Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Mr Mustard asks whether London Councils can count
Mr Mustard - one of the Barnet superbloggers - has spotted a teensy maths error at London Councils - the Quango that keeps bunging up the costs of parking tickets. But don't worry they're only 4,808,865,073 out.
Meanwhile Haringey's far more conservative estimate is that our Parking Account surplus 2012/13 barely topped £6 million.
Tags for Forum Posts: Barnet Bloggers, London Councils, Mr Mustard, parking, parking surplus, parking ticket, pcn, penalty charge
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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That £6,000,000 ...
Alan your position, is it not, is that targets for the issuance of penalty charge notice are a necessary management tool. Would the logic of your stance also carry through to police arrests or other policing activity? (i.e. other law enforcement that can lead to fines).
With a net profit surplus of more than £6,000,000, in the 12 months to March 2013, the Parking Account traded in rude good health.
The Directors can be pleased with themselves. If it were a listed company, the whole enterprise might be valued at anywhere from £30m to £90m, depending on its prospects for growth (extend CPZs? increase the price of PCNs? raise the forecasts?)
The operatives are known as CEOs (Civil Enforcement Officers) and I can see the real Chief Executive Officer and other Directors have a great sense of humour. I can also see the attraction for Managers at Parking Account PLC of targets, expectations, sorry, "forecasts" for the operatives.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Clive, we had a long chat on the phone about what you call my "position" on this. Plainly, you didn't like the answer I gave you, as it doesn't fit your confirmation bias. Do please have a look at the Wikipedia page on this. Reflect on it and try to understand how interpreting ambiguous evidence as supporting your own existing position isn't helpful in understanding how things work.
As there's a slim chance that other people may be reading this, please let me be clear.
I do not think "that targets for the issuance of penalty charge notice(s) are a necessary management tool."
What I said to you is that is that Parking Service managers recording the number of Penalty Charge Notices issued (PCNs or parking tickets) is a valid measure and a useful piece of management information. It's not the only tool but it's one of them.
What's the difference between setting targets and having management measures? I went through this with you very carefully. Once again I'd invite you to read the material which John Seddon puts online for free.
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I appreciate that the police analogy undercuts your position on enforcement targets, but I had expected that you would at least try to engage. I hope you will reflect on this analogy, even if you will not own up to inconsistency! Once again, I invite you to answer the question directly, without diversion or distraction, reading lists etc.
Please don't let me misrepresent your position on parking enforcement targets. You asked me how the operatives could be monitored without targets. Is your assumption not, that targets are necessary and that raising money in this manner is a worthwhile activity?
You had left me with the impression that you defended PCN targets.
It is a point of view, but not one I subscribe to. Are you able to say unequivocally what you think of PCN targets (or expectations, or – in the new formulation of the LBH Press Office – "forecasts").
I should point out of course, that the council has officially denied there is any such thing as PCN targets, but CEO's may still get in trouble if they don't meet the "forecasts" (!)
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So I tell you that I don't hold the "position" you ascribe to me. You tell me that I do. Are you right or are you right?
Let me try one last time.
I'm not going to pretend expertise I don't have about policing and crime statistics, But there's no "analogy" with my "position". Using crime figures and convictions to measure police work is not the same as setting targets for the police. Again, John Seddon has interesting things to say about this. And unlike me he's talked with police officers about the impact of targets.
He is against them. (Targets; not police officers.) But he's emphatically not against management measures. Let me make things easy for you. I've attached Seddon's pdf file of his 2003 submission to the Public Administration Select Committee’s inquiry into public sector performance targets.
What I repeatedly asked you when we spoke was how you would propose to measure the performance of a traffic warden (CEO - Civil Enforcement Officer). Would you consider the number of PCNs issued as one possible measure? And how many you would consider a reasonable expectation. (Not a fixed target.)
So let's imagine that our keen new CEO Clive Carter has been trained. And is issued with his shiny new hat, hi-viz jacket, handheld computer, and a list of streets in his patch. Off he trots, all smiles. And on the first day issues precisely nil PCNs. The next day: zero. And the day after zip, nix, nada. The same happens the following week and the rest of the month.
Should your manager: (1) Ignore this completely? (2) Accept without question your explanation that your "patch" contains the most rule-abiding drivers in the UK? (3) Start to wonder whether you might have been spending all day on HoL in the local Internet caff?
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By the way I'm not saying Seddon is always right; I don't think he is. Or more precisely, I think his "Systems" approach needs to be matched by an understanding of other factors within organisations; including power, culture, and learning.
- Attachments:
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SubmissiontoPAdminSC.pdf, 216 KB
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Alan I think we've made a small amount of progress in establishing your position about the council's PCN Targets, but only in the sense that the contradiction of your position is now clearer!
You seem to be reluctant to admit that you do not see a problem with PCN targets.
Can you reconcile these two statements please?
A:
I do not think "that targets for the issuance of penalty charge notice(s) are a necessary management tool."
B:
how you would propose to measure the performance of a traffic warden (CEO - Civil Enforcement Officer). Would you consider the number of PCNs issued as one possible measure? And how many you would consider a reasonable expectation. (Not a fixed target.)
If you cannot think of a better performance measure than the council's PCN targets (B), why do you think they're not a necessary management tool (A)?
Can you see my confusion? You have in past, I believe, held principled positions about parking enforcement and so the lack of a clear view about the Targets (AKA "forecasts") is perplexing.
Do you perhaps see the council's PCN Targets as a necessary evil?
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Fable of the blind men and the PCN Target. Click to enlarge.
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