Monday, 14 April 2014

Norman Baker review of POPLA overdue

In May 2013 Norman Baker, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Transport promised a review of POPLA after the first year of operation.




Stephen Hammond is now the current incumbent. The review of POPLA is now six months behind schedule. It is clear that the 'further safeguards' the government believe to be in place are being bypassed at will. For instance, Proserve are not a member of the BPA Ltd's AOS (or their rivals, the IPC) and yet regularly extract keeper data from the DVLA and are currently involved in a large number of county court claims against motorists.

The trust to oversee POPLA is now in place, only four months behind schedule. However, The Prankster is worried that it does not have enough funds to operate properly and that the members of the trust do not have enough time allocated to them to be able to function at the necessary level. A large number of problems have built up with POPLA since its inception, and the trust may not have enough resource to deal with these in a timely manner.

Reports of operators in the BPA Ltd AOS flouting the code of practice are legion, yet enforcement action from the BPA Ltd is not forthcoming. The DVLA stick their head in the sand and massage the figures to pretend the number of complaints is minimal.

Perhaps it is time for Stephen Hammond to start the long overdue review of POPLA.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster


1 comment:

  1. The independent trust to oversee the independent arbiters isn't working? Perhaps we need an independent steering committee to oversee the trust?

    ReplyDelete