Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Online resident parking permit
Hi
Is anyone having difficulties with parking permit application?
First it does not recognise me as a resident, but that is ok, I can submit evidence.
But then, after putting in car details, when I go to next step, it comes up with server error.
This has happened repeatedly, and I only have a few days till it runs out. Should have applied sooner but it has been a busy month.
Thanks
Richard
Tags for Forum Posts: online parking permits, parking, parking permits, virtual parking permits, visitor parking permits
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Don on
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I posted earlier on a different thread about the difficulties I’ve had just registering my residency so as to buy visitor permits (system failure in recognising my address, numerous error messages), so you’re not alone, Richard.
After several unanswered phone calls (“We’re very busy... Try again later...” Click; brrrrr) I finally managed to reach a helpful person at ‘customer’ services, who spent almost an hour in two further phone calls trying to sort it out, couldn’t do so, and was eventually told by the internal IT people that lots of others are having problems too.
Parking permits have apparently been outsourced to Taranto Systems, a tech company based in Chippenham; their database doesn’t talk or link to Haringey’s ‘My Account’ database and neither system can access any of the details I’d already entered years ago on the previous — now superseded— council database.
If Seema can get the council to sort it I’d be delighted; ‘customer’ service it ain’t.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Don,
Councillors can be helpful people in sorting things out - often on a case-by-case basis. This is not unreasonable. I was a councillor for several years and my first job when a resident brought a problem to me was to work on that problem. (Without their permission their data remains private.)
What you appear to have uncovered I do not find the slightest bit surprising. It may be true of most organisations which have partly replaced permanent staff with outsourcing, and with foolish over reliance on IT. Plus short term contractors etc etc. This in turn can lead to a lack of teamworking and fading organisational "memory". All worsening existing systemic problems. As do individuals and cultures which maintain rigid hierarchies. Too many people in senior positions - elected and otherwise - confuse their own autocratic notions of leadership with what Cyril Parkinson called "injelitance".
Yet Haringey of all places should be very wary of failure to detect systemic problems and communication failures. Not least because of past high profile tragedies.
I don't doubt Seema Chandwani's energy and willingness to try sorting this IT problem out. If she can, then great! But in my view the problems are far more deep-seated. Including the fact that in many councils Parking appears to be run as a local council profit-making business which pretends otherwise.
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Alan -- I'd agree with your analysis. I'm sure Seema will help if she can (I'm not in her ward but she offered on behalf of someone who is) and I appreciate the role of councillors in assisting constituents.
I finally got help yesterday from someone at the council, but my problem still isn't solved and there's now no way to get permits in person, so I'm stuffed until it's fixed.
I'm sure the relentless move to online-everything is entirely budget-driven, and I worry about its impact on people even older than me, those with poor eyesight or difficulty using keyboards or whose first language isn't English.
Experience also suggests that too many organisations use outsourcing just to abdicate responsibility -- "out of sight, out of mind".
I've used computers professionally for written and creative work since the late 80s, but I really struggled with the unintuitive, user-hostile Haringey parking permit system and suspect things will only get worse as time goes by.
Years ago I asked a computer whizz what would happen as people got older, arthritic or with failing sight and was assured that "developments" would enable everyone to use voice-activation instead; somehow, I don't see Alexa or Siri being able to navigate the minefield of trying to get a visitor permit any time soon.
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Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
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Hi Don and Everyone,
If you email me at zena.brabazon@haringey.gov.uk I will try and help if I can. I just renewed my permit this afternoon. There was a glitch which I have reported, but finally I got there. It didn't recognise my new car (two years old which I had of course informed the council at the time and for which I got a new permit ) but then, when I had another go, it did
I think all the problems need to be reported, otherwise the assumption will be that the system is working for everyone, and even from this thread it is evident there are teething problems. It is up to the provider to sort them out so people can get their permits without hassle and angst.
If you are having problems with visitor permits you can contact me too. The point should be to solve problems - both individual and systemic - so going digital works effectively. The intention is to ensure Customer Services can assist people who need specific help or who can't interact on line. if computer savvy people can't access the system then that defeats one of the objects of going digital, so all the problems and glitches need sorting out!
Zena
Zena Brabazon
Cabinet member for Early Years, Children and Families
Cllr, Harringay Ward
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Zena — Thanks very much for offering to help. The person I finally reached on Thursday promised to call me back on Friday if they, in turn, had heard back from IT, but as they didn’t ring I’ll hope to hear tomorrow. Even if this sorts my immediate problem out, though, I’ll still make a full complaint (as you and Alan suggest), since having three completely separate databases in itself seems completely crackers and there are other aspects not mentioned here that make it all feel user-hostile.
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Permalink Reply by JulieB on
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I totally agree with you Alan. I know council funding has been cut and cut and they have to try to make it up some how. But residents parking used to be an admin fee of £25 when we first moved here but the price has crept up each year and mine was around £180 last year. Although I'm hopefully down sizing cars (engine size) next month hoping to reduce emissions and cost.
I am fairly computer literate but I had to call Haringey customer service with 3 questions I couldn't find answers to on the council's website. After a long hold I did get through to someone, who was helpful but sadly the new system is not at all helpful and has made changing cars a potential nightmare and very costly.
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Permalink Reply by Candy on
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I have just spent an entire morning trying to get this virtual parking application to work and also had all the very helpful customer service staff at Marcus Garvey trying to help as well. The best we could do was to just hope that I have enough of the old yellow permits to keep me going until this website is sorted. I only wanted some visitors permits!!
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hi Richard,
They have introduced a new software as they want to make the whole system of parking permits digital: They dont give you vouchers any more, it is all digital. The new software is FULL OF BUGS, does not work!
I needed to renew my Residents Parking permit and spent hours last week trying to register and apply for it. I kept getting one error message after another. I called the Council and made an appointment to sort it out face to face with a Council employee. 80pct of the people queuing at the Wood Green Library (their headquarters) were queuing for parking permits and had similar problems. They had reserved 5 or 6 computers in the library for people to sit down and fill the online forms "under supervision" of very nice Council staff (very helpful ladies). Their own computers had clearly been cleaned of bugs.
I wasted a morning of my time going to Wood Green to sort it out. At least 4 ladies of the Council spent their whole day helping people sorting out the permits. And surely still doing it.
In a normal private company, they test softwares before releasing. And if it is a SHITSHOW, they revert to the old one during the time they clean the bugs. But HARINGEY COUNCIL clearly has clients who cannot shop around and are stuck with this appalling service.
Sorry if I sound disgruntled, I have never seen so much time wasted and money wasted.. but it is only our taxpayers money, so who cares!!
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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Exactly the same thing happened a couple of years ago when they introduced the online system - it would not upload V5s so you had to go in person to the library to sort it out.
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Several years ago I read an article by an American who had once worked as a programmer in Microsoft's 'Usability Lab '-I think it was called. He described the valuable learning he did from watching volunteers using, and failing to use, software he helped to write. What was "obvious" to him was far from obvious to the ordinary users.
Fast forward a couple of years. As a councillor I took up the cases of residents stung for a PCN when they could not avoid stopping on one of three closely spaced junction boxes. Two of the boxes turned out to be unlawful. Did Haringey agree to repay the motorists as you might assume? Oh sure. Refunds were delivered tied with ribbons fastened around flying piglets.
To be fair the system has some flexibility and some empathetic staff who respond to the real needs of real people - and not just apply machine rules. For example a senior person in Parking quickly sorted out a problem when a resident was being supported by her church sisters through a serious illness. And they kept getting parking tickets for bringing food and loving kindness.
Recently Parking found a worked around for unused visitor permits when it was mostly illegal to have visitors during the lockdowns.
But persisting system problems don't need workrounds. They need analysis and changes to systems. Wasting hours because two computers don't communicate wastes money as well as time. The management writer and consultant John Seddon calls it "Failure Demand".
At some point I hope we re-adopt human by default. And then I promise to stop joking about the silent 'F' in Channel Shift.
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Update to my previous: still trying to buy visitor permits, I was sent online to an entirely separate council e-pay database (run by yet another outsourcing company, not Taranto) for which one needs a completely different password and login, because — as the webpage emphasises — it’s not in any way linked to ‘My Account’, the voucher payment system or the previous council database, which would, of course, be just far too helpful, convenient and useful for residents. Just to make things better, it’s actually been disabled for the foreseeable future, so visitors are directed to the automatic payment phone line instead; predictably, this doesn’t take payments for anything parking permit-related (though naturally you can pay a parking fine, should you need to). So that’s three completely different accounts, all with completely separate passwords and logins, none of which talk to the others, now required by a Harringay resident just to deal with basic functions of the local council. What inspired genius thought this one up?
On Monday, I’m intending to phone Taranto Systems and try to find anyone who’ll take responsibility for the incompetent, buggy, useless parking permit system they’ve foisted on LB Haringey. But don’t hold your breath until I report back.
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Don - and others -
Can I please make a suggestion in addition to reporting back to members of Haringay Online who are following this thread. Which slowly begins to appear a Council Parking Zone Fiasco. Or CPZ-F for short.
At some point in the near future someone with a powerful lever to pull should be presented with these complaints about what is apparently going on. And be asked urgently to gather information about each and every case - and the overall pattern. And recommend very speedy action.
I may be wrong, but I can see no reason why the descriptions here are likely to be a handful of one-off glitches. In other words problems which can be worked through and "solved" one at a time.
I suggest step 1 - everyone meeting this problem should notify their own three ward councillors.
Step 2A. Adding the Council leader and the entire cabinet.
Step 2B - Plus the Chief Executive.
I have a little paperback called "Exit, Voice and Loyalty" which I bought secondhand forty years ago. Short of moving home, exit from a malfunctioning parking permit system is not an option for most people.
"Loyalty": holding on and hoping that somebody, anybody, will tackle the problem?. Well that might work.
Which leaves Step 3. "Voice". Here, calm, polite, reasonable requests may do the trick. But only I suggest, within a tight time limit.
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