Parking wardens told to ticket drivers - or else

Parking wardens are expected to give motorists a set number of tickets each day or face tough questions from their bosses.

But officials at Auckland City refuse to call the requirement a "quota" - although admit it could be seen as such.

They are also refusing to release the number of motorists they expect to target each day, or the location of the warden's prime hunting grounds.

Auckland City's parking services manager Chris Geerlings said the 63 wardens in inner-city Auckland collected about $12 million a year.

In doing so, they faced the same "quota" criticism that highway police did.

"Let's say in this part of the road, every third car speeds," said Mr Geerlings. "Therefore if you are there recording every car speeding, you should be getting every third. So if you don't come with every third, you are not doing your job properly - some people would argue that is a quota.

"Other people would say human nature being what it is, people break the law. We know roughly how often they are breaking the law. If you are going down there looking for people who are breaking the law, if you don't come back with the average, what's happened? Why have you not come back with what we expect? Depending on your point of view, you can argue that's a quota, or you can argue it's good management."

Mr Geerlings said it was possible to monitor the actions of parking wardens through palm pilots issued to each. The palm pilots recorded when and where tickets were issued, and could be used to find discrepancies in an individual warden's work rate.

If wardens were found to have slacked off on the job, it would be dealt with through a normal staff management process.

The system also alerted the council to problems when too many tickets were issued. "It tells us something has changed in the city."

He said releasing the locations and expected numbers of tickets issued would help motorists beat the law.

"If people knew how we were deploying parking officers people would take advantage of it. People think we're out there to catch them. If they park legally, there's nobody to catch. I can go away and do another job.

"Parking officers are doing a job. If we didn't have the parking officers doing their job in the city you wouldn't be able to park, get to work or get home, public transport wouldn't work in the bus lanes, the whole place would eventually grind to a halt."

The management scheme has been labelled "abhorrent" by City Vision councillor Dr Cathy Casey. "I'd be concerned there was any sense of a quota system. This is not about revenue gathering. This is about keeping the city moving."

She said she would be concerned if a similar "target" system existed for dog control officers.

"If their job depends on meeting a target, they aren't going to give you a chance."

- Herald on Sunday