Cork City Council phone in parking scheme ‘deficient’

Deficiencies in Cork City Council’s operation of a park-by-phone scheme have been criticised in a new report by a spending watchdog of local authorities.

A report from the Local Government Audit Service found the council had failed to implement any means to independently verify the amount paid by motorists using the service, which is collected by a private company.

It also revealed Cork City Council has been outsourcing the service to the private company without a formal contract being put in place. The service, run by Park Magic, enables motorists to pay for parking by using their mobile phone.

Cork City Council has estimated that the park-by-phone service will have generated €480,000 in 2014 — up €60,000 from the previous year — out of total annual parking revenue in the city of €8.6m.

Auditors found a contract was drafted in 2008 between the council and Park Magic for the purpose of allowing the company to collect cash generated by the park-by-phone service to last for three years, ending December 2011. However, the document was never signed.

Auditors reviewed the council’s annual financial statement of 2012 and stated they again identified internal control deficiencies, particularly in relation to the verification of cash collections.

They found the council continued to rely on Park Magic to produce financial data on the income generated by the park-by-phone service without subjecting such records to any independent scrutiny.

Under the arrangement, Park Magic are meant to transmit the cash collected to Cork City Council monthly in arrears. However, LGAS auditors found that a sum of €201,000, which it described as “significant”, was collected in the first six months of 2012 by Park Magic but was not paid over to the council until 2013.

“The payments were made in piecemeal amounts and only finally paid in full in September 2013,” observed the LGAS report. As a result, a sum of €165,000 was not included in the council’s annual financial statement for 2012 as required.

“The matters highlighted during audit need to be addressed as a matter of urgency to ensure that all amounts due to the council are properly and accurately recorded in the accounts, receipted on a timely basis and are authenticated by reference to contracts that were approved following the application of proper tendering procedures,” concluded the report.

In response to the concerns raised by the LGAS audit, the council said it had engaged another private firm in July 2012 to assist in the setting up and procurement of a new service. It also introduced transitional arrangements with Park Magic to improve the operation of the service.

Park-by-phone currently accounts for around 5% of all parking related income generated in Cork City. However, the council said it anticipated that this level would increase in the years ahead.

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