DVLA - terrible at data management

Mr Mustard made a Freedom of Information request to DVLA. He did this because a lady, let us call her Jayne, purchased a used car, and posted in the V5C with her complete and accurate address. Mr Mustard has a copy of what was sent to DVLA. Somehow her car got registered to a non-existent address in Mansfield, a town she has no connection with and has never visited.

Let us suppose the motorist lived at 4 Shakespeare Court, 111 Woodville Road, Barnet EN5 4LX (Mr Mustard's former address by way of illustration as he can't use the actual one for Jayne).

Using the Royal Mail postcode checker we can see the following:

Mr Mustard surmises that because the flats had a block name which precedes the street number, blocks don't come up when you search using the DVLA's method. Staff also can't be expected to know every location. There are 1.3 million postcodes and goodness knows how many blocks of flats.

Searching by road name alone brings up the correct address as the fifth choice. An under strain or slapdash DVLA employee might select the wrong one.

It is only by inputting the complete postcode, a maximum of 8 digits, that you can be sure of getting the correct locale.

The system that the DVLA are employing is more likely to end up in error with their partial matching method, which looks to have a huge flaw within in.

Mr Mustard is going to ask a follow up question to test his hypothesis.

In Jayne's case, she correctly wrote on the form an address in London N2, which is a flat in a block which block has a street number. Somehow, perhaps because of the name of the block, her car was registered in Mansfield.

What is worse is that it was registered at an address which doesn't even exist. Using a different address as an example. If the physical address used was 12 Regina Court, West End Lane the postcode used was for 12 Regina Court Lane which did exist but still wasn't Jayne's address and gave the postman a delivery problem.

The first she knew of the PCNs was when the bailiff knocked on her actual front door and demanded £2,000 at the risk of having her car removed and so she paid up even though she had received nothing at all in the post. It has taken Mr Mustard 3 months to ascertain the cause of the problem, which is one he hadn't ever seen before. He much prefers to keep PCNs out of the hands of bailiffs. It isn't clear that the bailiff had a valid warrant as it may have still had the out of date (and obviously invalid) Mansfield address on it. That is a blog for another day.

Some of you might have noticed that you had purchased a car but not received the 'logbook' from DVLA a month later, others wouldn't. As you don't need it unless you travel abroad or decide to sell your vehicle Mr Mustard thinks the non arrival is an entirely understandable oversight. If you buy a used car, make a note for a month later to chase up the missing registration document ('logbook').

Having watched much of the Post Office Horizon Inquiry Mr Mustard is no longer shocked by the incompetence at high levels in large organisations but DVLA's data processing disaster method is of the same ilk. He has seen complaints on the internet in which a resident complains that an unknown person has registered a vehicle at their address. The suspected rogue clearly isn't always a scam artist but could be the DVLA.

The end, for now.

Baywatch

A motorist has come to me who parked here and missed the low level sign which was behind a tree and received a PCN for parking in a permit bay without a permit.

I looked at Barnet Council's photos and here is the showreel.

A traffic warden (CEO) is meant to check that signs and lines are adequate before issuing a PCN. This one clearly didn't as there aren't clear lines, faded lines or even lines at all. The answer here is that the CEO should have reported the missing lines & not given a driver a problem, an undeserved PCN. Mr Mustard will lodge a complaint about them. You should do the same if this happens to you.

The end.

Newham Council - not staffed by Knights of the Road

This story concerns a road near the Tate and Lyle factory, not all that far from the Thames Barrier.  It is a rather industrial area sandwiched between the river and docks.

It could do with a weekly wash.

The sign that was there in 2020 was nowhere to be seen two years later. Local workers will naturally and legally take advantage of free parking. It seems that signs at this location disappear or are vandalised quite often. The council's solution is to put new signs up, send a traffic warden or two down there straightaway, issue PCNs and then tow en masse. Naughty, as they should wait a day before enforcing, but an adjudicator had their measure.

This is Mr Goring's only entry in the PCN Appeal register so we can be fairly sure he is a victim not a sign stealer.

Mr Mustard doesn't know why he read this particular decision on 22 August but he did and it piqued his interest so he sent Newham Council some questions.

Very sensibly, the response was provided by way of a table which Mr Mustard has rearranged into PCN time order.

Look at that efficiency, 6 PCNs issued in 12 minutes. One traffic warden could do that but more likely there were 2 or 3. Removals also at pace. There must have been two lorries as there were removals 4 and 5 minutes apart.

The second PCN is that of Mr Goring. Two other people made representations but then didn't fight the rejection at the tribunal. If they had, they might have got their money back. 

Four motorists didn't even bother to try and challenge their PCNs. If all seven had gone to the tribunal three or four at least would have won. There was no risk of having to pay further monies. If you are towed you pay the 50% in order to release your vehicle, which freezes the PCN and you also pay £200 for the tow. If ever you are towed you must make representations as they are a free throw of the dice (unless you are monumentally stupid or selfish and parked on a zebra crossing).

Assuming everyone recovered their vehicles on the same day, so didn't pay £40 for overnight storage, Newham Council raked in £265 * 6 = £1,590

This is what parking has become. An immoral machine for sucking money out of the wallets and purses of innocent people. We need an independent external body to police the behaviour of councils and contractors and to force them to behave in a proper manner.

This ridiculous logo was on the bottom of the council's letter:

Best start building Newham Council as you are patently and obviously unfair.

The end.

Redbridge Council - don't pay 15p to park for free

 

Parking meters have been bagged over since January. One would think that removing them would be quicker than this.

The lack of a quick and easy way for drivers to obtain proof that they are within the free hour led a Mr Conlan to the tribunal. Well done, sir.

You don't have to give RingGo anything to pay nothing at all. Go into settings on the App and turn off optional SMS reminders or anything else that they charge for. The session has a countdown clock if you click through to it.

Redbridge Council have compounded their incompetence by not amending the signs. A sign which incorrectly advises you might be found to be a procedural impropriety by an independent adjudicator. The council have had 8 months to change the signs and should have planned for them in advance.

There is further hopelessness as the council plan (although not very well) to bring in the ability to use PayPoint in certain local shops but a driver wouldn't know that if he/she isn't informed by signage. It would of course be necessary to leave your vehicle in order to pay by that method, which the council will then criticise you for.

Redbridge make a bundle out of issuing PCNs to people during the 'free' hour.

The end.

Rentals - councils suspicious of overseas renters

It stands to reason that some of the drivers who rent a car in the UK will be from a different land. Mr Mustard himself rented cars last year in Canada for work as of course he couldn't take his car with him.

Here is how it ended up at the PCN tribunal when Harrow Council (it could have been any enforcement authority) refused to accept a perfectly proper request for transfer:

 

The 2 month rule had never featured in any of Mr Mustard's cases but the council would not be any better off in enforcing even if they knew the address as the person would no longer be there by the time a bailiff was instructed (if the PCN was not paid) or if it was a hotel there would be nothing to distrain on.

The situation is the same if the car in question was registered overseas as that is outside the remit of the bailiff (an England & Wales court authorised bailiff can't even enforce in Scotland).

This case is symptomatic of the distrust with which the public is often viewed by council parking departments.

The end.

Barnet Council : double not quits

 

Always something new for Mr Mustard to deal with. These from a motorist who luckily sent him both Notices.

 

Mr Mustard asked a few question of the council on Sunday 8 September, as follows, and the council answers are there, a reasonably swift response.

Someone beat Mr Mustard to the draw on the Friday 6 September.

This isn't the first local authority to double print a batch of documents. On would hope they tell each other, at least within London, of problems and more importantly, solutions, but Mr Mustard thinks this can't be happening, or if it is, it doesn't work well enough.

It is no surprise that the council didn't want to cancel all 690 PCNs as they would not then rake in tens of thousands of revenue. 690 PCNs at £130 would be £89,700 (but budget for say a 50% recovery).

Another PCN expert gave Mr Mustard his opinion, which which Mr Mustard concurs:

There is no statutory power to serve the second NTO, a second NTO can only be served on another person and only in limited circumstances (such as where a previous NTO is cancelled by the county court, the tribunal or the authority itself). There are no circumstances where the council can randomly issue a second NTO on the same person while a previous NTO issued to that person is still outstanding.

Unfortunately there is no body, apart from the council itself, that a member of the public can go to to suggest a different outcome. It is a failing in the system that councils are trusted to self police. The only outcomes they appear to be interested in are positive cash flow ones.

The end.

Barnet Council 56 day error

 

Mr Mustard recognised the name Michael Strom and when he searched the register he found 13 Appeals of which Mr Strom had only lost one. Chapeau. It therefore didn't surprise Mr Mustard that Mr Strom knew the law better than Barnet Council do.

The council always manage to count 28 days when that leads to the next step they can take to move a PCN along but have not programmed their computer to prevent themselves from breaking the law. The law, for parking PCNs, says that a formal representation, one made in response to the Notice to Owner, is automatically cancelled if the council have not served a response within 56 days of the date of receipt of the representations.

The lack of an external overseer for PCNs is becoming more critical by the day. There is no sanction for this council failure although Mr Strom might be able to claim costs for vexatious or wholly unreasonable behaviour but the costs bar is a high hurdle as costs are rarely awarded by law.

The end.