Parking Ticket Data

Neil made this Freedom of Information request to Hull City Council

The request was partially successful.

From: Neil

6 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 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.

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: Firth Alex
Hull City Council

7 August 2009

Dear Mr Houston

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Information Request - 000651/09

We acknowledge receipt of your information request received on 7^th August
2009 which is being processed according to the Freedom of Information Act
2000. We will inform you as soon as possible of any charges that maybe
associated with it.

The legislation allows us 20 working days to respond which takes us to
7^th September 2009. There are some circumstances under which this
deadline may be extended but we will inform you as soon as we know if
these apply. However we will endeavour to provide this information as
soon as possible.

We are required to advise you that if you wish to complain about our
response in any way, then this should initially be done through the
Council's internal complaints procedure. Please contact Lynne Bird, Legal
Services, The Guildhall, Hull HU1 2AA to register your complaint. If you
are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal complaints procedure
then you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office,
the government body established to enforce the legislation. Their details
are Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone
01625 545 700, Email: [1][email address], web site
[2]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

The Council's Freedom of Information Policy, which includes the charging
policy, is available on request and from the web site
[3]www.hullcc.gov.uk. Also available is a booklet on `Accessing
Information from Hull City Council' which explains how to request
information and your rights (according to the Data Protection Act 1998 and
The Freedom of Information Act 2000).

Yours sincerely,

Alex Firth

Sent on behalf of The Information Governance Team

Hull City Council

[4][email address]

Tel (01482) 300300

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From: Dearing James
Hull City Council

8 September 2009

Dear Mr Houston,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Information Request - 000651/09

Please accept our apologies for failing to provide a response within the
deadline but we are experiencing a high volume of requests at present
which is affecting our ability to meet our normal service targets. Please
be assured that your request is being processed and we hope to be issuing
your response as soon as possible.

We are required to advise you that if you wish to complain about our
response in any way, then this should initially be done through the
Council's internal complaints procedure. Please contact Lynne Bird, Legal
Services, The Guildhall, Hull HU1 2AA to register your complaint. If you
are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal complaints procedure
then you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office,
the government body established to enforce the legislation. Their details
are Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone
01625 545 700, Email: [1][email address], web site
[2]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

The Council's Freedom of Information Policy, which includes the charging
policy, is available on request and from the web site
[3]www.hullcc.gov.uk. Also available is a booklet on `Accessing
Information from Hull City Council' which explains how to request
information and your rights (according to the Data Protection Act 1998 and
The Freedom of Information Act 2000).

Yours sincerely,

James Dearing

Information Governance Team

Hull City Council

[4][email address]

Tel: 01482 300300

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From: Information Governance
Hull City Council

2 November 2009

Our reference   000651/09

Dear Mr Houston

Freedom of Information Act 2000 

Information Request - Penalty Charge Notices

With regard to your Freedom of Information request, we apologise for the
delay in sending you our final response which is simply due to the volume
of requests we are receiving at present. We hope this has not
inconvenienced you too much and be assured that this is not our usual
service standards.

According to the Act, requests costing up to £450 to retrieve the
information are free (apart from photocopying, printing and posting costs)
but any requests above this ceiling may incur a charge. The Act does not
require the council to satisfy information requests costing more than
£450. The formula for calculating the £450 is based on a £25 hourly
rate for finding, sorting, editing or redacting the material requested. It
is estimated that your request for information will be above the £450
because the amount of information requested is extensive.

Whilst this is a strict interpretation of the Act, the Council policy is
to provide a balance between the needs of the requester and the use of
resources to ensure effective service provision is maintained. We
therefore provide the following responses to your questions.

FOI request relating to information on 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 (i.e. date, time and method of
payments made), officer ID

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.

With regard to part 1 of your request, it is estimated that the cost of
locating, retrieving and collating the information would exceed the
time/cost ceiling as defined by the Act.

It is estimated that a case report would need to be produced for each of
the 91,333 PCN's issued since 10th July 2006 to date, with each of these
case reports consisting of a minimum of 5 pages.  We believe that this
and manual redaction of personal information on approximately 456,665
pages prior to release would exceed 18 hours of staff time and therefore
cannot be provided within the £450 cost ceiling.

In addition, Hull City Council holds no records prior to 10^th July 2006
as prior to this date parking enforcement in Hull was administered by
Humberside Police.

For information, please note that it would not be possible to give an
accurate answer relating to the current status and next status of case, as
each case is progressed according to legislation and its status is subject
to constant change.

To assist with your enquiry, public transport statistics are available on
the DOT website and the following website [1]www.patrol-uk.info provides
links to annual reports and statistics relating to tickets issued.

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.

Hull City Council uses `Chipside Case Manager' software to enforce Penalty
Charge Notices. The data collected is in compliance with the data
recording requirements of the Traffic Management Act 2004 Part 6 and its
associated statutory instruments.

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.

Hull City Council does not employee any Parking Enforcement Officers. The
authority contracted with Vinci Park Services in 2006 to undertake all of
its on and off-street parking enforcement, within the city boundary and
its various controlled parking zones. Prior to this Humberside Police
administered parking enforcement in Hull.

Vinci Park Services do not offer any form of reward/bonus schemes to their
Parking Enforcement Officers for the enforcement of local parking
regulations.

We hope that you will be satisfied with our response and should you
require any further information then please do not hesitate to contact
us.

We are required to advise you that if you wish to complain about our
response in any way, then this should initially be done through the
Council's internal complaints procedure. Please contact Lynne Bird, Legal
Services, The Guildhall, Hull HU1 2AA to register your complaint. If you
are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal complaints procedure
then you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office,
the government body established to enforce the legislation. Their details
are Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone
01625 545 700, Email: [2][email address], web site
[3]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

The Council's Freedom of Information Policy, which includes the charging
policy, is available on request and from the web site
[4]www.hullcc.gov.uk. Also available is a booklet on `Accessing
Information from Hull City Council' which explains how to request
information and your rights (according to the Data Protection Act 1998 and
The Freedom of Information Act 2000).

Yours sincerely

The Information Governance Team

Hull City Council

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