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ITEM EX7

EXECUTIVE – 4 MARCH 2003

OXFORD PARKING SHOP

Report by Director of Environmental Services

Introduction

  1. Decriminalised enforcement of on-street parking in Oxford was introduced in 1997. Department for Transport Guidance Note 1/95 on Decriminalised Parking includes a requirement for the provision of a payment centre for the issue of permits, and the payment of penalty charges and charges for the release of impounded vehicles removed from the street. A payment centre should be readily accessible to members of the public, be safe to use, and available 24 hours a day if dealing with impounded vehicles.

  2. In Oxford, this requirement has been fulfilled by Oxford City Council’s Payment and Parking Shop near Carfax. This arrangement was set up in 1997 for two reasons:

    1. The City Council already had a Payments Shop here that complied with the Guidance Note requirements, they had most of the administrative and cash handling systems needed, and the extra business made their existing services more cost-effective.

    2. It was a visible demonstration of the two authorities working together on transport and traffic matters in Oxford.

  3. The services to be provided by the Parking Shop and payments for those services were agreed between the two councils, and the arrangement has run satisfactorily since 1997, although a draft agreement, drawn up under the provisions of the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act 1970 to cover the arrangement, has never been formally concluded. It is clearly desirable that this should now proceed, but such an agreement would normally require to be subjected to competitive tendering under the Contract Procedure Rules set out in the Council’s Constitution. However, those Rules do allow for exemptions to be agreed by the Executive, where it is satisfied that there are special circumstances that justify this. The present report sets out the case for such an exemption.

    4. Services Provided by the Parking Shop and their Cost

  4. The services carried out by the Parking Shop are:

    1. accepting penalty charge notice payments from people who want to pay them in person (several hundred pounds daily are paid in this way);

    2. acting as a counting house for money collected by our contractors, Control Plus, from on-street pay-and-display machines and transferring this using a security company to Hemel Hempstead as local banks, post offices, and the like will not accept large amounts of coins;

    3. providing a 24 hour facility for payments to release impounded vehicles – a cash receiving payment machine in the window of the Parking Shop does this out of normal hours, the machine being administered and serviced by the City Council; and

    4. issuing residents’ parking permits and other parking permits, plus dispensations from the parking regulations for approved purposes.

  5. The total cost to the County Council for the services provided by the Parking Shop is approximately £85,000 a year. The exact cost varies slightly from year to year because some payments are linked to the number of transactions carried out by the Parking Shop. The cost is a charge on the On-Street Parking Account for the Oxford Special Parking Area.

    6. Possible Alternatives to the Parking Shop

  6. The alternatives are either that the County Council set up and run a separate Parking Shop or that an amendment to the parking enforcement contract is negotiated to pay the contractors to do so. Both alternatives would require a city centre site at an estimated cost of around £60,000 a year for rate and rents of a commercial premises plus the costs of utility services.

  7. To match the opening hours of the present Parking Shop, 8.30 am to 6.30 pm Monday to Saturday, would require the equivalent of four staff at a cost of £114,000 a year based on the hourly rate for a parking attendant. This level of staffing would cover annual leave and sickness absences.

  8. There would also be a fit-out costs to pay for equipping the Parking Shop with computer systems connected to the parking enforcement system, purchasing a cash-counting machine (£10,000 to buy plus a costly maintenance service), removal of the cash receiving payment machine from the present Parking Shop and refitting it in the new shop, together with restoration of the City Council’s shop front. If we could not continue to share the cash transfer service for coins with the City Council we would have to set up a separate contract for this.

  9. It is difficult to think of anywhere in the County Council’s city centre buildings that could reasonably be used for a parking shop. The public areas of the three main city centre offices could not accommodate the space needed for a parking shop (even if it were thought an appropriate activity) and the hours when it needs to be open do not match the public opening times of our buildings. The Central Library might possibly provide a space although this has not been investigated. But even if there were central office space, staffing costs would still make an in-house or contractor alternative more expensive than current arrangements and there would be fit-out costs to be met.

    10. Conclusion

  10. The present Parking Shop arrangements are working well, they provide mutual benefits with the County Council obtaining an economic service and the City Council being able to increase the cost-effectiveness of their activities by off-setting some costs onto the Parking Shop work that they do. Neither an in-house nor contracted out alternative could provide the same service for a lower cost than the £85,000 a year for the present arrangements.

  11. Maintenance of the existing arrangements would avoid potential disruption and demonstrate the benefits of joint working between partner authorities in providing a cost-effective service which is well located for public access.

    12. Legal and Financial Appraisal

  12. The Contract Procedure Rules require that the report seeking an exemption should not only set out the basis on which an exemption from the requirements of the Rules is sought, but should include any legal and financial appraisal by the Solicitor to the Council and the "Section 151 Officer" (currently, the Director for Business Support & County Treasurer.) Those officers are satisfied, on the basis of the circumstances outlined above, that the proposed agreement represents best value and that an exemption is justified.

    13. RECOMMENDATION

  13. The Executive is RECOMMENDED, in accordance with Rule 3.2 of the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules, to exempt the proposed agreement with Oxford City Council under the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act 1970 for the provision of Parking Shop services as described in the report from the requirements as to tendering set out in Rules 7-12 and to authorise completion of the agreement accordingly.

DAVID YOUNG
Director of Environmental Services

Background papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Richard Dix Tel: Oxford 815663

February 2003

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