‘Public scrutiny brought failures to light’
In a damning summation of the findings, it said there was:
n“Consistent and wide- spread breaches of policy” by those administering the system.
-No meaningful evidence of consistent quality management supervision of the cancellation process either at Garda headquarters, regional, divisional, district or any level that would have detected and rectified the problems.
-Evidence it was “fraught with wasteful use of Garda and other stakeholder resources in administering the system”.
-Evidence that the accumulation of successive incremental “fixes” when problems arose with the system’s daily operation has resulted in a “technically deficient, managerially uncoordinated, inefficient and excessively resourced support system”.
“There was a lack of management oversight in not implementing required monitoring mechanisms at the operational level, providing training for cancelling authorities and clear policy guidelines for its use.
“These problems were mentioned by several senior Garda officers who lamented, “if everyone had just followed the manual …we wouldn’t be dealing with this”.
“The Inspectorate was told by senior Garda staff, that but for the public scrutiny, the extent of the deficiencies within the fixed charge processing system would not have been detected.”
Nonetheless, it said the FCPS can be fixed, but added that could not be done through “ad hoc, short-term or narrowly-focused adjustments”. It also said the remedies were not a matter for gardaí alone.
“Nothing short of significant collaborative change, involving all system stakeholders will bring this complex and resource-intensive system into the 21st century. The solution is entirely dependent on coordinated collaboration between the Department of Justice and Equality, the Garda Síochána, Road Safety Authority, Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Courts Service, An Post, and the various appointed contractors involved in the operation of the FCPS.”
To that end, it recommends that the Department of Justice convene and chair a “Criminal Justice Working Group” made up of representatives of all involved in FCPS to oversee and facilitate the implementation of its recommendations.
The following are the report’s main recommendations:
-The Department of Justice should immediately convene a Criminal Justice Working Group consisting of the Departments of Justice and Transport, the Courts Service, gardaí and the Road Safety Authority.
-Within six weeks, gardaí should produce a manual containing all directives and circulars relating to the Fixed Charge Processing System (FCPS).
-There should be ongoing training on the FCPS.
-The Garda Internal Audit or Professional Standards Unit should carry out regular audit checks of the full operation of FCPS.
-A full review of the management and operation of FCPS should be initiated by the inspectorate within 12 months.
-The Fixed Charge Processing Office implement a robust ‘sendback’ process ensuring ‘sendbacks’ are tracked and the system audited with enhanced supervision at district and station levels.
-Gardaí should ensure full compliance with the timeframes laid down in the Fixed Charge Processing System policy manual.
-A review of the summons serving process should be undertaken by gardaí to establish the reasons for the significant level of unserved summonses.
-Consideration should be given to legislate to impose heavy penalties on companies who do not nominate the offending driver or those who fail to register their vehicle.
-A system should be introduced immediately to ensure that all penalty points are endorsed on driving licences.
-Where a garda employee retires or leaves the force, their Pulse access registered number must be deactivated on the date the employee ceases to be a member.
-The Department of Justice should bring forward enabling legislation providing gardaí with authority to cancel fixed charge notices on a discretionary basis, providing clear parameters on the use of that discretion.
-The inspectorate recommends that Garda policy on fixed charge cancellations, include an unambiguous definition of ‘exceptional circumstances’ when cancelling a fixed charge notice.
-The district officer should be notified of each detected road traffic offence of an on-duty member to determine whether the member breached the road traffic regulation while on duty and whether cause to breach traffic regulations was present; and if not, recommend internal sanction.
-The district officer should be notified of any road traffic offence detection involving any off-duty garda member.
-When the Fixed Charge Processing Office is examining a petition for cancelling a fixed charge notice, previously granted cancellation petitions in relation to the same vehicle and the same driver must be considered as part of the decision- making process.
-The inspectorate recommends that the cancellation authority for fixed charge notices be centralised immediately in the Fixed Charge Processing Office only.
