Parking Ticket Data

The request was refused by Leeds City Council.

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

Leeds City Council

1 Attachment

Parmjit Chana
Legal Officer
Property and Finance
Legal, Licensing and Registration
Civic Hall
Leeds
LS1 1UR

Tel: 0113 2474399
Fax: 0113 3950475
e-mail: [Leeds City Council request email]
www.leeds.gov.uk

Neil To FOI requests at Leeds City Council
<[FOI #16569 email]> <[Leeds City Council request email]>
cc
07/08/2009 00:23 Subject Freedom of Information request - Parking
Ticket Data

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

show quoted sections

Leeds City Council

Mr Houston

thank you for your enquiry. I apologise for the extended delay in
replying.

Under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act the Council is not
obliged to provide information if the collation of the data would cost
more than the "appropriate limit" . This limit is set by fees regulations
at **450 for public authorities such as ours and is calculated using a
rate of **25 per hour which is also prescribed under the same regulations.

The Council has issued about 450,000 parking tickets in the last 5 years
and this information is held on a number of different databases , some of
which have been archived. Because each record may contain personal data
such as names and addresses, the Council would have to check each record
and remove this data. This would obviously take a very long time, far in
excess of the **450 limit,.

The Council can provide outline data such as offences by location, offence
code, time of day etc. If you would like information of this type please
let me know.

With regard to part 2 of your enquiry, I can confirm that Leeds City
Council has never offered bonuses of any kind for Parking Enforcement .

The Council records date, time,location, contravention code, contravention
description, make, model, reg. number, tax disc number, officer number on
each ticket. This information is held on a computer system called 360 with
is produced by Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions.

Mark Jefford
Parking Manager
Leeds City Council
0113 395 2200

Neil To FOI requests at Leeds City Council
<[FOI #16569 email]> <[Leeds City Council request email]>
cc
07/08/2009 00:23 Subject Freedom of Information request - Parking
Ticket Data

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

show quoted sections

Philip Chillag left an annotation ()

This seems a bit odd to me, surely the information is held in a database of some kind, they list the information that they hold so surely they could just release the data without certain columns. Based on what they said, they should omit reg number and tax disk number, possibly make and model since for certain rare cars it might be identifiable. Outputting date, time, location, contravention code, contravention
description should give you most of the information you asked for, and on any well designed system should take no time at all (a simple SQL query would suffice)

Emily Shaw left an annotation ()

I've had a similar issue with a request for data on traffic flows and speeds. I'm beginning to think that either they are making excuses or there implementation of IT solutions is completely dire!