Mr McDonald

nigelbb

PE are acting as an Agent on behalf of the Principal but the motorist is entering into a contract with the Principal not PE. PE cannot sue on the contract as they are not a party to it. It follows therefore that even if there is a parking charge the debt is due to the Principal & never to PE & therefore PE have no standing to take the motorist to court for the alleged debt.

PE hide these simple facts beneath a blizzard of bullish!t when they bring a case to court.

trisontana

This seems to me to be the big elephant in the room regarding PPC's I thought that any losses that could be claimed would be those suffered by the landowner. PPC's by their very nature don't have any losses at all apart from the odd unpaid P&D ticket. I would have thought that a if court rules there has been a loss, then that should be passed onto the landowner and not kept by the PPC.

martmonk

I've been away a while but have returned to some FOI answers. One of which is below. Further questions will be asked!

What is interesting about this one is that in the specification (which is refered in the contract as binding) is this

5.21 The contractor must each month, at a date to be determined (prior to service commencement) produce and issue a report to the Trust. The report must provide the Trust with the number of fixed penalties issued, the quantity of visitors within thecar park(s). The format of the report must be agreed between the Contractor and the Trust representative.


1 - details showing the number of charge notices issued by Parking Eye on behalf of the trust since they were introduced in May this year.

Response:

We do nothold this information

2 - the number of appeals to those notices received by parking eye

Response:

We do nothold this information

3 - the number of thoseappeals that were upheld; and the number that were rejected

Response:

We do nothold this information

4 - the number of times thetrust has handled appeals directly from recipients of these notices

Response:

1201

5 - the number of those(trust handled) appeals that have been upheld

Response:

1201 the vast majority were blue badgeholders who failed to register their blue badge permit with the trust. On contacting the trust we have registered the permit and cancelled the PCN.

6 - the number of times that parking eye (as evidenced by appeal content either to Parking Eye or to theTrust directly) has sent a charge notice to a blue badge holder

Response:

We do nothold this information

I had a clarification on VAT which is - The Trust pays VAT on the Contract Price. To clarify – Parking Charges form part of the Contract Prices for services on which VAT is paid by the Trust.

Coupon-mad

5 - the number of those(trust handled) appeals that have been upheld

Response:

1201 the vast majority were blue badgeholders who failed to register their blue badge permit with the trust. On contacting the trust we have registered the permit and cancelled the PCN.

And therein lies the inherent problem and discrimination likely with the system. How many poor BB holders just pay, more than 50% I would guess. :mad:

martmonk

Coupon-mad wrote: »

5 - the number of those(trust handled) appeals that have been upheld

Response:

1201 the vast majority were blue badgeholders who failed to register their blue badge permit with the trust. On contacting the trust we have registered the permit and cancelled the PCN.

And therein lies the inherent problem and discrimination likely with the system. How many poor BB holders just pay, more than 50% I would guess. :mad:

exactly, and addressed in my appeal against the FOI response which I've copied to the two people I met.

martmonk

My appeal to the FOI response;

In respect of item 1 on this request I would refer you to FOI 1938 under which I was provided a copy of the contract with PE. In that contract the terms and conditions are clear on appointment, specifically;

2.1 The Authority appoints the Contractor to provide the Services:
2.1.2 stricly in accordance with the specification and all provisions of the contract

The specification is clear;

5.21 The contractor must each month, at a date to be determined (prior to service commencement) produce and issue a report to the Trust. The report must provide the Trust with the number of fixed penalties issued, the quantity of visitors within thecar park(s). The format of the report must be agreed between the Contractor and the Trust representative.

I therefore do not accept that the response provided to this FOI, namely that the trust does not hold this information, to be correct.

(please note that bold above is my emphasis).

Xxxx/Xxxxxxx,

I've cc'd you here as this is particularly relevent to the appeals issue. As the trust have inserted themselves into the appeal process between the stage of appealing to Parking Eye and to POPLA (which I remind you has a time limit set by Parking Eye) - as evidenced on the website https://www.northumbria.nhs.uk/patients-and-visitors/car-parking - surely you should have visibility of the numbers - the questions set in this FOI are, in my opinion the very basic metrics that the Trust should be using?

For the Trust to be part of the appeal process it must surely have visibility of those appeals from the outset, or at least the ability to obtain those appeals on request?

On another note does it not tell you something about the process that Parking Eye have in place that the Trust have upheld 100% of appeals made directly to them - I wonder how many of the 1201 had been rejected by Parking Eye before the Trust had them cancelled, and how many more are simply paying - including BB holders?

martmonk

I realise that this is going off in a few differnt directions but here are the latest FOI exchanges;

On VAT - that the trust pays PE has been confirmed. I've sent further requests asking how much has been paid broken down by month. I've also asked on how many of the 1201 Trust upheld appeals was VAT paid to PE.

On the contract itself and the clause quoted which gives authority I've had some back and forth with the Information Compliance Officer - essentially she replied saying that they had supplied redacted copies of documents but standard t's and c's;
The documentation supplied in the first request (1938) was the NHS Conditions of Contract for the Supply of Services (Sept 2010), as is already publically available. The revisions, which were made to these terms during the course of the tender process, were to the extent redacted, only available in a redacted form due to the exemption available under section 43(2)

Naturally I have an issue with this and have pointed out that she hasn't therefore fulfilled the request for the contract with PE if the t's and c's provided cannot be relied upon to be correct. I've demanded the actual t's and c's and expect heavy redaction in them.

I'm tempted to complain to the Information Commission as I feel the Trust are being at best naive in letting PE call the shots and at worst deliberately evasive bordering on dishonest.

martmonk

nigelbb wrote: »

I don't know if it applies in this case but in other hospitals the usual way that PE get paid is to keep all the money from their Parking Charge Notices as payment for parking management services & then invoice the Principal for the VAT due on that money. It's also possible that the hospital can get charges cancelled but has to pay as PE is losing money when a charge is cancelled. I am sure that you can think up some extra FOI requests that would throw light on the whole scam using this data.

Nigel,

appreciate any input you (or others) can offer on the VAT issue now.

Previous FOI received a response saying the Trust paid VAT on the contract price. However there was no contract price as the position is 'cost-neutral' as far as the trust is concerned.

A more recent specific FOI on VAT paid has had this response;

Northumbria healthcare has not received an invoice from ParkingEye to date, however the fine the drivers receive are not subject to VAT therefore of the 1201 cancelled tickets no VAT has beenpaid to ParkingEye.

Is that right? No VAT applies?

(still 'fine' despite repeatedly being told!)

nigelbb

No VAT is due from the drivers for the parking 'fines' as they are 'fines'. VAT is only paid on goods & services. The motorists get no service from PE (other than in the sense that a bull services a cow).

Northumbria Healthcare Trust are being disingenuous. The way that PE get paid is that they take all the parking charges that they can raise from errant motorists as payment from the trust for parking services. However there is VAT due on their charges to the Trust for parking services & this must be paid by the trust & given to PE (who presumably pass it on to HMRC or their activities are even more nefarious than we imagine). If the car park is Pay & Display then normally the Trust will get reimbursed by PE for any cars that overstay or do not P&D. Thus they use the phrase 'cost-neutral' when they hire PE although I would have thought that VAT on all the parking charges levied by PE would outweigh any P&D revenues clawed back.

Here is a link to a discussion on PePiPoo with a redacted PE/Trust contract. http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=84246 Buried in that thread is an unredacted copy https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9LyIlA8wxQWQlBBYTRqRURybTg/edit

martmonk

So after a bit of back and forth on the FOI request for information on the charges issued I've finally had an answer - initially the trust said they didn't hold this information - until I pointed out that the contract stated that the specification must be met in full and that in there was a requirement to provide a monthly breakdown.

The report I've been sent was generated by Parking Eye https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1jXc1Lz6E7eUm5WUzlCUWlnbG8/edit?usp=sharing
(hopefully that works)

The salient points;

across the 3 sites (Hexham, Wansbeck and North Tyneside)

Aug
Issued - 3948, Paid 1332, Cancelled 2153

Sept
Issued - 3580, Paid 1330, Cancelled 1680

Oct
Issued - 3651, Paid 1192, Cancelled 1185

If we say everyone who paid did so at the reduced rate (just to keep it simple) then the above represents £154,160 paid by motorists to PE in just 3 months.

If we say that 50% paid the reduced rate and 50% the full £70 then that's over £210,000 !!!

The trust are claiming they don't pay the VAT but if they do then that is min £30,000 for three months - £120,000 for the year.

All to save the £70,000 (presumably plus a much smaller £ for annual maint) it would have cost to keep the previous barrier system in place!!!!!

Separately (when I was challenging the initial response to this FOI and discussing some others), the Communications Manager accused me of putting the trust under a "barrage" of FOI requests and said they were close to a solution which I "would be happy with", that was on Nov 13th and I've heard nothing.

I will be contacting them again with comments like the above on the financials and copying in my local councillor and MP who have shown an interest.