Council writes off £4m of parking tickets

Scotland's largest local authority has admitted that around £4m due on 60,000 parking unpaid fines will almost certainly never be recovered.

The total is also growing by around £500,000 a year as more illegal parkers dodge the penalties.

The admission from Glasgow City Council comes after thousands of penalty charge notices issued in Scotland's four main cities between 1998 and 2006 were left with a legal question mark over them. The notices were flawed because they did not bear both the date of issue and the date of the offence, as is legally required.

The format of the notices has since been changed, but the mistake led to Edinburgh City Council in effect writing off around £6.5m in unpaid fines by telling sheriff officers not to pursue 70,000 unpaid tickets. It also cancelled a further 4327 and did not pass them to sheriff officers.

In Aberdeen £2.5m worth of fines imposed between 2003 and 2006 were wiped.

Glasgow City Council originally said in February 2006 that its outstanding ticket total was 71,315, worth £5.6m, but later that year it revised its figure and said there were just 11,000 outstanding, worth £580,000.

Now, in an answer to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the council has said the 60,000 difference was because "many of the previous cases going back several years have now been identified as unrecoverable and inactive".

The request was made by a regular contributor to the Pepipoo website, established to help motorists defend themselves against parking and speeding fines.

It means that between £3.1m and £4.7m in parking fines has effectively been written off. A spokesman for the local authority has since confirmed that it did not expect to collect the money for these tickets unless the offenders volunteered it.

The spokesman said it was wrong to assume that this was a blanket write-off of single-date penalty charge notices and said it was predominantly because of inaccurate details which are held by the DVLA.

But one of the campaigners against illegal parking charges said: "This is quite clearly because of the illegal single-date tickets, no matter what the councils say."

The council spokesman said: "This is not the case. We take advice from our recovery agents on every outstanding ticket to determine which ones we consider recoverable. The most common reasons are incorrect or out-of-date information registered with the DVLA and a failure to trace the individual.

"To put the figure in context, the 60,000 issued between 1999 and 2006 that are considered unrecoverable amount to little more than 5% of the notices issued.

"Although it is possible that many of those penalty charge notices (PCN) considered unrecoverable are also single-date tickets, we would not write them off for that reason and any unpaid single-date PCN not considered unrecoverable for another reason would still be on our system."

He said the statutory document was sent out to the registered keeper of the car involved in the parking offence, as provided by DVLA, and if that was not paid then a charge certificate was issued. If that was not paid it was passed to sheriff officers.

A spokesman for the DVLA said: "A recent survey highlighted that 94.5% of all vehicle keepers on DVLA's database can be contacted using DVLA's records. Also, 83.8% of all records contained no errors. Errors could be due to a number of factors, for example failure to notify DVLA of a change in vehicle colour or address."

Couple warn of stolen DVLA forms

The couple said they had been told 80,000 blank forms were missing
A couple left £14,500 out of pocket by unwittingly buying a stolen vehicle say more must be done to warn motorists thieves are using "genuine" DVLA forms.

Tim and Julie Burden said the Land Rover had a V5 logbook and they have since been told up to 80,000 of the blank documents are in criminal hands.

The vehicle was seized from their Neath home shortly after they bought it.

The DVLA said it had "repeatedly issued public warnings" about the forms, which can give vehicles false identities.

Mr Burden, a builder, said he and his wife had saved for 10 years to buy the Land Rover which was advertised as second hand in an a motor trade magazine.

Before going through the purchase he said he paid to have security checks on the vehicle and made sure it had a V5 form.

"The thieves had done a very good job - including providing a genuine DVLA logbook," he explained.

DVLA ADVICE

The stolen forms have a different background colour on the Notification of Permanent Export (V5C/4) tear off slip on the second page, which looks mauve on the front and pink on the reverse. On legitimate documents they should be mauve on both sides.
Buyers are urged to check the serial number that appears at the top right hand corner of the registration certificate.

If if the serial number falls within the following ranges BG9167501 to BG9190500, BG9190501 to BG9214000, BG8407501 to BG8431000 and BG9282001 to BG9305000 call the police.

The public can check the validity of a registration certificate prior to purchase if they call the DVLA hotline on 0870 2411878
Source: DVLA

He said he had subsequently been told a batch of 80,000 of the blank forms, rejected due to slight discolouration, had gone missing.

"I have been led to believe they have found their way into the hands of criminals, en-route back to the printers, where they should have been destroyed.

"The potential risk to the second car market is obvious."

He added: "The rightful owner has been paid out the insurance, and the criminal has the cash.

"I, as an innocent party, am left with the no car, no money and the uncomfortable feeling that honesty and hard work count for nothing."

The BBC news website has put all the couple's claims to the DVLA.

The agency would also not confirm or deny 80,000 documents were in criminal hands.

In statement it said: ""DVLA does sympathise with any member of the public who unwittingly buys a stolen vehicle.

"We are working closely with the police to prevent abuse of the vehicle registration system and repeatedly issued public warnings about these documents."

This includes issuing the serial number ranges to all newspapers, post offices, DVLA local offices, police forces, motoring and car sale magazines and vehicle data checking companies.

"We also provide advice on buying and selling vehicles at www.direct.gov.uk/motoring to help those buying a vehicle better protect themselves," said a spokesman.

On its website the DVLA lists the serial numbers of stolen V5 documents and warns motorists if they come across a match to call police.

Mrs Burden said the serial number on the certificate her husband was given with the Land Rover did not match those the agency was warning about on its website.

A survey by the DVLA last year found 23% of motorists in Wales did not know what a V5 certificate was for, and half would not know how to check if a V5C is genuine.

But 23% used a car checking service when buying a second had car.