Incompetence at the Highest Level

“Giving money and power to [local] government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” (P.J. O’Rourke)

In early 2005 The London Authority Transport Committee carried out a review of decriminalised parking enforcement. It’s called “Parking enforcement in London: Investigation into parking controls and their enforcement in London“, published in June 2005 and it makes moderately interesting reading.

I was going to make some comment about how nothing has changed in the last 18 months since the report was published and since enforcement has been extended, but then I noticed this sentence at the end of the Executive Summary:

“There is nothing to gain from a system which allows authorities to impose a penalty on a citizen without that citizen being fully aware of the reasons for that penalty and having absolute confidence that the fine is being imposed fairly, efficiently and transparently.”

What planet are they on? This is a decriminalised system and as such cannot impose fines, only penalty charges. Fines can only be imposed by a criminal court according to criminal law. So I hit the search button for the word “fine”. There are 26 instances of the word “fine” in this document, only one of which is justified:

“You would have to do something quite serious to get fined four figures in the Magistrates’ Court”.

Here are a couple of examples of erroneous use:

“We received considerable evidence that motorists are being fined for minor breaches of regulations such as…”

“…a visit to the West End or City for London’s 215,000 Blue Badge holders can be frustrating, confusing and often result in parking fines.”

As an aside, the other factor that comes to light when you do a search like this is that the same paragraphs appear over and over again in the report showing that it has been padded – a triumph of quantity over quality.

Well it’s not surprising that nothing has changed ‘on the streets’ if those in charge cannot demonstrate leadership and understanding.

Sorry Mr Paul Watling, you failed miserably to do your job as Scrutiny Manager for this report. Feel free to e-mail him at paul.watling@london.gov.uk and tell him what you think.