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Westminster wardens who met the
West End Extra |
WARDENS: ARE RULES BROKEN?
Parking chiefs deny claims by ‘whistleblowing’ enforcement staff
PARKING wardens have claimed that they are handing out dodgy tickets to meet daily “targets” set by a private contractor.
Whistleblowers working for NSL Services, the council’s parking contractors, say that if they meet these targets they can be selected to work double-pay Sunday shifts and triple-pay bank holidays.
NSL denied the allegations and said the wardens had been stirred up by one member of staff with “personal grievances”.
The wardens, during two meetings with this newspaper this week, said they issue hundreds of “harsh” tickets in Westminster because of the pressure to meet an unofficial 10-tickets-a-day target.
One warden said: “You have to be harsh or you don’t get the tickets. You can start out good but everybody learns how to do the scams and get their numbers up.”
NSL director of communications Tim Cowen said overtime was “shared” between staff and not tied to any notion of “performance”.
The council vehemently denies wardens, now called Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs), are under pressure to meet daily targets or meet “performance” incentives.
Just two weeks ago, council parking boss Kevin Goad said: “The city council does not set a target for the number of PCNs that it expects to be issued. There is no incentive for CEOs linked to the number of PCNs issued.”
Westminster, the biggest parking authority in the country, receives more than £40million annually from tickets alone.
NSL holds contracts for 60 local authorities across the country and employs 200 wardens in Westminster. The number of PCNs issued in Westminster has risen by 14 per cent since 2005, and the total revenue brought in by parking has risen by 17 per cent – from just over £72 million in 2004 to £84 million last year.
In that time, among themselves the most prolific CEOs have earned nicknames like “Terminator”, “Mafia”, “Robocop” and “Moscow”.
Some of “harsh” tickets issued to “up the ticket count” on the streets of Westminster are so audacious, motorists don’t even know they’ve become victims until they get a letter through the post, according to the wardens.
Mr Cowen said any CEO caught issuing illegal tickets would be sacked, and that CEOs were trained to ticket cars and not people.
He added: “There is no financial incentive for us to issue tickets. In fact we get fined if we are found issuing illegal tickets. Most of these scams just can’t happen. We monitor our staff with GPS systems. Also I must say it is very difficult for a CEO to hide. That’s part of the reason we give them uniforms. The idea that certain drivers are targeted is ludicrous. We ticket cars not drivers.”
Wardens claim they need to bring in a basic rate of 1.33 tickets per hour at Lexington Street, and 1.5 at Vauxhall Bridge Road in Victoria to qualify for overtime.
We have seen an official weekly log sheet of wardens’ daily activity – known as Daily Performance Report Sheet – that records the hourly rates of ticketing by individual wardens. Many are above the 1.5 an hour average.
NSL say the log sheets are simply to monitor wardens’ performance and not a league table of the best employees.
The wardens say they chose to contact this newspaper because they feel they are being asked to choose between their job and their values. The West End Extra met a group of 10 wardens in West End cafés on two occasions this week. One said they felt immoral for singling out the “vulnerable” because victims would be less likely to complain.
Another, who has been a warden for more than two years said: “What we are doing is wrong. But to get overtime you have to do this to meet the targets.
“If we don’t get tickets pressure is put on us. We are asked why? There is a mentality that a fine is like making a sale. If you play by the rules you won’t get on.”
Mr Cowen said: “It is a popular urban myth that parking wardens are dishonest cheats.
“It has dogged our profession and is something we try to address every day.
“We have already had two investigations of targets and both of these have shown we have nothing to hide.”
“I am very disappointed that these guys feel that they have to complain to the press. I don’t know why they are saying what they are saying. Any of them can come to me in person or anonymously and I will listen to what they have to say.”
Councillor Danny Chalkley, Westminster’s cabinet member for city management, said: “Westminster council does not set targets for the number of tickets issued by parking attendants and has not done so for over five years.
“Any evidence to suggest otherwise will be fully investigated.
“We take the working conditions of all our staff very seriously and work hard to ensure our parking attendants are fully supported in the difficult and challenging job they do.
“I would be happy to meet with our parking attendants directly to listen to their concerns.” |
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