Parking Ticket Data

Neil made this Freedom of Information request to Bromley Borough Council

The request was refused by Bromley Borough Council.

From: Neil

1 August 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I would like to request
some information relating to the enforcement of parking
restrictions, specifically penalty charge notices.

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
broken down by:
date, time, location, narrative of infraction, current status of
case, next status of case, transaction details (ie. date, time and
method of payments made), officer ID

2. I would also like to request any information to ‘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.

Regarding part 1. ideally I would like the location unit to be
'street' but if this is not practical then under your section 16
duty to advise and assist I would expect you to contact me to
discuss how you record this geospatial data so that I may narrow my
request in a way that works for both of us.

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.

If this information is held by an outside contractor then it is
your responsibility under the FOIA to obtain that information.

If it is held by another public body then please can you inform me
of this and if possible transfer the request to that public body.
My preferred format to receive this information is by electronic
means. For both parts I would like the response to be in the form
of a raw text file, tab delimited, with text qualifiers where
required.

If you need any clarification of this request or if it is too broad
in any way please feel free to email me. If some parts of this
request
are more difficult to answer than others please release the
answerable material as it is available rather than hold up the
entire request for the contested data.

If FOI requests of a similar nature have already been asked could
you please include your responses to those requests. I would be
grateful if you could confirm in writing that you have received
this request, and I look forward to hearing from you within the
20-working day statutory time period.

Yours faithfully,

Neil Houston

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From: Coulston, Jackie
Bromley Borough Council

3 August 2009

Thank you for your request for information which I received on 3 August 2009. Your request is now receiving attention and you should hear from the council within 20 working days of receipt.

Sometimes a fee is payable if it is estimated that a request will take a council officer more than 18 hours to locate and copy the information and to send it out. If that is the case, I will let you know and a fees notice will be sent to you. You will then have to pay before we can proceed to deal with your request.

Please contact me if you have any concerns.

Best wishes

Denise Wouters
(On behalf of Jackie Coulston (Mrs))
Information Coordinator
Legal, Democratic and Customer Services
020 8313 4316

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From: Hollingsworth, Andrew
Bromley Borough Council

7 August 2009

Attachment Appeals Procedure.doc
43K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Houston

I am writing regarding your request for information, which I received on 1st August 2009. In that request, you asked us for details of every Penalty Charge Notice issued in the last three year.

I can confirm that the Council holds information falling within the description specified in your request. However, we estimate that the cost of complying with your request fully would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for local government it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2½ working days in determining whether the Council holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act the Council is not obliged to comply with your request and we will not be processing your request further.

If you were to make a new request for a narrower category of information, it may be that we could comply with that request within the appropriate limit, although I cannot guarantee that this will be the case. I can however provide the following information and I hope you find this helpful.

Please see our annual parking report which covers statistical performance and information regarding Penalty Charge Notices. This includes the number of Penalty Charge Notices issued for the financial year 2007/08 and a breakdown of how many were issued by Civil Enforcement Officers on street and how many were issued following observation via CCTV. The full report is available on the Council's website at:

http://www.bromley.gov.uk/transportandst...

Further information published by London Councils regarding parking may be found on their website at:

http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/transpo...

This includes statistical information for the number of Penalty Charge Notices issued for the financial year 2006/07. The figures for the financial year 2008/09 will be available when the annual report for 2008/09 is published on the Council's website.

Please note that the Civil Enforcement Officers employed by Vinci Park Services UK Limited do not have targets to issue a set number of Penalty Charge Notices. Each year, the Council is required to prepare a budget setting out its expected income and expenditure for the coming year. To set the budget, the Council estimates how many Penalty Charge Notices will be issued during the year. The aim of parking enforcement is not to maximise income for Councils, but to improve traffic management for the benefit of the whole community. If any surplus income remains after deducting the cost of running the service, it cannot simply be added to the Council's general income. Any surplus income in relation to on-street enforcement is ring-fenced for future transport improvements.

If you have any queries about this email, please contact me.

I have enclosed a copy of the Council's appeals procedure for your reference should you wish to request a review of our decision.

Yours sincerely

î
Andrew Hollingsworth
Parking Officer
PARKING SERVICES
Environmental Services Department
London Borough of Bromley
Room 75, Rochester Block
Civic Centre
Stockwell Close
BR1 3UH

Website: www.bromley.gov.uk

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From: Neil

9 August 2009

Andrew

Thanks for confirming what information you are able to provide, by
the links to selected reports.

Can I please make reference to the paragraph that where I requested
information regarding the fields held within the database, as per
section 16.

I would just like to clarify - is it possible that the IT/database
administrator can produce the selected field extract from the
database backend (In my experience, databases often sit on MySQL/MS
SQL/Oracle backends - and the IT/database Administrator of the
system can often extract out information that the systems
'reporting' options don't allow).

If the size of the data extract is too large for it to be
compressed (zipped) and emailed, then I am happy to provide you
with FTP details (the IT contact could transfer the files), or to
receive the data on a CD/DVD. I understand that to produce some
reports in a 'paper' format is not the best for either of us.

Sizewise, the physical number of records will be no issue for me; I
cannot narrow down the request anymore than it already is. (That
being a limited number of fields, by PCN issued, for the 5 year
period).

Obviously if some of the information is not held in the database
(perhaps regarding the payment status etc,) then I would not want
to trouble you by having someone to review the actual case records
(as I understand this would be above and beyond the £450/2.5 day
limit)

Thanks,
Neil

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From: Hollingsworth, Andrew
Bromley Borough Council

9 August 2009

Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office until Monday 24 August 2009. Please email or call Dot Pullan on 7713 if an immediate response is required regarding customer complaints.

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From: Hollingsworth, Andrew
Bromley Borough Council

25 August 2009

Dear Mr Houston

Thank you for your email regarding your Freedom of Information request.

The database is in a format whereby we are unable to comply with your request without making a charge for the work required. The cost to the Council in officer time is 5 days at a total charge of £900.00. We are able to provide the information, although not necessarily in the format you specify, at a charge of £900.00.

Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act the Council is not obliged to comply with your request and we will not be processing your request further.

Please make a written request and a cheque payable to The London Borough of Bromley, if you would like us to proceed in retrieving the information.

Yours sincerely

î
Andrew Hollingsworth
Parking Officer
PARKING SERVICES
Environmental Services Department
London Borough of Bromley
Room 75, Rochester Block
Civic Centre
Stockwell Close
BR1 3UH

Tel: 020 8461 7713 or ext: 2682
Fax: 020 8313 4446
[mobile number]
email: [email address]
Website: www.bromley.gov.uk

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From: Neil

25 August 2009

Andrew,

Could you please confirm the format of the database, and the system
for recording PCNs. As requested as a supplementary under section
16.

Thanks,
Neil

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From: Hollingsworth, Andrew
Bromley Borough Council

26 August 2009

Dear Mr Houston

The database is provided by Civica plc and is based on UniData.

Kind regards

î
Andrew Hollingsworth
Parking Officer
PARKING SERVICES
Environmental Services Department
London Borough of Bromley
Room 75, Rochester Block
Civic Centre
Stockwell Close
BR1 3UH

Tel: 020 8461 7713 or ext: 2682
Fax: 020 8313 4446
[mobile number]
email: [email address]
Website: www.bromley.gov.uk

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Lord Elric left an annotation (10 January 2010)

If the IT department does not know the layout of the current database (i.e. which field names are used) and they claim to require £900 to provide such information, then there is something drastically wrong.

All database managers will have a hardcopy of the structure of the database files they maintain - or a simple mechanism for getting a hardcopy from the administration software - to imply otherwise is false.

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Lord Elric left an annotation (10 January 2010)

Civica plc.

http://www.civicaplc.com/UK/Sectors/Loca...

Unidata

http://www.rocketsoftware.com/u2/product...

•MultiValue data model eases modeling and storing of complex data and improves retrieval performance.

It seems to me that councils are using the cost of providing information as an excuse for not providing that information.

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From: Pensions2
Bromley Borough Council

27 February 2010

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Thank you for your pensions query of which we confirm receipt.

Your query has been forwarded to a Pension Administrator and you will
receive a response within 10 working days.

Regards
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