Civil Enforcement Officer

As a former council parking warden, I worked for 2 different councils and we didn't have targets either. ;)

As a council CEO in Devon I can confirm that we have no targets ( Not sure but I think they may be illegal). I was chatting to a colleague who deals with appeals the other day and was told a large number of legitimately issued PCN's are cancelled as a sort of goodwill gesture ie blue badge holders parking in loading bays.

Honeywes..
Thanks for your response to this. We could do with more CEO's on here to partake in such topics.
NH

I am a CEO and we are not given targets. I also believe that all my PCNs (excepting for the odd genuine mistake) are correct, as are those of my colleagues.

I was under the impression that CEOs employed by local authorities were not given targets, as enforcement is not to be seen as a revenue generating excercise??

Any CEOs (local authority) got any comments??

That I can believe. CEO's are under a huge amount of pressure to perform and achieve quota's. Some achieve their goals by issuing parking notices illegally.
One example (featured in the local paper), COE's in Manchester city centre errected a sign stating that parking had been suspended. Then, they would issued fines to vehicles parked there and impound them. They did this for a week or two until the media got tipped off and the CEO's were filmed doing it. Astonishingly, they kept their jobs! Manchester city council said it was a training issue! WHAT!!!! Deception at the very least!

By Jaya Narain on 20th January 2011
Motorists could be paying more than £500million a year for parking fines that should never have been issued, research shows.
Traffic wardens dish out up to ten million tickets each year in England and Wales.
And drivers pay an estimated £781million in fines and fixed ­penalties for allegedly parking in the wrong place.

But less than one per cent of drivers appeal – even though figures show a significant proportion of those who do are successful.
Campaigners say the statistics suggest local authorities are amassing a fortune in fines because more than two thirds of parking tickets should never have been given out. The penalties are another stealth tax on the motorist, they claim.

In London last year 68 per cent of drivers who took their case to the independent adjudicator won their appeal. Figures for 2009/10 reveal that 50,185 drivers lodged appeals – with 34,072 successful.
Outside London, Traffic Penalty Tribunal figures for 2008/09 show that, in England, of 12,423 appeals, 62 per cent were allowed. In Wales, of 145 appeals, the adjudicator allowed 86 (59 per cent).
Lawyer Safiya Hussain has launched a company – NoParkingFine – to prepare appeals for drivers. She said: ‘There are hundreds of complex laws which the authorities must abide by before issuing parking fines.
‘The authorities breach these laws most of the time, yet parking wardens still issue invalid parking fines. And what do we do? We sigh and we pay.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348789/Two-thirds-parking-tickets-issued-illegally.html#ixzz1BZlIhkG8