Will it be legal to give False driver details to PPC?

HO87

A note of caution.

With respect to some posters I suspect that there remains a degree of misunderstanding about the process that has brought us to where we are.

As I have posted in other threads we should not underestimate the amount of lobbying that has been conducted by the BPA in the last 3 or 4 years. Neither should we forget where the executives at the BPA come from - almost exclusively decriminalised parking enforcement. Patrick Troy has made it as plain as it could be that what he wants to see is the "alignment" of private parking enforcement and DPE. What s.56 (and Schedule 4) POFA actually represents is a first step down that road. Can we safely assume that it will be the last?

The BPA has cleverly manoeuvred the PPC into a position where it is viewed as a contributor to the overall transport environment. Government policy has been for many years (courtesy of Liar Bliar et al) to reduce the use of private cars and force people onto public transport. This is why some people are now paying charges for using car parking spaces provided by their employers and why others struggle to find a space - even though the office is brand new. Planning conditions adjusted to match Government policy limit the number of spaces available to considerably fewer that the number of employees. PPC's are viewed as another deterrent in this mix.

The civil service has taken the BPA shilling because as another "tick in the box" towards the overall transport policy it enables those involved to get closer to bonus payments. Yes. Its money, at the end of the day. We should not persuade ourselves that this is simply a battle with the BPA and its membership. We are also up against lower and medium level civil servants as a result of their vested interest.

We would also be wise to assume that if s.56 doesn't work out on its own that further steps will be taken to make it.

With the POPLA staffing levels as worked up in the DVLA-prepared impact assessment I can't see that it will take very long for an increase in the number of appeals to bring the system to a grinding halt. The only response will be to gear up and to whom will that cost be passed? Not the PPC's surely?

bargepole

HO87 wrote: »

... The BPA has cleverly manoeuvred the PPC into a position where it is viewed as a contributor to the overall transport environment. Government policy has been for many years (courtesy of Liar Bliar et al) to reduce the use of private cars and force people onto public transport. This is why some people are now paying charges for using car parking spaces provided by their employers and why others struggle to find a space - even though the office is brand new. Planning conditions adjusted to match Government policy limit the number of spaces available to considerably fewer that the number of employees. PPC's are viewed as another deterrent in this mix.

The civil service has taken the BPA shilling because as another "tick in the box" towards the overall transport policy it enables those involved to get closer to bonus payments. Yes. Its money, at the end of the day. We should not persuade ourselves that this is simply a battle with the BPA and its membership. We are also up against lower and medium level civil servants as a result of their vested interest.

We would also be wise to assume that if s.56 doesn't work out on its own that further steps will be taken to make it. ...

All (probably) true.

But, if the policy of reducing car usage works, and there is, say, a 10% reduction, surely that's 10% fewer opportunities for PPCs to issue tickets, and a reduction in income with little or no consequent reduction in costs.

Patrick Troy is on record as saying that the current s.56 measures go nowhere near as far as the BPA wanted them to go (i.e. putting private tickets on par with Council DPE), and a reading of some of the debates and committees leading up to this legislation would indicate that many MPs view the PPCs with the same suspicion as was directed towards clampers.

The level of charging for POPLA appeals, at £27+VAT a pop, is far in excess of what many BPA members were expecting, and it will inevitably result in a change of policy for their internal "appeals" process - they are going to have to allow appeals for things like ticket fell off, wrong reg. no., blue badge not displayed, etc., otherwise they'll be shelling out only to get slaughtered by the Adjudicator. The days of the automatic "appeal rejected, now pay up" letter are over.

So the net result of all this may be that it gets harder for PPCs to make a profit, and they actually have to engage in some proper management of car parking. Some of them, however, will try to cover the increased costs by jacking up the price of the "ticket", but will be treading a dangerous path - the whole banning of clamping originally came about because they clamped a high profile MP, and the actions of some greedy PPCs could bring about a similar outcome.