BPA and London Councils locked in dispute over POPLA charges

Independent mediator called in after BPA challenges six-figure debt

A long-running dispute between the British Parking Association (BPA) and London Councils over costs for the private land appeals service POPLA has been referred to an independent mediator. London Councils says it is owed over £168,000 by the BPA, a figure the parking association disputes.

London Councils operated Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) on behalf of the BPA from its launch in November 2012 until September this year. The contract saw the BPA paying London Councils around £900,000 a year to hear appeals by drivers issued parking charge notices by members of its Approved Operator Scheme (AOS).

London Councils sought to operate the contract on a “non-profit, full cost recovery basis”, meaning that it recharged the BPA a proportion of its management time and management overhead.

Correspondence between the two sides reveals that the dispute of the charges dates back to June 2014, when London Councils informed the BPA that it had increased its charges. London Councils told the BPA it had re-calculated its charges for 2013/14 and 2014/15 to ensure that “work for external agencies such as BPA is not being subsidised by the London boroughs in any way”.

As of 20 February 2015, the amount owed by the BPA for the additional charges was £168,398, according to London Councils. This was disclosed on 15 September in its response to a Freedom of Information request made by Edward Williams of campaign group NoToMob.

However, in London Councils’ Transport & Environment Committee (TEC) statutory accounts for the year ended 31 March 2015 the value of the debtor balances owed by the BPA is given as £367,000. 

London Councils revisited its charges after a challenge to its 2013/14 accounts requested by Graeme Jones, another member of NoToMob.

The additional charges from London Councils have been challenged by the BPA’s chief executive Patrick Troy. 

In a letter to London Councils dated 9 February 2015, Troy stated: “London Councils does not have a legal right to require the BPA to retrospectively pay any charges at all.” He added: “We cannot accept a position that is not covered in the contract and would leave us in the impossible position of trying to retrospectively claim additional charges from our members.” Troy said that any new charges would apply only if they were set out in a “side letter” which “must be agreed in advance of the financial year in which the increased charges are to take effect”.

Troy’s argument was rejected by Spencer Palmer, director of transport & mobility at London Councils. In a letter dated 27 February 2015, Palmer told Troy that: “Mr Jones’ challenge to the accounts in relation to the POPLA service required a fundamental review of the central recharge methodology”. This meant that London Councils was not dealing with the “type of scenario” suggested by Troy. “We are facing a situation in which during the course of the relevant contract year, London Councils has had to reassess the basis upon which the charges are calculated. This is a different situation.”

Palmer said that as the position of both sides had become “entrenched” the matter should be referred to an independent mediator at the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution.

London Councils approved the proposal at a meeting of its TEC on 15 October. Both sides have agreed to meet half the costs of the mediation, likely to be around £1,500 each.

London Councils’ contract  with the BPA ended on 1 October 2015 when the operation was taken over by Ombudsman Services. The total value of the BPA contract to London Councils was £904,000 in 2013/14 and £924,000 in 2014/15, according to London Councils’ accounts for the year ending 31 March 2015. 

In a London Councils report on POPLA dated 19 March 2015, Spencer Palmer states: “Feedback received from the BPA explained the main reasons for not retaining the contract was that London Councils, as a publicly funded body, could only offer to continue running the service on a full cost recovery basis and could not offer the fixed cost certainty that the BPA was seeking.”

Both the BPA and London Councils were asked by Parking Review why the dispute had remained unresolved for more than a year and after the end of the contract, but both sides declined to comment on this. A London Councils spokesman said he could not estimate how long the mediation process would take.

Patrick Troy, speaking for the BPA, said the dispute was not affecting the ongoing operation of POPLA. He told Parking Review: “None of this dispute has affected appellants’ ability to obtain independent redress where they have a dispute about a parking charge notice. Prior to the BPA and London Councils collaborating to deliver POPLA there was no such redress. Both the BPA and London Councils are united in their pride at delivering a service to over 80,000 motorists at no cost to them.”

Graeme Jones of NoToMob told Parking Review: “As a direct result of the NoToMob audit investigation London Councils is no longer providing or subsidising this service to the parking industry with public funds, a situation that should never have occurred.” 

Commenting on the difference between the figures given for the size of the disputed debt, Jones said: “It is disingenuous for London Councils to state in an FOI response one figure while quoting another in the formal accounts.”

(Additional reporting by Mark Moran)