Parking Ticket Data

Mr Houston

Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000,
received today.

This has been passed onto the relevant department.

Yours sincerely

Caroline Nicholson
Legal Services
Rushmoor Borough Council
Council Offices
Farnborough Road
Farnborough
GU14 7JU

01252 398601

[email address]

www.rushmoor.gov.uk

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Rushmoor Borough Council
http://www.rushmoor.gov.uk

Dear Mr Houston

Thank you for your request for information that has been sent to me for a
response.

The Council's answers to your request is as follows.

Question 1. I would like to request the raw data set of parking
tickets
issued in the name of the council within the last five year period
(22 July 2004 till now) broken down by: date, time, location,
narrative of infraction, current status of case, next status of
case, transaction details (i.e.. date, time and method of payments
made), officer ID

Answer 1. I attach a series of spreadsheets for the period from 22 July
2004 to 1 September 2009 (the volume of data provided dictates that I
present the information in this way). The information provided has been
saved directly from our enforcement system, so is the raw data requested.

I have removed the vehicle registration mark recorded against each case as
this is regarded as personal data under the Data Protection Act (because
the owner of the vehicle could be traced and disclosed by using other data
sources). Again, for reasons of data protection, I have also replaced the
name of the enforcement officer, with that person's ID number where it
appears in column A in each spreadsheet. I have also removed the data
relating to test tickets as you have asked specifically for tickets
issued.

The narrative of each infraction appears in column G in each spreadsheet
and is expressed by contravention code which relates to the standard codes
and contravention descriptions issued by the Dept for Transport/Traffic
Penalty Tribunal. To assist you to relate the contravention codes used to
the standard descriptions, I also attach an extract in Word taken from our
enforcement policy documents.

With regard to your request for the next stage of each case to be
specified, in most cases except for the very recently issued penalty
charges that remain live, the case status is shown in the spreadsheets (in
most cases 'paid' or 'written off'). With regard to recent live cases,
regrettably I must decline this part of your request because the
resources required to open each and every live case and interrogate the
current status with a view to assessing and specifying the next stage,
would, in my view, require approximately 300 hours of work at a cost of
£7.500.

With regard to your request to provide the methods of payment (for paid
penalty charges), again I must decline this part of your request on the
grounds that this would require interrogating each and every case in
detail, which, according to my calculation, would require over 500 hours
of work at a cost of at least £12,500. I would, however, be happy to
provide a small statistical sample of payment methods if this is of
assistance.

Question 2. I would also like to request any information regarding
*reward*/bonus schemes/contracts in place for your parking
enforcement officers. This is envisaged to cover the details of any
systems, including (where bonuses are paid) the amount per officer
per year, for the last five years.

Answer 2. Our enforcement officers receive basic pay plus a 10%
enhancement for working evenings and Saturdays. They receive overtime for
any Sunday and Public Holiday working. They receive no other enhancement
to pay, no bonuses and no incentives. All our enforcement officers are
employed directly by the council, so we have no contracted enforcement
services.

Question 3. As a supplementary, under section 16, I would also ask that
you
provide some detail about the recording processes of this parking
information. E.g. What software is used? What data fields are
recorded? What other data sets it links to, etc.

Answer 3. Our enforcement software system is provided by WPS UK Ltd (also
formerly known as Cinergic). The data fields are those specified within
legislation (both mandatory and recommended). Typically, but without
limitation, the fields are date/time of observation, date.time of issue,
location, make, colour and VRM of vehicle, contravention code (and
automatically contravention description), tax details where possible,
ticket/permit details where observed, fields for comments/observations,
field for linking to photographic evidence.

It is a little difficult to anticipate your expectations regarding data
set links, but our system does identify persistent evaders, has the
potential to identify permit-holders, and the core system has links to
DVLA, Northampton County Court (TEC) and our bailiff company. We also have
an internal link to our council-wide payments system so PCN payments can
be made on-line or other staff can 'see' some PCN details on other systems
that enables payments to be taken at remote locations.

I hope that this answers your question satisfactorily, but if you are
unhappy with the reply you have received, I attach a link to the Council*s
Complaints Procedure, which is the means by which you may request the
Council to review it.

[1]http://eforms.rushmoor.gov.uk/AF3/an/def...

Alternatively a printed copy of the Comments and Complaints Leaflet is
available if you wish.

If, following a review you are still dissatisfied, you can ask the
Information Commissioner to decide whether your request for information
has been dealt with in accordance with the legislation. The address is:

FOI/EIR Complaints Resolution

Information Commissioner*s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Tel: 01625 545 745

08456 30 60 60

Fax: 01625 524 510

An online complaints form is available on the ICO website at
[2]www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Mike Bamber
Parking Manager
Rushmoor Borough Council
[3]http://www.rushmoor.gov.uk
01252 398291

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