State of independence: How independent can POPLA be?

BASFORDLAD

Posted on pepipoo

State of independence: How independent can POPLA be?
Posted: 28/01/2013 13:58 Views: 50 Comments: 0

As we approach the first 4 months of POPLA - the service set up for appeals against tickets issued on private land - many questions have been asked about the true independence of this system. How can it be if the British Parking Association were involved in setting it up in the first place?

In 2012, the BPA was asked by Government to establish an opportunity for motorists to seek independent adjudication, where they feel that they have been incorrectly or unfairly issued with a parking charge notice on private land.

Government laid out a number of principles which the BPA were expected to adhere to in establishing such a service – these included that the service should be free to the motorist, that the decisions should be binding on the operator but not on the motorist and fully funded by the private parking sector – all of these principles have been closely followed.

While it is true to say that this service is funded by BPA members, POPLA guards its judicial independence fiercely and neither the BPA or its members have any influence on the decisions that it reaches. The decisions made are based on the evidence supplied by both parties and the law – including but not restricted to Contract Law, the Tort of Trespass, the Protection of Freedoms Act and Office of Fair Trading legislation.

The adjudicators are not affiliated with the British Parking Association in any way. The Lead Adjudicator, has been a parking and traffic adjudicator for more than 15 years and is supported by a team of assessors all of whom have appropriate legal qualifications.

At the point of writing some 1342 appeals have been received by POPLA with 458 adjudications having been concluded and communicated to operators. Of these 63% have been found in favour of the motorist and 37% have been found in favour of the operator.

Whilst it is too early to say whether this is indicative of the long term proportionality of POPLA decisions, it does show that the service is working as intended and that motorists now have a recourse where one did not previously exist.

HO87

I think it important to identify the source of this text: http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=76299

The ultimate source is purported to be BPA on Linkedin - although a quick search failed to yield anything on the BPA page - maybe its somewhere else?

If it does indeed originate from the BPA then I think we can regard it as simply more PR guff. But then they'll say that that is exactly what we would say anyway.

SodG24

I guess the main question ( and one the BPA and the "operators" will be too cowardly to answer ) is of the 37% how many have ended up in court ?

BASFORDLAD

Ho87 the statement is on the bpa website

http://www.britishparking.co.uk/Blog/state-of-independence-how-independent-can-popla-be/419

Umkomaas

If you accept the premise that POPLA is working totally impartially and you take the above figures purely at face value then almost 2/3rds of tickets have been incorrectly or unfairly issued.

Is the BPA taking this up with their members as clearly they are being proved wrong 2 times out of 3?

Is there a breakdown by operator of allowed/disallowed appeals?

spacey2012

The fountain of truth that is the BPA, remember the 30,000 court cases a year that turned in to 45.

FightOrFlight

BASFORDLAD wrote: »

Posted on pepipoo.
"The adjudicators are not affiliated with the British Parking Association in any way. The Lead Adjudicator, has been a parking and traffic adjudicator for more than 15 years and is supported by a team of assessors all of whom have appropriate legal qualifications."

I think I read somewhere here or on PePiPoo that their lead adjudicator is actually from one of the PPCs - Nick Lester - that sits on BPA board.

HO87

Of course, the BPA will spout their initial projections of appeals as being 23,000 per annum, as opposed to the little over 1300 (extrapolates to an annual total of 3,864) that there have actually been, as an indication not only of the extremely low level of challenged tickets but of the proportionately large percentage of invoices correctly issued.

Given the projected annual rate of complaints based on the figures so far the BPA will also be able to boast about how conservative they were in their cost forecasts.

And "judicial"? Where the hell did they get that from. At best the service could be described as quasi-judicial though, on the basis of Shona's write-up, it would be best described as crypto-judicial.

spacey2012

A kangaroo court describes it best.

Aaron_Aadvark

FightOrFlight wrote: »

I think I read somewhere here or on PePiPoo that their lead adjudicator is actually from one of the PPC that sits on BPA board.

POPLA reports to Nick Lester at London Councils. Mr Lester is also a BPA Council member.

HO87

Aaron_Aadvark wrote: »

POPLA reports to Nick Lester at London Councils. Mr Lester is also a BPA Council member.

And Nick Lester has been at London Councils (as Corporate Director) going back to a time when Patrick Troy (current Chief Exec at the BPA) was the then Head of Traffic Enforcement at TfL. They have been a double act before - when giving evidence before Parliament in 2007 and at other gigs. Mr Lester is also President of the European Parking Association - so no possible conflict of interest there then.