Move to digital services is causing problems for Warwickshire residents
THE move from paper to digital has caused ructions in the issuing of resident and visitor parking permits.
Warwickshire County Council decided in October 2020 to initiate a new automated system for parking permits but after various setbacks, a new system run by private contractor NSL only got up and running in July.
And even though it has been a long time coming it is being dogged by complaints.
One Stratford pensioner, Lindy Draper, told the Herald how it took hours just to renew her resident and visitor permits to park in West Street.
She said: “I’m computer literate, but I really struggled to renew my permits on the county council website.
“There is no information about the process and it is extremely unclear.”
Eventually Lindy called a helpline number but says she was greeted with short shrift and patronising advice.
“They were extremely unhelpful and suggested that if I wasn’t able to do it to ask a younger neighbour or member of the family to help. This I found extremely insulting.”
In despair Lindy did call for the help from her daughter Laura Williams who, despite her youth, also found the system crashed endlessly. Again the helpline was called, this time with the response that they could only answer questions by email.
After much back and forth over a period of two days and many attempts, Laura said: “I think I have been able to renew my mother’s permits, although even now I’m not entirely confident it has gone through.
“I am still unclear about how the visitor permit will work and there is no information available on the website. And if you do not have a computer getting your permits simply cannot be achieved.”
The Herald tried it out ourselves this week. Firstly the new system did not recognise our usual log in and password, so we had to create a new one. Then it would not let us apply for a visitor’s parking permit online.
A call to the NSL helpline was not particularly helpful. The call handler was abrupt and had to raise his voice over a poor-quality phone line that seemed to cut in and out. He said that our old log-in no longer worked because that was for a paper permit (although this was not indicated anywhere). He went on to say that they were only a helpline and could not issue permits, and that instead we had to e-mail the “parking services team”.
So much for an automated service.
Meanwhile, concerns over the new parking permit system were raised at a meeting of county councillors on Tuesday, 26th September.
Ironically, the councillors were passing a motion which stated that instead of always subscribing to a digital approach the council “instead employs a more flexible, customer focused approach… and ensure[s] that no resident is forced to go digital if they either do not wish to or are unable to do so”.
Cllr Sarah Feeney (Benn), deputy leader of the Labour group suggested that issues with the parking permits were an example of people being digitally excluded, she said: “We have reports of numerous residents waiting for up to 40 minutes on the phone. They are also then being advised to go online when they do get through. What is the council doing to address these issues?”
In response, Cllr Jan Matecki (Con, Bishop’s Tachbrook & Budbrooke), the council’s portfolio holder for transport and planning, insisted that the latest data from NSL – week commencing Monday, 18th September – showed current wait times to be just 47 seconds and that the average had been 73 seconds the previous week.
He added that the service averaged 50 calls per day last week compared with 68 per day throughout August.
“When you consider that with the number of passes increasing weekly, that is an incredible move forward,” he said, before detailing ongoing improvement measures, including a callback system.
“We continue to review and improve the wider service, including additional resources to be allocated to the phone line service in anticipation of increased call volumes to deal positively and proactively with problems being faced by residents.”
He said that NSL had set up accounts on behalf of residents unable to access the internet. On the question of visitor permits he noted “a development upgrade streamlining the visitor permit customer journey” was being launched this week. (Although it hadn’t kicked in yet.)
“Finally, we will continue to have weekly meetings with NSL, monitoring feedback and taking action as required,” he concluded.
