PPC's costing DVLA £600k a year

[Michael Browne]

Taxpayers are spending up to £600,000 a year to subsidise the cost of private parking firms getting drivers’ details from the DVLA so they can fine motorists. And that total subsidy pot may have topped £5million over the last eight years.

 

New figures obtained from a Freedom of Information request reveal that the DVLA loses 34p every time a parking company applies for the details of a car’s registered keeper.

 

The subsidy arises because the private firms pay £2.50 for documentation, which costs the DVLA £2.84 to handle.

 

This year the agency has received 1.8million applications from private companies, costing the public purse around £612,000.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/cars/article-2593596/Parking-firms-requests-drivers-details-cost-taxpayer-600k-year.html#ixzz2xjeRUCzi

 

[Meekyou]

Why don't DVLA just up their charges to say £5 a time? that may make these cowboys think again before spending out to chase these PCN's. O is the charge set out in some law or something?

[DBC]

How about £25 a time? Let the government make some money from these clowns.

[Ell-enn]

I think they would only add the increase in fee to the price of the "invoice"

[Old Snowy]

Even if the DVLA put the price up to £25 a pop given that PE's real costs (aka "losses") per PCN are only £16 they still have £59 to play with. Many a business would welcome a net profit of that order. However, most of those other businesses probably have a better feel for their real costs.

[ericsbrother]

This is true for every case where people cough up without complaining but every charge issued that is challenged will cost them staff salary to correspond and then the POPLA fee and costs of preparing paperwork etc. If more people became aware of how to challenge these claims they would have to either put up the amount claimed for the breach of contract which may cause a breach of the contract with the landlord and they will have the costs of changing the signage etc as well.

make it too expensive and people will fight the charges rather than pay up for a quiet life. If the charges are high enough, the court fees no longer become a significant cost to worry about for the motorist and many more people will either chance it or fight the claim as it wont cost them much more than just giving in.

All in all, the DVLA charging the true cost to the PPC's would be beneficial to the motorists.

[hoohoo]

This is classic misinformation from the DVLA. The true cost of processing a PPC appeal is tiny.

 

However, what the DVLA have done is lump all costs onto the PPC for the entire system, which is also used by many other users, such as police, councils, etc who either pay nothing or pay cheaper rates.

 

In actual fact the PPCs are therefore subsidising everybody else. If the PPCs vanished overnight most of these costs would remain because the system is used by many other users.

[armadillo71]

This is classic misinformation from the DVLA. The true cost of processing a PPC appeal is tiny.

 

However, what the DVLA have done is lump all costs onto the PPC for the entire system, which is also used by many other users, such as police, councils, etc who either pay nothing or pay cheaper rates.

 

In actual fact the PPCs are therefore subsidising everybody else. If the PPCs vanished overnight most of these costs would remain because the system is used by many other users.

 

Do you think any PPC has put a complaint in to the DVLA about them subsidising the whole system?

Or would they not want to rock their unstable boat...

[hoohoo]

To put some further meat on this, the breakdown is given as follows

Direct costs (inc salaries, postage, printing) 1.46

IT 0.78

Overheads and development 0.60

 

As this is mostly done electronically, postage and printing are negligable. With 2,000,000 enquiries a year, that puts the salary bill at 2,900,000, or 97 people at 30,000 a year total cost of employment. What do these 97 people do? Answer...there are not 97 people servicing PPC enquiries!

[ericsbrother]

people who find their way here (or pepipoo or parking prankster) are in the minority and when they do seek advice they normally learn enough to bat off the claim against them without too much trouble.

The biggest problem is those who pay up and then complain afterwards. Well, if you want something done, dont pay up in the first place.

I look forward to seeing how many cases PE take to court next year, bearing in mind that they are losing a good percentage of those that are defended by a robust challenge to their claims rather than just some weak mitigation of why they were there late. If it costs them money each time someone returns an AOS they might start pulling out of the process a bit sooner and just chase those who cough up at the first sight of a court claim. Our task is to let as many people know about what their rights are when they receive one of these claims but we cant do that unless we know about them beforehand. I also think that the retailers should be made aware in no uncertain terms that these parking co's are bad for business in most cases. My wife wont go back to Lidl after getting a demand from PE, even though it was cancelled because I set about them in a way that cost them a fortune compared to the price of their ticket (got them done on planning law so they had to pay for new signs and all sorts but this will depend upon the local council being greedy enough to bother- Croydon is and that added about £400 for PP to the bill for the new signs).

I own shares in all of the UK supermarkets and will raise the matter at the AGM's where they are close enough to get to. Morrisons isnt handy for me so I will write in and expect an answer under AOB. This also give me free parking as I own the supermarket and so am the "occupier" of the land and that trumps any parking co demand. I dont tell them this as it will spoil the fun to be had should they not wish to drop the matter before it gets to the final stage of any claim. So far 4-0 dropped before POPLA

[keefyboy]

Can you ask DVLA not to divulge your information to anyone other than Police, and Local authorities, who are the only ones that can issue a Real PCN....? Isn't it a breach of the Data protection act if you tell them that you do not want your details disclosed and then they do so....???

[keefyboy]

More people want to dispute claims of real PCN issued by street wardens employed by local councils. I live in an area where because of the millions of students who try and park down our street nr the Uni, we have to pay £40/yr for parking permits to park in the street outside your own house. I fought for 4 1/2 yrs to get a disabled bay put in, eventually after issuing Small claims proceedings against the County council for failing to do what they agreed at arbitration, they put one in to basically shut me up (read my middle name above) explains what I am like and proud to stand up to them. Anyway getting back to the subject, last year, 2013 our lovely street wardens issued me with 3 PCN's for parking a disabled vehicle in a disabled bay outside my own house displaying Blue Badge everything as required by law. I challenged all of them and won the appeals, the last one was the best one though as i demanded copies of the photos taken by the street warden at the time and in 5 out of 6 pictures you could clearly see my Blue Badge displayed. An elderly man in the next street parked his Disabled vehicle in his BB bay outside his house and they issued him with a PCN he was so frightened by it that he paid it, and when i told him to appeal against it they refused his appeal and refused to supply the pictures (supposedly) taken at the time.... You have got to watch the councils as well for their only after your money.

[Pavi]

Good news folks I have done some research on this [problem] thats come up trumps and could lead to the recovery of lots dosh,by way of court claims against the cowboys

Many victims play their game and appeal to the kangaroo court. Don't do that.The law on data processing is clear please read the sec 17 of The Data Protection Act. Prohibition of Processing Without Registration. Whats that got to do with it you say? Its this! the next step is to find the cowboys registered office and make a note of the same. You then need to go to The Data Commissioners register of data controllers. Bingo I have been there and you will find that not one of these cowboys or their trade body is registered. So what again? Look at the act again sec 21 (1) Offences. What this means in effect is that by processing your data the cowboy has has committed an act that is illegal not just unlawful and subject to a fine.This means they can't plead mens rea. i.e. lack of intent even in a civil court and of course obtaining money as a result of an offence (or demanding the same) is illegal not just unlawful. Comments please

[keefyboy]

Thanks Pavi,

 

thats an eye opener to say the least........... Oh I wish they would give me a ticket, I'm getting withdrawal symptons of not following up my Middle Name.........

 

They probably haven't registered because I presume that costs money...........and they don't like paying out money as well know...............

[silverfox1961]

Good news folks I have done some research on this [problem] thats come up trumps and could lead to the recovery of lots dosh,by way of court claims against the cowboys

Many victims play their game and appeal to the kangaroo court. Don't do that.The law on data processing is clear please read the sec 17 of The Data Protection Act. Prohibition of Processing Without Registration. Whats that got to do with it you say? Its this! the next step is to find the cowboys registered office and make a note of the same. You then need to go to The Data Commissioners register of data controllers. Bingo I have been there and you will find that not one of these cowboys or their trade body is registered. So what again? Look at the act again sec 21 (1) Offences. What this means in effect is that by processing your data the cowboy has has committed an act that is illegal not just unlawful and subject to a fine.This means they can't plead mens rea. i.e. lack of intent even in a civil court and of course obtaining money as a result of an offence (or demanding the same) is illegal not just unlawful. Comments please

 

Hi

The BPA is registered as is SIP Parking Ltd and I bet with a little more searching I will find the others

[ericsbrother]

need to do a search of parent companies and then see if the registration covers all of the other companies. It shouldnt but I'm not sure what the ICO thinks about exchanging or passing on of information within the company group. An interesting thing to question would be if they dont have their own registration what are they doing tapping into the DVLA database using another company's ICO reg.-Misrepresentation perhaps?

[keefyboy]

If the body that is supposed to regulate and represent Private Car Parking Companies, the BPA is in fact SIP parking ltd and therefore can not be considered of being able to make a "Fair" judgement in an appeal......? or am I wrong in thinking this?