Wardens told to hit 100 a day

Wellington's parking wardens are encouraged to write 100 tickets a day, a former warden has revealed.

One senior warden told junior staff he ticketed his own mother $200 for no registration to raise his daily quota, while another was nicknamed The Terminator because he was quiet and quick, former parking warden Campbell Parminter said.

The allegations come after The Dominion Post revealed this month that Wellington motorists had been stung with almost $10 million in parking fines in the past year, and some wardens had faced so much abuse that they quit.

The council said the allegation of a 100-a-day benchmark was "total nonsense" and issuing 100 tickets in one shift was difficult and very rare.

But Mr Parminter said there was a handful of senior wardens who consistently issued 100 a day.

A warden in Christchurch said yesterday that anyone who issued more than 100 tickets daily had their names etched on a "high scorers" cricket bat. That was confirmed by Christchurch City Council, which said the bat featured the names of wardens who excelled in meeting "performance objectives".

Mr Parminter, who quit because he disagreed with the service's ethos, revealed there were monitors in the staffroom ranking the performance of each warden and who had issued the most tickets. "There's a culture of the more tickets you give out, the better warden you are."

Mr Parminter, 34, who worked for Parkwise for six months, said wardens were discouraged from issuing warnings – "the logic behind this is that if there is a problem let the `customer', for want of a better word, write in.

"I don't believe that job should be about [ticket] numbers. There's a good place for parking wardens, but ... they are not benefiting the public," he said. "As individuals they're really nice, but they really do train wardens to be cold and heartless."

Parkwise referred questions to the council. The council has consistently denied wardens have quotas and says parking tickets are "not about generating revenue".

Wardens in Wellington issued 272,000 tickets worth $9.9m in the year to last June, $700,000 more than the year before. That is a daily average of 745 tickets worth $27,000.

The council contracts parking services to Parkwise, a subsidiary of Armourguard, which is owned by Tyco International, a firm registered in Luxembourg. The council refused to say what proportion of each ticket went to Parkwise because of commercial sensitivity.

Council infrastructure director Stavros Michael said there was no "strict directive" about how many tickets must be issued and wardens had some discretion.

But it was known how many tickets were likely to be issued in any part of the city any given day; wardens issuing consistently fewer tickets were scrutinised. "The wardens are not employed to come to work and sit around and do nothing."

Are you a former parking warden or have you been unfairly treated by Parkwise? Email news@dompost.co.nz.

- © Fairfax NZ News