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Key questions unanswered in council parking tickets scandal
A Liverpool Council opposition leader says questions remain unanswered relating to a Liverpool ECHO investigation that revealed a parking ticket scandal at the city council.
In February, the ECHO published the results of a 16-month investigation into a ‘back door’ parking fines operation that for years saw elected councillors able to have tickets rescinded without going through official channels.
Our investigation named 14 current and former Labour councillors who had fines written off. Two of those, Ann O’Byrne and Barry Kushner, left the city council in the wake of the findings. Another long-serving councillor Anna Rothery was suspended by her independent group. She has since left the council.
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But nearly four months on from that story being published, there has been no formal investigation by the council into what was described as the ‘custom and practice’ of parking fines for councillors being chalked off by officers and the issue has not even been placed on an agenda for any council committee.
Cllr Alan Gibbons, the leader of the Community Independents group has written to city solicitor Dan Fenwick to register his dissatisfaction with the situation and ask for answers to questions he asked as the scandal emerged.
In his letter to Mr Fenwick, Cllr Gibbons said: “On February 15 of this year I asked five questions about the parking fines scandal.
“The key questions included why it took 16 months to respond to the Liverpool Echo’s Freedom Of Information request and how the so-called ‘custom of practice,’ relating only to Labour councillors, of bypassing the PCN system, came about.
“I further asked who initiated this process, why it only involved Labour councillors and whether the practice was minuted or scrutinised at any meetings. I also asked if officers had been put under pressure to accede to demands to quash tickets. I believe this is also subject to a live code of conduct complaint.
“There has yet to be a satisfactory response to any of these questions and councillors have been unable to scrutinise the conduct of this matter. This is hardly the openness and transparency we have been promised in the reset of the organisation after years of opaque proceedings.”
Cllr Gibbons also added that it was a ‘matter of concern’ that the original FOI by this newspaper has still only been partially answered.
He said: “Finally, it is a matter of concern that the original FOI by Liam Thorp at the Liverpool Echo has still only been partially answered and the newspaper is still waiting for it to be fully answered.
“I would urge the author of the FOI to escalate it to the Information Commissioners Office and I will do so myself.”
Cllr Gibbons said the next meeting of the Audit Committee had been scheduled for June, where he had intended to raise the issue. The next committee has now been pushed back to late July.
The council said that a summary outcome of internal audits is now regularly provided to the audit committee ahead of its meetings and the parking situation and any reviews carried out will form part of that.
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