Copy of Local Government Ombudsman’s report concerning Scarborough Council (02/C/13683)

Scarborough Borough Council (02/C/13683)

Highways

‘Mr Ray’ (not his real name) complained on behalf of his daughter (to whom a parking ticket was issued in October 2002) that the Council was wrongly:

• issuing parking tickets in a controlled parking zone;
• which did not conform to relevant regulations; and
• pursuing enforcement action for non-payment of such tickets without prosecutions.

The relevant scheme was introduced in June 2000 and covered about 400 streets in the central area of Scarborough, with on-street pay and display parking and residents’ priority parking.

The scheme was a ‘criminalised’ scheme. The Council was proposing to change it to a ‘decriminalised’ scheme in the near future. When that took place, appeals against parking fines would be dealt with by the National Parking Adjudication Service.

Since the inception of the scheme about 18,000 tickets a year had been issued for alleged on‑street parking offences.

The Council’s practice was to pass unpaid tickets to a debt collection agency and up to end 2002 10 unpaid tickets were pursued to county (civil) court proceedings.

The Council accepted that there were flaws in its scheme but argued that these were minor and had been rectified. The Ombudsman concluded that they were more than minor. She sympathised with the difficulties the Council faced interpreting complex regulations but said this was no excuse for the initial non-conformity of the scheme, which was maladministration. She was pleased to learn that the Council had carried out significant extra works but noted that Mr Ray alleged there were still flaws. She recommended that the Council should review its current scheme in the light of those alleged flaws.

The Ombudsman received legal advice that the Council’s practice of pursuing unpaid tickets with civil action was incorrect. The Council agreed that it would proceed in future through the magistrates’ court, until a decriminalised scheme was introduced.

The Council also agreed to waive the outstanding charge against Mr Ray’s daughter. The Ombudsman saw that, together with its action to remedy defects in its scheme and agreeing to stop civil debt recovery action, as a satisfactory remedy for any injustice to Mr Ray’s daughter arising from the Council’s maladministration.

26 August 2004