No target setting for PCNs, say councils

20 August 2009

Councils have rejected claims that they have ignored Department for Transport (DfT) guidance and set targets for parking penalty charge notices (PCNs).

Consumer magazine Which? claimed six local authorities admitted setting targets, but the councils said the figures were merely forecasts to help manage levels of income and expenditure.

A DfT spokesman said its guidance to local authorities was clear, and councils were expected to comply with it. ‘Parking charges are a tool to manage demand for road use and they should not be used as a revenue-raising measure,’ he said.

According to the claims, the London Borough of Lewisham set the highest annual target of 78,400 PCNs, but the council refuted this, saying the figure was ‘merely a forecast’ provided by its contractor when tendering for the contract.

A spokeswoman for the council said: ‘The council offers no financial incentive or penalty to the contractor for issuing parking tickets. Our policy is to focus on illegal parking where it causes a problem and where we have complaints.’

The London Borough of Bromley was said to have the second-highest target (65,500), but the local authority’s cabinet member for environment, Cllr Colin Smith, said any organisation would forecast its levels of expenditure and income, and that was what it was doing.

‘It’s about efficient management, so, of course we try and forecast the numbers of PCNs which might be issued as part of managing our budgets. Furthermore, we are instructed that it’s best practice to do so, according to the DfT’s own operational guidance to local authorities, so I’m amazed to learn than 89 out of 95 authorities appear not to being doing so.’

The other authorities were Shropshire Council, Carmarthenshire County Council, Basildon District Council and the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

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