The full letter can be read here.
The main points are:
- The board does not have enough funding to do a proper job.
- The board is concerned that parking operators can forum shop and use a different appeals service with fewer safeguards which has a more favourable outcome at a lower cost.
- Proposing a levy on DVLA release of information to establish one board to oversee all the different appeals bodies
The Prankster considers this to be of extreme concern.The ability of operators to effectively use a 'kangaroo court' undermines the whole appeals service.
Here is POPLA's verdict on a case where the Notice to Keeper was not compliant.
As you see, the onus is on the operator to prove who the driver was. This is a complete opposite to the IAS view of the burden of proof.
And here is an IAS decision where the NtK was not compliant.
As it happened, in this particular case the keeper was not the driver, so the assessor made a completely incorrect inference.
The appeal result completely depends on which appeals service is used. Furthermore, the IAS appeals service is clearly a travesty of justice. One of the points of the appeals service is to reduce the burden on the court. There is no point, therefore in running an appeals service in which the burden of proof is on the motorist. No motorist in their right mind would pay up after receiving such a judgment. Instead, they would be far better off by using the court process to force the operator to prove their case - since the operator was not able to prove their case to the IAS, they are not likely to be able to prove it in court either.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
It's all a horrible shambles.
ReplyDeleteWhile the BPA and its fledgling POPLA have a more friendly stance towards interpretation of the appeals presented, it still has no more legitimacy than Blackbeard, the pirate captain.
The implementation of PoFA has done nothing really. It sets out poor standards, raises more questions than it answers and is hardly ever complied with by the parking operators. So is it any wonder that the feeding frenzy has spilled over to another appeals service seeking to fill it's own director's pockets?
I have some empathy with the BPA and POPLA but no sorrow for the situation they find themselves in.
It was the BPA who fought for the introduction of PoFA and thought it had opened the floodgates to a massive income stream. Live and learn eh?
So now it's all down to when the BPA and POPLA will cease to exist. I know if I were a parking operator where my best interests would lie and it wouldn't be with the BPA so are we about to see them fold.
Who needs a Kangaroo court at all? Proserve doesn't. They just roll up and get the keeper data courtesy of a compliant DVLA. And what about Mr Walton of PPL who just issues tickets without the effort of looking for a keeper, or keeping auditable records. And then there is City Permits.
ReplyDeleteThe "industry" for want of a better word is rotten to the core and putting lipstick on a pig...