Transforming Parking Services

Parking Services offers councils the opportunity to take control of a major contributor to their revenue budget, yet many councils are not grasping that opportunity. Recent work that ValueAdding.com has carried out with Local Authorities to transform how they manage and administer PCN’s and Parking Permits has shown that there are very real opportunities to collect more money and spend less on doing so, whilst at the same time offering a better service to the customer.

In order to deliver these improvements you first need to take a step-by-step approach to reviewing your Parking Service. Regardless of whether the enforcement service or administration teams, or any other part of the service is outsourced, it is imperative to know what the whole cost of the service is across all departmental and organisation boundaries. Are you able to identify:

• The unit cost for issuing a new permit or renewal?

• The cost for a customer to informally enquire about a PCN or go through to representation or even a PATAS appeal? 

• Whether it is cheaper for your customers to visit the "One Stop Shop" for a Parking Permit or to use a postal application - when you add in access channel costs?

Our methodology, as adopted by the DCLG’s NPIP project, allows for a robust case for change to be developed and real service transformation to be achieved. Our report on this work identifies some of the outcomes that were achieved and some of the findings which supported the business case for change.

Our work has seen Parking Services:

• Identify the opportunity for self service channel for permit applications and PCN queries - potentially delivering up to 65% of permit applications online.

• Review the PCN process to reduce avoidable contact and enhance the self-service access for customers. This will subsequently increase PCN payment rates.

• Identifying how transferring the chasing of PCN debts to other teams within the Council with debt chasing expertise can improve collection rates and reduce cost.

• Identifying preferred and cheaper payment channels for customers – informed by an understanding of ‘what the customer really wants’.

• Challenging policy to reduce processing time and cost for the renewal of permits.

• Working across council departments to understand the customer journey and how a ‘Single Contact’ can drive multiple processes.

• Identify business requirements and an insight into potential costs for outsourcing elements of the service.