BPA Facebook Site, Please add your comments etc on their response to FOI figures etc

HardWorker2010_2

ManxRed wrote: »

Good Lord, I nearly shed a tear there.

Tears of joy I suspect. :beer:

Plushchris

Did you delete your comment Hardworker? Or did someone do it for you?

Kite2010

I fear for September as the clampers will be trying to do one last pay-day before it gets banned.

WageSlave1_2

I see that the BPA are inviting their members to:-

"Take part in the biggest piece of research the BPA has ever undertaken"

http://www.britishparking.co.uk/News/take-part-in-the-biggest-piece-of-research-the-bpa-has-ever-undertaken?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

"18 July 2012

If you are a member then we'd like you to spare us 10 minutes of your time to help us to [STRIKE]improve our understanding of the scope of the UK Parking Sector[/STRIKE] make stuff up. This will help us to [STRIKE]act as better advocates for you with[/STRIKE] tell more lies to external stakeholders - including national governments and the media - by being better informed and more knowledgeable about the circumstances under which you operate."


. . . . Garbage In, Garbage Out . . . .

I see that on that Facebook page some contributors are giving the poor old BPA muppet a well-deserved hard time, eg

Contributor:"Now you know that your "members" have given you false figures what action are you going to take against them?, if as you say it was they who gave you wrong figures then what are you going to go do about it?, As the FOI shows the court cases by company then it will be fairly easily to see who has lied to you (and yes i do mean lie as its very blatant now), If as you say you have plenty of work to do then you should be very open about next steps and i think if you really wish to clear yourselves of any "blame" then please do name the organisation that gave you false figure. Anything that is less then completely open and transparent will do nothing to dispel what people already think of your organisation. I await your comments and next steps. In fact please do publish each organisations "claimed court cases" and we can openly compare against MOJ figures"

The BPA: "We provided the figures in good faith based on the information provided by the handful of members who make up the Approved Operator Scheme. We then used those to make an estimate that, as we've said, was clearly way off the mark and we admit that. It would be virtually impossible to clear ourselves of any implied blame even if we tried and we are not trying to do that – but we are admitting a mistake and learning something in the process."

Contributor: "Ok so please give us the figures that you were given by the AOS members broken down to each member, you have also not answered the question about what you are going to do about being misled?"

etc, etc

Last word from the BPA was still a bit of a non-answer: "The issue is being discussed and when we have something to tell you, we will"

Yeah, right.

HO87

WageSlave1 wrote: »

The BPA: "We provided the figures in good faith based on the information provided by the handful of members who make up the Approved Operator Scheme. We then used those to make an estimate that, as we've said, was clearly way off the mark and we admit that. It would be virtually impossible to clear ourselves of any implied blame even if we tried and we are not trying to do that – but we are admitting a mistake and learning something in the process."

I know what they say about inbreeding in rural areas (Haywards Heath is, after all, in what amounts to rural Sussex) but that's a mighty big handful. There are more than 160 members of the AOS. The general membership comprises only just over 700, so 160 represents a sizeable proportion.

But let's boil that down a little bit more. The question of how many county court cases had been initiated would only ever be relevant to private parking companies. It would be completely irrelevant to local authorities, manufacturers and suppliers, other representative bodies and foreign-based organisations who make up the rest of the general membership. In that case, 160 out of a total of about 200 private parking companies in the general membership makes up a proportion, of the relevant constituency, of something approaching 80%. You, the BPA, might want to call that a handful. Sounds far more like a majority to me.

As I don't do FB, I subscribe to the alternative - Let's-leave-each-other-the-!!!!-alone-for-five-minutes-Book so if someone wants to make use of the facts, feel free.

Let's not hold our breath whilst we wait for the BPA to think up the next approach:

A detailed consultation with our membership has revealed that the reason why so few court cases are started is that the process is so time-consuming that the monies actually recovered represents a significant loss of revenue to our members. The acquisition of registered keeper responsibility was necessary to truncate the process in such a way as to reduce our members loses and to enable them to concentrate on their core business of [STRIKE]farming[/STRIKE] managing car parks

Any one care to open book?

esmerobbo

Still waiting for the BPA to update!

trisontana

esmerobbo wrote: »

Still waiting for the BPA to update!

remember the time when the BPA put up a representative on here? After a few awkward questions they slunk away, never to be heard of again.

peter_the_piper

esmerobbo wrote: »

Still waiting for the BPA to update!

I was just wondering about that, I assume they will leave it a long time so it just dies away without the embarrassment of an answer.

pie_face_2

Thoroughly enjoying that facebook discussion

trisontana

That facebook page has been taken down, presumably by the BPA. What's that about the truth hurting?