Big bonuses paid to contractors for increasing number of tickets
The new administration of Ealing Council have released details of the contract between the former Council and their parking contractors which they claim encouraged excessive ticketing of local residents.
The old contract offered incentives to the Council’s parking contractor to maximise the number of motorists hit with parking tickets without any incentives to ensure they were issued fairly.
Labour’s contract paid the contractor £4.69 per ticket up to 170,000 tickets, and £9.79 for each PCN above 170,000. This offered a huge financial incentive for the contractor to issue as many tickets as possible, and yet there were no penalties for issuing false tickets.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Jason Stacey said he was shocked to discover the details of the previous contract.
He said, “They managed to clobber the motorist by encouraging excessive issuing of parking tickets, whilst simultaneously delivering bad value for Council taxpayers in terms of costs. It really was an appalling contract, and is symptomatic of Labour’s incompetence in dealing with outside companies. "
Cllr Gary Malcolm, Lib Dem transport spokesperson said "Residents in Acton and Southfield have been let down by Ealing's parking contractors for many years. That was why I set up my investigation last year. Previously I asked the council whether contractors gained incentive payments for issuing tickets. They said no! Any type of incentives to encourage more and more tickets is totally unreasonable as many residents suffer from the many unfairly dished out tickets."
The contract has never before been made public, but has come to light now that the new administration is invoking a new contract.
Cllr. Stacey says this removes all direct incentives to maximise parking tickets, and introduces a range of incentives to improve the quality of the service including penalties for issuing incorrect tickets. The Council claim it will also save a minimum of £410,000 in costs.
Cllr. Stacey said, "The new contract holds the contractor to account and pays them according to performance across a series of indicators including the fairness of tickets."
Association of London Government figures have also revealed that Ealing Council issued the second largest number of moving traffic offence fines last year totaling 100,746, almost double third place Transport for London at 55,842, signifying the biggest increase ever.
Paul Watters, of the AA Motoring Trust, told Evening Standard, "Moving traffic offences are becoming the goldmine that parking once was - we are back to easy pickings again. The high volume of fines suggests that in some cases the road layout is wrong, causing confusion and difficulty for drivers. They should have been reviewed before the enforcement cameras were turned on. We would urge anyone getting a fine to appeal."
The new Council have pledged a fairer and clearer policy of parking and other traffic enforcement including the standardisation of car park times across the borough and free parking on Bank Holidays.
September 29, 2006