.

He knew that Mr King was leaving today and Mr Mustard hadn't been told who to contact instead so luckily he copied his email to the Chief Operating Officer who is also the S1515 Officer responsible for finance.

It shouldn't be like this, should it?

Either the departing person should tell you who to contact instead of them or their email account should be locked after setting the inbox to forward all incoming emails to a manager and sending an out-of-office telling you who will now deal with the matter.

Just closing down the email account flat is not service as that leaves you doing the running.

Which pub should Mr Mustard try to contact the recipient in? (Apologies if Mr King is teetotal, this isn't about him but about systems).

If Crapita had been even half efficient, Mr Mustard's enquiries would have been done and dusted a month ago.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Address - the problem

PARSEQ, Lowton Way, Hellaby, Sheffield

When the parking contract with NSL started on 1 May 12 the start had been delayed by a month so that their partner company RR Donnelley, who did the scanning of incoming correspondence, could be added to the pension scheme as a provider. Their partnership seems to have been short-lived, at least as far as Barnet is concerned, as no longer is the address on PCNs and Notices to Owner etc. this one 

PO Box 4894, Worthing, BN11 9WT

but this one

PO Box 197, Lowton Way, Hellaby, Sheffield, S98 1LW.

This change was never announced as such, there was no shouting from the rooftops, and it is vital that you write to the correct address as one day, and it may have already arrived, post sent to Worthing will simply be ignored and your opportunity to challenge your parking ticket (PCN) will be lost. You will become guilty by default and your PCN will be registered as a debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (part of Northampton County Court) and sent to bailiffs.

You might think this wouldn't happen and that if you showed Barnet Council that you had written to Worthing they would reconsider but Mr Mustard very much doubts it, they would point to the Sheffield address on the last document you received, which you didn't notice had quietly changed and blame you. This happened in 2013 to a customer who faxed his challenges to the fax number he always used to use and Barnet Council deny receipt of any of the 4 faxes despite the motorist, a man of the cloth, having proof of the faxes getting through.

Welcome to the miserable world of parking tickets.

Do please write now to Sheffield. If in doubt, send the same letter to Worthing. Whenever you write to the council parking department, use the signed for service (£1.72) as then your document is less likely to be "lost" inside the huge building. Documents don't get lost so much as scanned to the wrong file.

It isn't mentioned on official documents but challenges can also be sent to barnet@nslservices.co.uk which is the method that Mr Mustard always employs. He almost never uses the webform on the council's website as it is a straitjacket and you can't file what you wrote in with your emails in the usual way.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A pointless Notice

Residents of Sellwood Drive were incensed when the long accepted arrangement of parking with 2 wheels on the pavement was unilaterally removed by the council without written notice. They have been battling with the council ever since, including at the residents forum, for some common sense to be imposed and the existing exemption allowing for 2 wheels on the kerb to be put back until such time as there has been proper consultation about the change. That is where we currently stand, as far as Mr Mustard knows, and quite right too, faceless council officers can't just go around changing things as they please.

The way in which the change was bluntly communicated, rather than sending an explanatory letter to every property in the road,w as to put PCN on cars with a nil value. That is why the code W62 is prefixed with a W which stands for warning (who knew this code existed?)

That should have been an end to the matter but now the new computer software, ICES, has evidently been wrongly set up to chase £nil balances as dire warnings of further action are being issued as per the picture. Hopefully the Traffic Enforcement Centre at Northampton County Court won't let £nil value debts be registered to which a £7 charge would be added and then a £75 letter fee from the bailiff?

The council read this blog so they will now probably tell NSL to sort themselves out and fully cancel all PCN issued for code 62 in Sellwood Drive regardless of the value.

I suppose one could always send the council a cheque for £0.00?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard