Once more unto the (data) breach

suitably blurred email address so the data breach is not repeated

When the email about consulting on teachers being allowed to have resident permits was sent out to hundreds of residents in batches of 50+ the email addresses of all recipients were put in the "to" box and so were visible to all the other parties, as the picture above to give you an idea of the number of email addresses. If the bcc box had been used there would not have been a data breach but it is an amateur way of going on as this sort of error is prone to occur (Mr Mustard met a friend the other day who had just recovered from a long operation and sent, he thought, a txt to a common aquantance with a report on how the patinet was recovering but accidentally txted it to the patient themselves, doh! Luckily it was not at all negative although the patient did suggest that Mr Mustard could have said he was "looking fabulous" - he will from now on even if he looks like death warmed up) and there is special software that can be purchased for customer contact and/or the mail merge functionality built into Outlook (and presumably in similar email software) could be used:

A schoolboy error having occurred the council response was to send round an email asking you to delete the message thus guaranteeing the exact opposite as it must be interesting if the council want you to get rid of it.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I refer to our email regarding the engagement for the introduction of a School Parking permit sent today.

We are aware that the email has gone out with other email addresses contained within the address list and sincerely apologise for this error.

We would ask that you kindly delete this email from your inbox and in your deleted items.

Again we apologise sincerely for this error which was caused by human error. The Council takes data protection responsibilities extremely seriously and this incident is now being investigated by our Information Management Team.

Again we apologise for this error.

Yours Sincerely,

On Behalf of Information Management

As to whether or not the council should report itself to the Information Commissioner, the council's view is this:

This incident is not of the level of severity that warrants reporting to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

A number of people were livid and emailed Mr Mustard. Mr Mustard thinks the data breach is a serious one due to the volume of email addresses involved. This isn't the first data breach that the council have perpetrated. At least one person (not Mr Mustard whose email addrees is well known so isn't really breached by publication) is reporting the council to the Information Commissioner.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Will preferential treatment stop at teachers?

The following email has just gone out to everyone on a council email database (probably gleaned from resident permit applications) which will be a separate story about a data breach in due course.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Barnet Council is currently consulting on introducing a schools parking permit scheme to help schools within the borough attract and retain staff. We would like to hear from you on the council’s proposals so please inform tell your school staff, parents and residents that this consultation is underway.

Reasons why the scheme is being proposed:

Barnet schools currently face a number of issues with the recruitment and retention of staff such as:

• we border inner London boroughs that offer higher weighting salaries

• neighbouring boroughs offer more help with housing and travel currently

• some neighbouring boroughs already offer schools parking permits .

Proposed parking permit overview.

The scheme the council is proposing would:

• seek to ensure residents can park as near to their home as possible by offering a maximum number of permits to a school based on the availability of parking spaces

• allow schools to determine which staff receives those parking permits

• Only allow schools that have a school travel plan in place to take part in the scheme.

Summary of proposed scheme

If a schools parking permit scheme was introduced it would allow schools that reside in a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) to offer parking permits to their staff.

The individual permits would only be valid:

• in particular streets and only where suitable capacity is available

• during term time

• Monday to Friday

To take part in the scheme the school would need to have a school travel plan in place.

To take part in the consultation visit:

https://engage.barnet.gov.uk/development-regulatory-services/schools-permit-consultation

The consultation is titled Barnet Council’s Schools Parking Permit Consultation and closes on 30 September 2015.

Barnet Council Schools Permit Consultation

Commissioning Group

Mr Mustard was aware that this consultation was coming as he was at the relevant committee meeting and this is what he said at it on this topic alone:

Thirdly, permits for school staff.

I am all in favour of maximising the usage of on-street car parking spaces. Adjacent to Ravenscroft Park in High Barnet there is 200m of residents parking which sits empty all day as houses are only on one side of the road. It could also offer free parking in the afternoons the same as on Hadley Common.

However, the idea of letting school staff (park) is one that needs to be treated with caution as even private profit making schools appear to be included. So a school employee could have a permit which would cost, I presume, the same amount as a resident's permit (with £40 being typical) but an employee of, say, a school stationery supplier, which might be in an adjacent building, would have to pay £525

I feel a judicial review coming on if you treat one group of employees more favourably the another.

Thank you.

and this is what a local business has to say on the matter:

Giving teachers permits would be absurd and completely to the detriment of the local economy. But then Barnet does not care for the local economy – it is something to be mined and exploited until it collapses.

Teachers are a net drain on the local economy. They tend to live outside the borough (if they did not then why permits?) and thus draw their salaries locally and spend them elsewhere.

Parking is a very scarce resource. Our local economy depends on shoppers to be able to park and to that end we have fought hard to re-align the parking in High Barnet and contain commuters to Fitzjohn Avenue car park. To fill the remaining places with teachers' cars would be an economic disaster. They say that it would only be allowed in designated CPZ areas but by doing that existing parking in those areas will be displaced. Many visitors to the High Street use the side streets as they simply will not embrace the current parking regime.

What makes teachers a special case? It would seem we cannot recruit into many areas of employment. What about doctors and nurses? And, hey, shop workers! In Maslow's hierarchy of needs education is way below food (but probably not sweets). We have to pay £525 for the privilege of parking our van that serves the people of Barnet. I rather think that WE should be given free permits!

All other occupations depend on employees commuting when they cannot employ from the local community. You have to ask why is this ‘perk’ necessary in the case of teachers. If their package is not attractive you have to look at remuneration.  To take a resource from somewhere else and give it away as a cheap (free as far as the council is concerned) solution is not the way to do things. The economic cost is simply being displaced – residents and businesses will bear the cost.

To argue that some other councils have implemented this ill-conceived policy as a reason for doing it in Barnet is simply a ridiculous argument – just because someone does something does not make it right.

This is positive discrimination towards one group (with delusions of grandeur) at the detriment of another group which is actually funding the economy.

If you don't want your road, near to a school, over-run with teachers' cars so that you can't get parked in the day, then you know what to do, complete the survey.

If, like Mr Mustard, you don't want your data going onto SurveyMonkey's US server then email Paul.Millard@Barnet.gov.uk for a paper copy to complete. Although you have until 30 September to get it in, the best day to act is today.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Where's the fire? (not in Lambeth I hope)

Mr Mustard keeps half an eye on the public Register of the Environment & Traffic adjudicators who ultimately decide the fate of PCN. One case yesterday jumped off the page at him as the Appellant was the London Fire Brigade. Here is part of what the adjudicator had to say:

This was double pinnacle of incompetence by Lambeth Council whose traffic warden gave a PCN to a fire officer's car and then the back office were blinded by the assumption that the motorist must be in the wrong and they wasted the time of a LFB employee (we are paying from our taxes) going up to Chancery Lane to present his case.

Mr Mustard imagines the scene on the end of the 999 line one day

Hello 999, it is Lambeth Council here. It's the middle of the night and the parking office is on fire. There isn't anyone in there but it will cost us millions if you don't come and extinguish the fire pretty quickly. 

What's that, what sort of parking restrictions are there at the scene? Well double yellow lines but you can park on those as it is an emergency. What, you don't want to as last time you parked on a mere single yellow we gave you a ticket and wouldn't cancel it. We promise we won't be so stupid again. Now, are you on your way, pretty please?

Mr Mustard has now woken up. Of course the LFB would visit the scene of all fires.

Looking back through the register Mr Mustard can see that LFB have very careful procedures to ensure that the exemtpion with which they are provided is not mis-used and that the following boroughs have put them through needless Appeals since 2010:

Barking & Dagenham, Waltham Forest, Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Harrow, Bexley and

Transport for London &

the City of London

Could all those authorities please start to employ people with more common sense.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Havant a heart

Those not very clear yellow marks across the kerb mean no unloading and hence no blue badge parking. There was one in this car.

The story concerns Angelica and Alan (the names have been changed although Mr Mustard has a picture of 'Alan' lying serenely on his hospice bed, which he has permission to use, but has decided not to) and Angelica found Mr Mustard after his repeat TV performance on Parking Mad and this is what she wrote:

Hi Mr Mustard,

I saw your programme last night and I think you're doing a brilliant job.

If you have the time I wonder if you could give me some advice. I know you mostly deal with Barnet and I'm in Havant, Hampshire.

I'll try and keep it brief.

I do voluntary work at our local hospice, mostly on the wards but I do also visit the terminally ill in their homes. On this occasion my 'client' was having a good day and wanted to go to Specsavers to sort out his glasses. At that time he was using a zimmer frame but was very slow and had to keep stopping for breath. He has a disabled badge and so I parked on double yellow lines as near to Specsavers as I could. We were gone approximately half an hour. When I got back to the car I saw I had a ticket and the warden was just walking away. When I approached him he said I was parked in a no loading area. I had seen the white lines and sign for the loading zone but had parked a few yards away on the yellow lines. I didn't realise that the double yellow lines on the kerbstones also denoted a no loading area. I explained the situation and by that time Alan had caught me up, whereupon he also explained that he was terminally ill. He was quite upset and stressed by the situation. The warden could see how ill Alan was but said that he couldn't rescind the ticket. He said I should have read the disabled manual and I explained I didn't have one as the disabled badge was Alan's.  He did say he would go into the office the next day and explain the situation, I thought this was a good sign. He also said the conversation was being recorded.

I challenged the parking ticket on compassionate grounds explaining the situation. Alan's family also wrote in. I had a letter saying my appeal had been rejected. I then waited for the Notice to Owner and explained the situation again as they had said as I was a driver for the hospice I should know the rules. I explained I wasn't a driver for the hospice, just a voluntary worker. Again the appeal was rejected.

I was just going to give up and pay up as technically I was in the wrong, until I saw the TV programme last night.

My question is, do you think I should take it to the Tribunal? In some ways if I just paid up it would be the end of the matter and I could forget about it but part of me feels aggrieved at the callousness of the council. It's not about the money.

I would be most grateful for your advice.

King regards

Angelica

Mr Mustard was amazed, but shouldn't be, at the robotic response of the traffic warden; surely we can train them to be more human than this? A man has stood in front of you and told you he is about to die and you want to tell their driver they should have read a Rights & Responsibilities booklet they have never seen.

The Notice of Rejection is also pretty awful. It says "I am unable to cancel this PCN..." which is a patent lie. A council can cancel any PCN for any reason at any time even if it is 100% correct.

Mr Mustard's advice was clear:

1.  The kerb marks may not be clear enough to be considered as substantially compliant.

2.  The Unable to Cancel statement is untrue.

3.  The council have failed to properly exercise their discretion as they are required to do. They have to at least think, "this person had terrible medical problems, should we be nice and cancel even though technically we think the PCN was correct"? Councils misdirect themselves all the time about this and when asked for a goodwill cancellation they focus instead on the technical merits.

For Mr Mustard the decision is an easy one. Once you have a Notice of Rejection and Tribunal Appeal Form you fill it in and post it off straightaway as the, in this case, £70 PCN does not get any worse. If you win at the tribunal you save £70. If you lose at the tribunal you pay the £70 you would have had to pay if you had not completed the Appeal form. The council have to pay a fee to the tribunal for the Appeal process and the more of those they have to pay the harder they might think about things.

Mr Mustard has submitted the Appeal form which Havant Council have now had on their desk for 10 days. They have not yet cancelled the PCN so it looks like they plan to contest the Appeal. Mr Mustard has his motor running ready for the trip to Southampton (Angelica has equally offered to pop to London for the hearing).

The final words are Angelica's:

Just an update for you. Sadly Alan passed away on Saturday. I was in doing ward duties yesterday and saw his name on the list.

I had visited him on Thursday but didn't stay long as I could see he wasn't up for visiting.  Just a few days before he had been in good spirits and was talking about the 'Parking case'.  Your comment about 'Havant a Heart Council' made him chuckle.

Yours very sadly

Mr Mustard

Update 9 September 2015

The Traffic Penalty Tribunal have written to say that "The council has decided not to contest this appeal". Looking at it further Havant BC issue PCN as agents of  Hampshire County Council (who did read this blog entry) and so which one of them made the good and bad decisions will never be known. This is a tale of persistence though on the part of Angelica because had she not seen Mr Mustard on the TV she would have meekly paid up and councils bully people because that is the usual outcome. It is not the outcome when Mr Mustard is involved, it will be a fight to the end, with him coming out the winner more often than not. Local authorities take note.

Nothing talks louder than money inside Hendon Town Hall - a guest blog

Cricklewood Open Space (Thomas Bell Photographs)

This is what Barnet Council says to justify the selling off of Cricklewood's last green space:

The subject plot fronting B&Q, on Cricklewood Lane is currently an open space primarily used as a disabled access ramp to the B&Q store. It is regularly fly-tipped and attracts rough sleepers among other social issues such as alcohol and substance misuse. The proximity to local businesses means on-going disturbance to businesses, environmental degradation, and Health & Safety concerns resulting from substance/alcohol misuse and excessive littering. Retention of the site in its existing condition would not only allow these problems to continue, but also drain the Council’s resources in terms of on-going management costs.

Campaigners and residents from Barnet and Council came together in November 2013  to protest at the possible disposal of the green space outside B&Q in Cricklewood and are organising again as a planning application to build on it goes before Barnet Council on September 7th.

November 2013

The Coalition for a Sustainable Brent Cross Development sent this message over the weekend:

Barnet Council are meeting on September 7th to discuss the sale of Cricklewood’s only green space, outside B&Q. It was given as public open space in 1987 when the retail park was built. Crown Estates sold it to Barnet in 2004 with a stipulation it would not be built on.  Barnet have managed to remove this requirement, and are selling public land with no public consultation.



All the known Cricklewood Green Space material is now on the BX Coalition website  LINK - scroll down for the last few postings there:

Actions you can take
-          Tweet @Barnetcouncil using #CricklewoodGreen
-          Sign the petition if you haven’t before and ask your neighbours to sign LINK
-          Write to the papers
-          Write to the committee about the sale of public land without consultation,
-          Join us in a protest outside the meeting on September 7th (check blog)
-          Keep checking the blog and Twitter @BXcoalition

From the Coalition for a Sustainable Brent Cross Development
Our co-ordinator  Alison is on holiday, please contact fiona.colgan@yahoo.co.uk