Parking Permits in Hillsborough.

[Litotes]

The initial consultation is usually accompanied by a public meeting, which gives people the chance to make their points directly.

 

A word of warning to those who go to these meetings expecting to get their requests noted in the official notes of the meeting - they don't and there aren't any.

 

It is a sham!

[metalman]

And where is your documented proof of this?

 

 

Permit schemes are an additional service. The Council do not have any statutory duty to provide them, so, those who benefit have to pay. That will apply to more and more services which used to be free as cuts to budgets continue to bite.

 

So if they don't have any statutory duty to provide them, why are they bothering? They could just get rid of the department that deals with them and the wardens that enforce them and save us all lots of money. So why don't they... hmmm, maybe it's that massive load of money they make from it that stays their hand.

[Dan_Ashcroft]

And where is your documented proof of this?

 

 

Permit schemes are an additional service. The Council do not have any statutory duty to provide them, so, those who benefit have to pay. That will apply to more and more services which used to be free as cuts to budgets continue to bite.

 

I've lived and worked in Hillsborough for a decade and never met one person in favour of parking taxes. They are rarer than Gibraltarians who want Spanish rule (I think there was 6 out of 12,000 in that referendum).

 

Everyone is fearful of it - as they know its the harbinger of doom for the commercial centre, which was already tinkering on the brink.

 

So taxes are "services". It's a service to have to pay for something that was free, and have less of them available?

 

No wonder the public sector is so derided in this country when they try and pedal such loonacy.

 

Anyway, I've stopped caring. I'm joining the white flight out to the west the second this hits my street, and leaving SSC to wallow in their urban decay. Has Detroit not been a big enough warning?

[andygardener]

This is made clear when a proposed scheme is consulted on.

 

 

A leaflet to every household gives the people who live there a direct way of getting their points across.

 

It's difficult to do door to door surveys at a time when you would catch everyone, so inevitably some would miss out. There is of course a cost implication too.

 

Someone has to go out to see if a road is suitable for a parking permit scheme.

 

When they do take a leaflet explaining the generic scheme and some sheets of A4 with boxes to record house number, name, approve or not and a comments box.

 

Knock on doors till someone answers. Ask if they would mind collecting responses from their neighbors in exchange for a sliding scale of, say £30 for 50% response rate to £80 for 90%+ response rate when the form is returned. If they say yes, do that. If they say no, knock on doors till someone says yes.

 

You only need one leaflet, you pay no postage and you get a vastly better response rate which would give a genuine picture of residents views.

 

Sorted.

[autumn]

Well done Andy you hit the nail right on the head .

[Planner1]

Someone has to go out to see if a road is suitable for a parking permit scheme.

 

When they do take a leaflet explaining the generic scheme and some sheets of A4 with boxes to record house number, name, approve or not and a comments box.

 

Knock on doors till someone answers. Ask if they would mind collecting responses from their neighbors in exchange for a sliding scale of, say £30 for 50% response rate to £80 for 90%+ response rate when the form is returned. If they say yes, do that. If they say no, knock on doors till someone says yes.

 

You only need one leaflet, you pay no postage and you get a vastly better response rate which would give a genuine picture of residents views.

 

Sorted.

And of course the person who "volunteers" wouldn't be tempted to fill in the questionnaires themselves to get more money, would they?

 

A letter drop to all properties cuts out any question of dishonesty.

[andygardener]

And of course the person who "volunteers" wouldn't be tempted to fill in the questionnaires themselves to get more money, would they?

 

A letter drop to all properties cuts out any question of dishonesty.

 

But the letter drops have appalling response rates so they don't work.

 

As luck would have it grab a pen and ask 100 people to write things in our very standardised alphabet and all 100 will be sufficiently distinct to be obviously different to even a casual observer. But for extra security add a contact number and tell the volunteer you'll be contacting some residents at random to confirm the details before payment and the fraud issue is solved.

 

Private sector can do attitude vs public sector can't do attitude nicely illustrated.

[BoroB]

That's up to the decision makers, the Councillors

 

 

That's up to the decision makers and whatever view they take at the time a decision is required. It seems to me to be quite prescriptive to be setting out pre-considered responses at the beginning. Isn't it better to see what the substance of the responses actually is, before they decide what should be done?

 

The Council is the Highway Authority, it is their responsibility to deal with all local highway matters.

 

There is no requirement on them to have "independent" reviews. There is no requirement on them to review anything in the first place, but they're doing it because they think it's a reasonable thing to do and they know that patterns of use develop over time and issues that hadn't been previously considered can come to light.

 

Would you rather the Council spent large amounts of money bringing in independent bodies to review everything and actually did less schemes as a result, or would you rather they just got on with doing what local people have asked them to do?

 

 

That's because the price increase hadn't been considered at the time the consultation was put in place, ie several months ago.

 

No one has ever promised that there would be no price increases, so there is no reason to scrap the consultation.

 

So what you're saying planner 1 is that the council offer to 'consult' but are not willing to say how the consultation will be judged until they see the responses?

 

How can you expect people to reply to a consultation if you basically say 'We want you're views but we won't tell you how we'll interpret these and use them to come to a decision'?

 

I noticed that you avoided the question about how the the review will be judged.

 

As someone with inside knowledge of this area, albeit in the past, if the majority of respondents are against the scheme in the review, will it be scrapped?

 

In answer to you're question: Would you rather the Council spent large amounts of money bringing in independent bodies to review everything and actually did less schemes as a result, or would you rather they just got on with doing what local people have asked them to do? Yes i would rather have an independent review to ensure that the council act in an imparial and independent way. They can not be seen to be doing this if they decide the charge, appoint the jury, the judge, and decide the sentence at both the trial and the re-trial.

 

I'm aware that the price increase probably wasn't considered at the time of the consultation - my comment referred to the review that was implemented in November 2012 with comments requested by 21 December 2012, just over three weeks ago.

 

The review did not mention the price increase so how can you ask arrange a review of a scheme without giving out all the facts?

 

The original consultation said that there would be a £10 charge to administer the scheme; what the council are doing now that the scheme is in place is pure profiteering with the £26 increase.

 

---------- Post added 13-01-2013 at 17:17 ----------

 

And of course the person who "volunteers" wouldn't be tempted to fill in the questionnaires themselves to get more money, would they?

 

A letter drop to all properties cuts out any question of dishonesty.

 

And of course council officers wouldn't be tempted to ditch reports that are not in favour of the scheme, would they?

 

An independent consulatation and review does not cut out but reduces any question of dishonesty.

[Planner1]

Private sector can do attitude vs public sector can't do attitude nicely illustrated.

Or is it the voice of naivety against experience. There are a number of issues with the method you propose:

 

• I offer the work to the guy who lives at No25 Smith St. Someone who lives at no50 wants to know why I didn't offer them the opportunity in a fair and open procurement process (and my procurement team and the auditors will want to know too)
  
• The person distributing the leaflets is attacked. My lawyers will be asking me what checks and safeguards I put in place to ensure that they were working safely
  

There are many more. Nothing is as simple as you might like it to be.

 

To do good public engagement needs substantial time and money. Luxuries which the Council staff involved don't often have.

 

---------- Post added 13-01-2013 at 17:46 ----------

 

So what you're saying planner 1 is that the council offer to 'consult' but are not willing to say how the consultation will be judged until they see the responses?

 

How can you expect people to reply to a consultation if you basically say 'We want you're views but we won't tell you how we'll interpret these and use them to come to a decision'?

The Council's officers do not dictate the way in which the results are decided on.

 

The Councillors decide. They ask the officers to present the results ot them in a particular format and to make recommendations. If you don't like that way of dealing with it, you need to take it up with them, they are your elected representatives and by electing them, you allow them to take some decisions on your behalf.

 

I noticed that you avoided the question about how the the review will be judged.

 

As someone with inside knowledge of this area, albeit in the past, if the majority of respondents are against the scheme in the review, will it be scrapped?

Nothing like that has ever happened. As the decisions are taken by Councillors it's difficult for an officer to second guess what they would decide. If that happened, the recommendation I would want to put forward would be a ballot, majority wins.

 

Yes i would rather have an independent review to ensure that the council act in an imparial and independent way. They can not be seen to be doing this if they decide the charge, appoint the jury, the judge, and decide the sentence at both the trial and the re-trial.

 

I think the Councillors would take the view that they are elected to take such decisions and they don't need independent reviews. The Council already do a great deal more than the minimum "consultation" required by the law. I can't see that bringing in expensive "independent" reviewers would add anything.

I'm aware that the price increase probably wasn't considered at the time of the consultation - my comment referred to the review that was implemented in November 2012 with comments requested by 21 December 2012, just over three weeks ago.

 

The review did not mention the price increase so how can you ask arrange a review of a scheme without giving out all the facts?

The price rise was only agreed last week and the consultation on the review will have been drawn up a long time before there was any discussion of the price rise. You can only mention what you are aware of at that time.

The original consultation said that there would be a £10 charge to administer the scheme; what the council are doing now that the scheme is in place is pure profiteering with the £26 increase.

They are putting the price back to where it was before the last administration change it. That's all.

And of course council officers wouldn't be tempted to ditch reports that are not in favour of the scheme, would they?

 

An independent consulatation and review does not cut out but reduces any question of dishonesty.

The officers have no view either way. They are tasked to carry out a review, and report findings and recommendations, that's it. If the scheme was scrapped or changed, it makes no difference to them. There is no reason for them to tamper with the results.

 

People already get frustrated with how long things take to implement. Adding further expensive layers of oversight and consequent delay is an unnecessary step in my view.

[Penistone999]

 

Again, there is no such thing.

 

Any chance of answering my Question . ?