A traffic warden who took his employers to court over losing his job has brought to light the use of illegal quotas for parking fines.
NSL, a company responsible for handing out parking fines in Kensington and Chelsea, has been found to have been setting quotas for the number of parking tickets its wardens issued.
In a judgement published by the London Central Employment Tribunal, Judge Burns found that warden Hakim Berkani had indeed been unfairly dismissed.
"The claimant took the view that the priority should be given to warning motorists about infringements rather than issuing PCNs [fines]." said the judge (quite right, we say). "The managers however took the view that a minimum number of PCNs should be issued, and ten per shift was frequently mentioned as an absolute minimum.
"We accept the claimant's evidence that the managers clearly wanted more rather than less PCNs to be issued."
The judge also pointed to an e-mail from a regional manager at NSL, which said: "There are still significant numbers of people issuing at a rate of below 9 per hour... we should not feel uncomfortable to use the disciplinary process."
NSL denies setting quotas and is now 'considering its options'.
We say it proves that traffic wardens are human after all, but that the companies they work for might not be so nice...