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Monday 28 October 2013

POPLA decides easy-peasy case after 189 days

POPLA's internal processes are clearly in disarray. This post on pepipoo details the case of a motorist who submitted their appeal on 22nd April and only had the result 189 days later on 28 October. So that's a little over 6 months...

This delay does not bode well for POPLA. Their agreed targets were to decide all cases within 44 days. They are currently on notice for September, October and November. If they fail to meet their agreed performance criteria then the British Parking Association will meet on the 5th December to consider terminating the contract. In August there were more than 3,500 cases which were unlikely to beat the deadline, so currently it is all hands to the pumps in an attempt to churn out verdicts as quickly as possible.

The case was a particularly easy one to decide - a bread and butter case for POPLA adjudicators. The operator, ParkingEye has never been able to justify their pre-estimate of loss calculations, despite trying many different explanations to POPLA. The reason is simple. Their stated costs of running the business, divided by the number of tickets issued, is £53. The ticket charge is £85. £32 is therefore clearly profit, which cannot figure in any pre-estimate of loss calculation, no matter how you dress it up. Moreover, the £53 contains many elements which are also not part of any profit or loss calculation, and which are regularly highlighted as not allowable by the POPLA adjudicators.

POPLA assessors should therefore be able to deal with cases like this very quickly. However it does appear that a few cases get lost, and are only kicked back into action once the motorist starts complaining. The POPLA caseload is managed by excel spreadsheet (The Prankster found this out when he phoned POPLA to find what was happening with his case), which is not a particularly scalable or robust solution. The Pranksters own case only lasted 151 days, although he is currently appealing against the result on the grounds they seem to have assessed a different case.

To show how easy this decision should have been, here is a list of some of the known POPLA verdicts for ParkingEye where pre-estimate of loss calculations have been questioned by the motorist. There are no known cases where ParkingEye's explanation for pre-estimate of loss were accepted by POPLA, despite ParkingEye desperately trying out many different explanations.

POPLA appeals upheld- full transcripts seen by The Prankster
Verdict date

Operator
Reason
11 July 2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
18 July 2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
27July2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
6 Aug 2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
30 Aug 2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
3 Sep 2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
23 Sep 2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
9 Oct 2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
10 Oct 2013

ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss

POPLA appeals upheld - decisions reported at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4488337
Post date
Post number
Operator
Reason
23 Apr
18
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
18 Jun
68
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
21 Jun
77
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
5 Jul
93
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
15 Jul
121
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
18 Jul
138
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
19 Jul
144
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
19 Jul
149
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
19 Jul
160
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
22 Jul
166
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
26 Jul
177
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
31 Jul
181a
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
31 Jul
181b
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
2 Aug
182
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
8 Aug
193
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
10 Aug
194
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
12 Aug
199
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
30 Aug
210
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
3 Sep
212
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
8 Sep
235
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
9 Sep
240
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
11 Sep
243
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
17 Sep
254a
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
17 Sep
254b
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
17 Sep
255
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
21 Sep
262
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
21 Sep
263
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
24 Sep
272
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
26 Sep
288
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
27 Sep
291
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
30 Sep
298
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
30 Sep
299
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
3 Oct
317
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
10 Oct
321
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
10 Oct
347
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
11 Oct
332
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
12 Oct
348
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
14 Oct
359
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
15 Oct
377
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
18 Oct
390
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss
15 Oct
379
ParkingEye
Not genuine pre-estimate of loss.


No doubt Capita have been informed that ParkingEye's charges are not upheld by POPLA, and have fully accounted for this in their reported £57 million takeover.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

The Prankster would like to thank the various people at MSE for creating and maintaining the list of known POPLA verdicts, and the various people at pepipoo for collecting and making available completed transcripts.

The Prankster 




3 comments:

  1. Seems fairly clear that POPLA's days are numbered. BPA Ltd still have a problem though. That pesky GPEOL problem isn't going to go away if they sack POPLA and appoint a replacement.

    Can't imagine the AOS members are going to be best pleased to have to change all their literature and signs to reflect a new "independent" assessor either.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't think that the signs will have to change.....POPLA will still exist; it's just the organisation providing it that will change.

    So currently the London's Councils are providing POPLA services, when they get binned it will be another organisation running the appeals but it will still be called POPLA>

    ReplyDelete
  3. If the London Councils do lose the contract with the BPA Ltd I wonder what the BPA Ltd will have to pay in termination costs? no doubt they may be substantial.

    ReplyDelete