NTBPT takes WCC to the High Court

[chairman]

 

At last, here it is - the Claim form (PDF), paid for by your donations, lodged at the High Court last Friday.

This not only lets Westminster City Council know, in no uncertain terms, that we mean business, but also answers the - very few - dissenters we have had that sought to pour scorn on our motives for seeking donations.

Let battle commence!

 

Donations
Those of you with experience of such matters will fully appreciate that a document of such quality comes with a high price tag, but if we are to mount a serious challenge of legal merit, cutting corners was never an option, and of the £30k raised to date, we are left with just under £10k. To see the job through, we still need to raise at least another £20k, but I am sure you will agree that the claim form itself should act as a damn fine incentive.

[Martin]

EXCELLENT !

I've not had time to read the whole thing (yet), but had a quick scan through the first few pages.
I particularly like, in the parts referring to WCC's October 2009 Report and their subsequent Report to the Court - which firstly showed a continued surplus, then showed a loss - where the Claim firstly damns the Council for a revenue raising scheme, but then also damns them for going ahead with the scheme if the loss-making figures they report are accurate (which is also disputed).  Thay can't win, either way!!   A new donation will be on its way.

[ldn1702]

I'm going to donate again today.

I have only scanned through the document quickly last night on receipt of the email, but will read it in full this evening. Very impressive indeed from what I've seen. I think it's also very well written, in non-technical legal language that everyone can understand

[Catwoman]

My head is spinning trying to read through all that....so I just skipped to the Conclusion on the last page   

  to everyone involved in putting this case together 

C.W.

[Bandit]

Excellent work by all involved. Another donation is heading into the fund. 

[templar]

Once Danny reads that he'll feel like he's gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson.


All that awaits us is the final knockout blow...


(Well done Chairman/committee!!)


EDIT:


I'm still reading it (It's rather long!) and there is something I am unsure about. On page 17 there is a claim that Verrus earns £1.25 per call. It seems awfully high - where did you come by this number? I thought they were getting 8p/£1 spent via their system, rather than a per call sum.

[Tweedskin]

Well, it depends how long they someone parks for, and the amount they get from every pound depends on how many transactions there are in a month. If someone is parking a car at £4 per hour (in a busy month) for the whole day, i imagine it could get very close to £1.25 per call, but yeah that might need looking at. 

[templar]

It would still be untrue to claim they make £1.25 per call. They could potentially make £1.25 per call, and if you include car parking it could certainly average out at that level (Though you'd have to pay to park for 15 and a half hours to pay them that), but in terms of pure motorcycle parking, it simply isn't true on average. Sure, if you pay £100 for an annual permit, Verrus will make £8 from the call, but for daily permits, 8p is your limit I'm afraid. Unless you know something I don't, which isn't just likely, but a virtual dead cert.


(Note: I just want to make certain this document is 100% accurate, so there are no chinks in the armour for Peter Large to get at. Assuming he read and understood the application anyway.)

[MonkeyBoy]

Read AND Understood - that is a big assumption!!   

[Martin]

Does seem a very high figure, if it's an average!  It can certainly happen for some transactions, e.g. quarterly/annual permit for a m/c, or 4 hours car parking (at £4.40/hr) in Central Zones (isn't 4 hours the max you can pay in one go), and car parking charges - IF they can be paid via PbP?  (Thought they were generally cash/credit card.)

From Tweedskins FOI figures, an average month was ~630K PbP transactions and the Verrus "cut" ~£206K value, so that would make the AVERAGE transaction worth around 33p.

EDIT: In a document of such scope, length and detail, it is still entirely possible for there to be inaccuracies or false assumptions, so is there any scope for a set of updates/clarifications to be supplied (to the Court), if any anomalies are discovered by this willing band of amateur lawyers!! 

[chairman]

Guys

Let me clear this up for you.

The £1.25 is the cost for calls handled by the Call-centre. The PbP system is fully automated ONCE you have registered. But..... to register (and thus the system does not recognise your mobile phone number) you have to talk to a call-centre operator.

Point is though, you ONLY have to do this once. WCC are claiming that, from Apr 2009, the "call-centre" charge is £98,000.

Here's the maths bit (Martin take note) - at £1.25 per call, it would appear that WCC want the Court to believe that 78,400 (£98,000 / £1.25) unique registrations FOR THE MOTORCYCLE CHARGING SCHEME only took place in the year.

And that is on top of all the bikers who signed up prior to Apr 2009.

So, according to those ever-so-creative chappies in WCC accounting, over 100,000 bikes have registered for the scheme which covers 6,000 bike bays - YEAH RIGHT

This court case is gonna be worth it for the "squirm" value alone

See you all on Tuesday, and make sure you join the Wednesday Morning Breakfast Club whenever you can spare 45 minutes between 8-8.45am every Wednesday

[Legolas]

Apologies if I've missed it, but it looks like we're fighting this on the basis of the accounting and WCC's motivation and not focusing on the social exclusion aspects. Is that right? I know the legal bods know what they're doing and this is in no way meant as a criticism. It just struck me that we have more ammunition that we could be throwing at them in front of the judge. Perhaps we're letting them off too lightly.

[chairman]

Legolas

Your point is absolutely valid. However, within the confines of this direct challenge, we must keep our legal arguments focused around the breaches of the Road Traffic Regulations Act, under which TMO's are issued.

The social exclusion argument, a solid one against the charging-scheme, could not be used to invalidate the Traffic Orders themselves.

If we want to use all the other arguments, they could be included under a Judicial Review. And before you all starting shouting that we said that we would go for JR, the rules apparently say that we have to show that we have gone for this straightforward challenge before leave (ie a Judge allowing us to have a Judicial Review) is given.

With your sterling persistence with the LGO adding another agency to the list of those investigating WCC, chances are we may not even need to go to the next level, ie JR.

Hope that explains, and thanks for highlighting what I imagine many others will be thinking!

 

[templar]

I think the confusion lies in the fact it says "Verrus earns £1.25 per call", not that it is assumed that each call costs Verrus £1.25, or that WCC are claiming that they have paid that much per registration. I understand where you get the figure now, and agree that WCC have been fudging the numbers, but it reads wrong to me. Maybe my legalese isn't up to scratch (it isn't - trust me!) and that they are correct to say they earn that amount, rather than they claim that as a cost per call.

My point would also be that it may very well cost £98,000 to set up a call centre, but should we be subsidising Verrus for it? They are entering this contract on the assumption they will make a profit (lots of profit as it happens), so why have WCC agreed to cover their initial start up costs? Because I assume that this is where the £98,000 comes from - initial set up costs, advertising for staff etc (which they shouldn't have had to do, on the basis they already had the contracts elsewhere), rather than the cost to set up an account. Barclays don't charge me for the initial set up costs when I open an account with them, because at the end of the day they will make money out of it. So why should I pay Verrus to open up an account (albeit through my taxes to WCC)?

[Ogri]

I'd like to know in which form this case will be judged. Will a judge retire to his chambers with both sides' reports and make a decision? Or will there be an actual court with us and them presenting the case? Will there be one or more judges ? Will there be access for the public / press ? How soon will we know the result after proceedings have commenced ?

Sorry to ask so many questions I'd just like to get a handle on the next steps.

[chairman]

Ogri,

To be honest, not entirely sure - will ask and let you know

W

[chairman]

Templar,

Our understanding is that the £98,000 is comprised of mere one-off registration calls at £1.25 each - nothing to do with any start-up costs. The Call Centre is actually run by another company called Converso contracted by Verrus.

The £1.25 literally is the cost of the call presumably including an element for the operator time, Call-centre running costs & profit element to Converso (they ain't gonna do it for the love of Verrus/WCC).

As there is no way that 78,400 bikes registered, chances are WCC are trying to add in car registrations as well

W

[edenphil]

Just read it, well done Warren and everyone involved in its creation.   

Another donation being made 

see you all next week for the nosh up

[Martin]

Chairman - cannot fault your arithmetic (i.e. £98K / £1.25 = 78,400 call centre calls). Also cannot fault your disbelief that 78.4K new bikes have been registered since April 2009 !!  I'll admit to not yet having properly read the bit of the Claim in question, but [playing Devil's Advoctae, here (how apt a phrase in this case) ] COULD it be that they are saying that 78.4K calls have gone through to the call centre related to Motorcycle Charging - not only the initial registrations, but also when people cannot text or register on-line, but end up speaking to an operator in order to make their daily/weekly payment? What about monthly / quarterly / annual renewals - are these also calls to the call centre?  What about people who phone up to ask a question?

DEBUNKING WCC's 'Motorcycle Financials' report as supplied for the Court case!

Separately, and cannot recall if these figures are part of what you've already seen (probably not, yet), but I was having more of a think about the SUPPOSED Enforcement costs that WCC claim they incur for the Bike Tax, to yield the £430K loss!!  I've seen figures from a couple of FOIs related to numbers of PCNs and related to Enforcement Expenditure, which cast serious (documented/evidential?) doubt on what we know are essentially spurious figures for Enforcement expenditure.  Firstly, Mike Jones has obtained lots of figures for the numbers of PCNs for m/cs and Jerry Abrahams has obtained figures for Enforcement expenditure and overall PCNs, so, much of the praise for the background information must go to them.

Anyway .. Jerry's FOI 4693

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/24160/response/64630/attach/html/3/FOI4693Abrahams.gd.doc.html

 yielded (total) Enfocement Expenditure details, as follows
 1/8/07 to 31/7/08  -  ~£13.3m
 1/8/08 to 31/7/09  -  ~£13.0m
 1/8/09 to 31/12/09 - £5,859,196 (for 5 months), which equates to around £14m for the year!
He also obtained the total number of PCNs issued for the period 1/8/09 to 19/11/09 (3.6 months) as 161,864.

Meanwhile, based on some of Mike's FOIs for the number of m/c (code 11) PCNs, it can be determined that the number of code 11 (non-payment of charge) PCNs to m/c for the same period 1/8/09 to 19/11/09 is approximately 8,500.

Ok, now the maths/arithmetic bit - m/c PCNs make up just over 5.25% of the overall total for that period. (8500 / 161864)

Now, 5.25% of the total annual Enforcement expenditure (assuming £14m for the year) would be ~£735K.

However, WCC claimed the figure for expenditure for m/cs would be almost two and a half times as much, i.e. £1.7m.
{They have used some magically calculated 134% of income!}

Creative accounting, or what!?  A cool £1m that they're trying to hide?  So, instead of the £430K loss their document purports to show, this analysis seems to show that, even with all those other costs (FOIs, vandalism, etc.) they are still, in reality, making well over half a million quid per year from the Bike Tax.  

[Legolas]

Legolas

Your point is absolutely valid. However, within the confines of this direct challenge, we must keep our legal arguments focused around the breaches of the Road Traffic Regulations Act, under which TMO's are issued.

The social exclusion argument, a solid one against the charging-scheme, could not be used to invalidate the Traffic Orders themselves.

If we want to use all the other arguments, they could be included under a Judicial Review. And before you all starting shouting that we said that we would go for JR, the rules apparently say that we have to show that we have gone for this straightforward challenge before leave (ie a Judge allowing us to have a Judicial Review) is given.

With your sterling persistence with the LGO adding another agency to the list of those investigating WCC, chances are we may not even need to go to the next level, ie JR.

Hope that explains, and thanks for highlighting what I imagine many others will be thinking!

 

Many thanks for clarifying, Mr. Chairman.
And I should also add my sincere congrats on the document. I won't pretend I understood it all, but I know if it were me on the receiving end of it I'd be bricking it!