Saracens - left hand - right hand - drop the ball

So here is a tweet that the council have just put out:

Saracens play The Sharks this Saturday. Have a look at our Event Day CPZ page for info http://t.co/HmHz5oWgyo
— Barnet Council (@BarnetCouncil) January 23, 2014

So Mr Mustard did look at the CPZ page, and here it is:

Has this 25 January fixture been added to the Event Day schedule on the website recently? Probably, if the council are only just tweeting about it. Mr Mustard has found that it was announced back on 9 December, here. Mr Mustard then went to the google cache and found the previous page which was crawled by the googlebot on 16 January. Here it is and it proves that the page change is a recent one:

Then Mr Mustard looked out the fixture list that was distributed by Saracens themselves early on in the season, the front sheet of which was headed

"AVOID GETTING PARKING TICKETS ON MATCH DAYS"

and here it is:

So look at those three lots of information in reverse order to get them in ascending date order.

To start with Saracens say there will be a match this Sunday.

Then Barnet Council somehow put down a match for this Saturday but not Sunday.

Then finally, with only 2 days to go, Barnet Council manage to get both matches onto their website, which no motorist is obliged to look at before they enter the zone. Parking compliantly based upon officially published information on which it ought to be possible to place some reliance, you simply can't.

What should the council do this weekend? They should decide to not issue a single ticket in the Event Day zone as profiting from its own incompetence is most unattractive.

What is the extra Saturday match anyway? It is a friendly against The Sharks (a team from South Africa and not from anywhere near Sale as Mr Mustard wrote previously). Will the crowd be that large that it should count as an Event day? Possibly not. (Mr Mustard got half of this entire blog wrong, the crowd is at least 9,000)

Everyone who gets a PCN in the Saracens ED event day CPZ zone should appeal three times. See the guide to appealing at the top left. The reason for the appeal is that the council have not made you properly aware that it is an Event Day. Simply repeat that appeal all the way to PATAS & you will probably win. Every PATAS appeal costs the council £40, they hate paying those fees. Make their pocket hurt.

Come on Barnet Council. Behave with honour and dignity.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

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Update, Thursday 4pm

Just to show you how little Mr Mustard knows about rugby he has been told that 9,000 tickets have been sold for the friendly fixture. There are only 300 parking spaces at the ground which isn't exactly well served by public transport. Enforcement therefore has to take place as residents complain about bad parking and about getting parking tickets when they shouldn't be there (different residents obviously). The numbers of PCN being issued are apparently slowing, going down from about 500 a day at the peak to under 200 now. Of course if you are one of the chosen 200 it isn't funny. More PCN are being cancelled if appealed (so appeal!) and you probably have a better chance if you live within the zone and then apply for a free permit. The whole size of the zone is again under question as the traffic wardens are wearing their shoe leather out covering it. Some dot matrix signs of a more reasonable price have been identified and they will get used the rest of the year for other purposes, road closures, special events in town centres that sort of thing.

It seem to take forever sometimes but changes are coming apparently. As part of Mr Mustard's deal with the COO to get a reasonable number of FOI questions answered (although he hasn't asked any for months) he agreed to write a bit of good news as well as bad, so when these changes arrive you will read it on this blog.

Voucher scratching for dummies

Barnet variation - scratch with a pen & lose £60

Some problems just don't go away.

Back in October, Mr Mustard blogged about the senseless policy of giving a parking ticket (PCN) to anyone who had the temerity to scratch out the panels on a visitor voucher (or parking voucher) using a pen instead of a coin.

Following his email debate with one the parking managers NSL were instructed to tell traffic wardens not to issue a PCN if someone had used a pen to mark off the voucher instead of a coin as clearly the voucher could not be used twice and that is all that matters.

Fast forward to 13 December and what happens? yes, you guessed it another pen scratched voucher leads to the issue of a PCN. Representations were sent in by the motorist and rejected and then he turned to Mr Mustard. Following an email from Mr Mustard to a parking manager NSL and its traffic wardens are again being reminded not to issue PCN in such circumstances. if you are affected do send an email to mrmustard@zoho.com and he will assist you.

What does this tell us about outsourcing? That when the staff report to someone else your message as a manager may not get through as you would like. It makes managing traffic wardens much harder as they are in a different building and not under your direct control so communications are much harder. It tells us that the back office either haven't got a clue, or are turning down representations that they know they should accept in order to get money into the coffers, or that a simple error was made. It also tells you that parking client side at the council are probably not sufficiently resourced to keep a close enough eye on what NSL are doing in the name of the council. If they were, Mr Mustard wouldn't keep finding things that are wrong, the parking team would.

The PCN was for £60. Mr Mustard gives his time for free and now, in 2014, asks those people whose PCN is cancelled to make a donation to the North London Hospice. This is the first one who has told him the amount (Mr Mustard doesn't need to know but it is nice) and a very generous £50 is being paid. Whatever you can afford will help others who have much more to worry about than a parking ticket.

A story with a happy ending. Thank goodness the motorist was introduced to Mr Mustard as he was elderly and was stressed by the situation and nearly paid £30 (the 50% for fast payment) to get rid of the problem. Much better that funds go to the hospice rather than the council.

If you have been poorly treated please don't pay the council but get expert help.

Anyone want to bet how long it will be before the next incorrect scratching PCN lands on Mr Mustard's desk?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Never Sodding Learn = "NSL"

Parallel Universe aka Croydon (click for original picture location)

Now Mr Mustard is a bit sad sometimes and he reads the PATAS reports for Barnet every day. Barnet council, acting through their contractor, NSL, also have to read them as they get sent them in order to deal with the fate of appealed parking tickets. What they are also meant to do is to learn from them; they don't appear to.

In April 2013 Mr Mustard and a parking manager at Barnet Council had an email debate about whether or not a visitor voucher on which a pen had been used was "scratched off or not". Mr Mustard said "yes", the parking manager said "no" but cancelled the PCN anyway which Mr Mustard viewed as agreement but the parking manager would say was just extending goodwill (and saving the fee of £40 he would have had to pay for the PATAS appeal as Mr Mustard has never failed to take a PCN appeal to the end of the line).

He didn't mention it later when an adjudicator at PATAS, the ultimate arbitrator of what is right or wrong said the following:

Miss L produced the original visitor voucher which was on display in her vehicle at the time in question. Clearly visible are the blue ballpoint scratches which have been made across the relevant day date and year to show that it was valid for the day in question. I conclude that a valid visitor voucher was displayed.

The officer appears to have issued the Penalty Charge Notice on the basis that the voucher had not been scratched out properly. This seems to me to be utterly without foundation. It is clear from the marks on the voucher that in scratching across the relevant items with the pen Miss L had put the voucher well beyond a second use. In the circumstances there is no doubt at all that she had complied with requirements.

Mr Mustard hasn't mentioned this case to the manager concerned but he will now. This is because he has another case where a man of over 80 has been given a parking ticket in identical circumstances. He does not have the time or nerves to challenge but luckily he has been introduced to Mr Mustard who has a limitless supply of energy with which to contest stupidity and/or improper behaviour. The informal representations have been rejected on the grounds that "the details were not scratched out, a pen was used. This invalidates the voucher..." which based upon the earlier case is incorrect.

What Mr Mustard thinks should happen in response to the daily reports from PATAS is that the back office should look and see what types of appeal they lose and then stop contesting them or change the lines and signs which are defective etc. In addition, traffic wardens should be educated to not issue a PCN when a voucher has clearly been put beyond reuse and at doubtful locations until they are fixed.

A cynic would say that they don't want to learn because 50% of all PCN, right or wrong, get paid in the first 14 days. The appeal trend is a growing force though and as people appeal to the adjudicator and win, they are emboldened the next time. It seems to Mr Mustard that Barnet Council are going to get themselves to the top of the adjudicator appeals league table by their policy of issuing marginal parking tickets and not learning from their past mistakes. If every single parking ticket was appealed all the way to PATAS the fees to pay in a year would be £6,600,000 - just imagine that.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Private message. AG18043068

Residents' forums / fora

Interesting choice of venue, the Crown Moran Hotel, about as far west as you can get without leaving the borough. The church hall at Golders Green seemed perfectly fine to Mr Mustard, central within the constituency and with very good transport links.

Who thought up those email addresses? whoever it was needs to think again and use:

cbrf@barnet.gov.uk
fggrf@branet.gov.uk
hrf@barnet.gov.uk

The penny has dropped - on Parking

Finally, more than 2 years after parking meters were cleared from the streets of Barnet and scrapped, the penny has dropped.

Last night Mr Mustard  went to the Business Management Overview & Scrutiny Committee. Tucked away at the end of the agenda was consideration of whether a decision taken in October 13 (yes all of 3 months ago) should go ahead. If ever you wondered how much time is wasted in pointless meetings, just go to Hendon Town Hall and watch for yourself. You'll find the dates of meetings here. It might help you to see your councillor in action or, in inaction (one didn't add anything to a 3 hour meeting yesterday evening, he might as well have stayed in the party room and scoffed the buffet) and then you can decide if you want them working for you or not.

The meeting was made more palatable by the welcome attendance of the redoubtable Barbara Jacobson who asked 32 questions which highlighted the errors in the report on Regeneration and she asked if perhaps in future someone at the council could check reports before they are published. This lament was made by Mr Mustard the year before last when he found a table that was about a million pounds awry, don't hold your breath Barbara. Also there was Helen Michael, of Cafe Buzz in N12, who has tirelessly campaigned for lower charges and the return of cash parking meters and been assaulted by a councillor for her troubles. If anything, she found last night's meeting even more painful than being assaulted in the street and having her wristed twisted but at least the result was (ah, you'll have to read on). Lovely Green Party Poppy was there. She is standing in High Barnet ward and will get one of my votes in May

So having decided to have a quick fire Task & Finish Group there weren't enough staff resources in the Scrutiny office to run one and the other reason for thinking again was that there was a huge review of parking going on. That was a red herring as the question of payment method was not part of the review. Not only that but since the report to committee was drafted which said there weren't the resources to manage the T&FG the resources had become available. Anyway, the ball having been placed on the pitch, it was duly kicked about for a while by councillors, as follows:

Alison Moore wanted the T&FG to go ahead. it could feed into the larger review.

Brain Salinger was happy to drop the T&FG provided the review came before the committee for pre-scrutiny and he was happy to have an extra meeting for that.

John Hart, bless him, didn't know about the T&FG. Mr Mustard didn't understand that at the time but now sees that John Hart has replaced Andrew Strongolou on the Committee which is just as well. Sadly what John showed us was he hadn't done any reading of previous reports before coming to his first committee which is a bit slack in Mr Mustard's opinion. He is about a 1000 years old and he at least knew about scratchcard vouchers which he seemed to think were popular (not if you get a parking ticket whilst you are in the shop buying one) and he hadn't worked out how to use the credit card meters (lord help us, he makes decisions that affect us all). He didn't want people getting confused by another choice. Hmm, they managed perfectly well before.

Kath McGuirk stepped in. No minced words from Kath. The decision taken 2 years ago was blatantly wrong and need a short sharp T&FG. Well said Kath. We must avoid getting sucked into wider parking issues she said.

John Hart had another go. We are working hard on getting business centres to thrive, he said. (Funny that, no-one can see the results.)

The man in charge of the meeting (Mr Mustard isn't prepared to get into the argument about chairs and chairmen that raged recently on twitter) Hugh Rayner then asked the question which should have been asked at the start. Is the wider review looking at payment options?

Answer: No.

Then the penny dropped. Brian Gordon spoke at length and twiddled his pen like a drum majorette, and he was speaking fast so these are Mr Mustard's notes rather than verbatim, we might get it on film later:

The more that is done to review parking the better, he is concerned about the public, parking exercises the public (i.e. it makes them mad and reactive) we will see the effect in May 14 (when you next vote for councillors) he deals with a lot of parking problems like parking tickets on bank holidays, tickets on boxing day outside synagogues, there is a feeling of nastiness (you could make a policy decision to turn Bank Holidays into Sundays or not enforce at all) he wants the public to be happy (Mr Mustard wants them to park properly as well) he is puzzled by the idea of the T&FG not going ahead, there is a widespread feeling that removal of cash meters was the wrong way to go.

at this point, Hugh Rayner who had been trying hard to keep the meeting to his timetable (wrongly in Mr Mustard's view, the business should take as long as it takes to get the salient points out) proposed that the T&FG should go ahead. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, said aye, and Mr Mustard went to his next meeting.

Mr Mustard wonders if the decision had already been taken beforehand to let it go ahead. Richard Cornelius, the "leader" of the council had been at the meeting all along. Mr Mustard doesn't think he is the best leader he has ever seen but that didn't stop them shaking hands and wishing each other a Happy New Year before the meeting started. Richard left at the end of the previous item. Whatever else Mr Mustard says about Richard he knows a vote losing policy when he sees one and Mr Mustard thought he would stay to steer this item safely to a conclusion but he didn't, he put his coat on (nice scarf Richard by the way) and left so perhaps he made his view known to Hugh before the meeting, there was of course no question that a whip had been applied, in a scrutiny meeting, o goodness me no, that never happens................

You really should try attending at least one meeting, just so you can see how bloggers suffer for you.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Barnet Council elections are coming - time to ask some questions

Business as usual / not as usual?

Parking Policy Task and Finish Group - 6 Jan 14 by MisterMustard

Mr Mustard is ready for his first committee meeting of the year. The above item is the one that interests him. He was at the meeting in October 13 at which the decision was made to do a cost benefit analysis of introducing cash parking meters in High Streets and car parks and a person or persons unknown is already trying to derail it.

Officers (employees) may well be carrying our a Parking Improvement Project (and being able to pay by cash on the spot would self evidently be an improvement) but the question that is being over-looked is that it is councillors who decide on policy which officers should then implement. For that reason alone the Task & Finish Group should continue. There was widespread dismay, and a fall in parking revenue, and a huge loss of trade for High St businesses, and focus groups really aren't necessary to take the blindingly obvious decision that both cash meters and PayByPhone have a place in the palette of payment choices. Nor should it be about the money; parking is expected to make an annual surplus of £7m and so using some of that to provide cash parking meters, maintenance and cash collection is self funding.

Another thing that this report highlights is that officers evidently hadn't told the members of the Business Management Overview & Scrutiny Committee what they were up to which strikes Mr Mustard as completely wrong. (Mr Mustard didn't know either until mid-November).

Looking at paragraph 9.5 it seems that most of the project activity has already taken place. The report is silent on what has been learnt so far about cash meters. It would have been helpful if that had been included in this report.

Parking is one of the activities which most upsets residents and so councillors (who aren't part of the Cabinet) should be consulted as a matter of routine as the proposed policy affects every ward and it is only 139 days to the next Barnet Council elections. This meeting would be a good chance for the elector at large to take a look at some councillors in action (or inaction in some cases) and decide if you really want them representing you in the Town hall.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard