In March this year Lambeth Council won the British Parking Association's Enforcement Award. Now a scandal is set to rock the council. Raj Mistry has been dubbed 'a New Breed of Parking Manager' and appears on the front cover of this month's Parking Review.
Let us hope that actions in relation to the story below are swift and public.
Crooked Lambeth Council staff 'let themselves off parking fines'Thursday 17th June 2010
By Matt Watts »
Crooked council workers have avoided heavy fines by letting themselves off parking tickets, a town hall whistleblower has claimed.
A member of staff at Lambeth Council exposed the actions of an unknown number of workers from the town hall’s parking monitoring team who have allegedly been cancelling their own penalty charge notices(PCNs).
The corrupt practice within the team that is supposed to oversee the parking fine appeals process allegedly took place up to April this year, but only emerged in a whistleblowing report published last week by the town hall.
Other allegations against staff included misuse of emergency parking badges, which employees had been using outside their own homes or when out shopping.
Neil Herron, head of parking lobby group Parking Appeals called the behaviour sickening.
He said: “This is on a par with the MPs’ expenses scandal. We can’t have civil servants abusing their positions in such a fashion.
“Given the difficulties many motorists and commercial fleets have with PCNs issued, often after the most minor of contraventions, this sort of behaviour will stick in everybody’s throats.”
Eight people have allegedly carried out a potential breach of trust in the parking division and action against them has been instigated by the council’s human resources department, according to the report.
Lambeth Council said for legal reasons it could not reveal exactly what they were guilty of.
The whistleblowing allegations update report, that was due to be discussed by Lambeth’s standards committee on Tuesday, stated: “Action is being taken against staff who are using their position in a number of ways that risk serious reputational damage to the integrity of the parking enforcement and dispensation processes maintained by the council.”
The council prides itself on a “firm but fair” parking policy, that saw the number of parking tickets given out by Lambeth parking attendants fall by 50,000 in 2008-09 to 181,375 tickets.
But £8.8m of parking fines were still handed to motorists in the borough in 2008-09, more than the cities of Manchester and Birmingham combined, according to campaign groups the Drivers’ Alliance and Taxpayers’ Alliance.
Mr Herron said Lambeth could not expect people to see the parking policy as fair until bad practice by workers was stamped out.
A Lambeth Council spokeswoman said: “The council places great importance on whistleblowing by staff as part of our determination to prevent and root out any fraud or malpractice. Lambeth is committed to a zero-tolerance approach against any wrong-doing, and our employees are well aware of that.
“They also know we value their contribution and co-operation in helping to ensure this. All allegations are investigated thoroughly and the council complies fully with its duty to protect whistleblowers.”
1 comment:
They also need to investigate they way they recruit staff as I think you will find that back handers are involved from the agency in question???
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