102. It was recognized that any increase in workload could be quantified in terms of the numbers of fixed penalty parking tickets, summonses and order notices, distress warrants and complaints, processed. The actual workload comered to the average staff strength of Section D of the Central Traffic Prosecutions Unit is summarized in the follig table:
Average
Fixed Penalty
Year
Tickets
Summonses/ Order Notices
Distress Warrants
Complaints
Staff Strength
(Million)
1980
1.28
1,325
21,931
1981
1.64
350,000
1,700
24,800
37
1982
1.85
550,000
2,762
21,909
46
1983
1.48
460,000
2,991
21,763
50
1984
1.05
250,000
2,614
25,799
53
1985
0.78
110,000
2,852
29,843
54
It will be noted from this table that the number of fixed penalty parking tickets issued, the main element in the workload, fell sharply after 1982 until in 1985 the number was only half of the 1.6 million ticket workload on which the Organization and Methods Division's recommended establishment of 35 staff was based. There was a similar downward trend in the number of summonses and order notices issued but the number of distress warrants and complaints processed increased. Despite the reduced workload, the average number of staff employed in Section D had increased from 37 in 1981 to 54 in 1985.
103. In my enquiry into the reasons for the increased number of staff in Section D to cope with a declining number of fixed penalty parking tickets issued, I noted that the Central Traffic Prosecutions Unit had been slow to identify the declining trend in the number of stationary offences resulting from the increase in the vehicle first registration tax and annual licence fees in 1982, the raising of the fixed penalty from $70 to $140 in 1983 and the imposition of double penalty in 1984 on offenders who had failed both to pay the fines and give notice that they were disputing liability. Even when the declining trend was identified, the Commissioner of Police still felt the need to prepare for a possible upswing once the public became accustomed to the new fees. In May 1983, when the number of fixed penalty parking tickets issued had already started to fall, the Central Traffic Prosecutions Unit forecast a need for additional staff on the expectation that the number of fixed penalty parking tickets that would be issued in the following five years would grow at a rate of 500 000 a year to 4.6 million in 1987-88. This was an unrealistic assessment under any circumstances. Whilst the issue of 4.6 million fixed penalty parking tickets a year would have raised a large amount of revenue, it would have represented a failure of the primary objective of imposing parking penalties namely, maintaining law and order on the roads, and I have suggested that if this objective had been kept in sight it would have been realized at a much earlier stage that corrective action to reduce the number of offences, and keep them at a low level, was inevitable. It should have been possible, then, for the workload to have been more realistically assessed.
104. On the basis of the criteria recommended by the Organization and Methods Division for determining the manpower requirements of Section D of the Central Traffic Prosecutions Unit, I have calculated that only 21 staff would have been required to cope with the 1985 workload compared with the actual strength of 54. The cost of the surplus staff of the Section in 1985 was about $2.5 million. Following my enquiry, the Commissioner of Police carried out a review of the staff requirements of Section D of the Central Traffic Prosecutions Unit and reduced the number of staff to 46 and set aside a proposal to recruit 13 additional posts for the Section in 1986-87.
105. The revised number of staff for Section D is still more than double the number I had suggested. However, the Commissioner of Police has explained that offset against the reduction in the number of fixed penalty parking tickets issued were the increase in clerical duties associated with changes in the road traffic law, the increase in number of computer reports generated and an improvement in the manner in which complaints against Police are dealt with in accordance with Force policy. He said that the introduction of the new computer system had added to his workload, instead of reducing it as had been intended, and that the 1980 and 1981 Organization and Methods Division reports should no longer be considered valid documents for calculating current staff requirements. Instead of using only the number of fixed penalty parking tickets, summonses and order notices, distress warrants and complaints as a basis for quantifying the workload, which hitherto had been the accepted criteria, he also used the number of reports generated by the computer as a basis and the number of such reports had increased from 15 in 1980 to 77 in 1985.
106. I have informed the Commissioner of Police that, in my opinion, his decision to use the number of computer reports as a basis for quantifying the workload of Section D was inappropriate as was evident from the fact that clerical staff had been assigned to handle computer reports that were intended only for management information and that there were many reports where the time allotted to deal with them was unreasonably high. For example, 75 mandays a year was allotted for dealing with the Duplicated Case Number Report when there was only one transaction in the year commencing July 1985. In view of the wide disparity between my own figures and his, the Commissioner of Police has welcomed my recommendation that the Finance Branch of the Government Secretariat be requested to carry out an independent review to reassess the staff requirements of Section D of the Central Traffic Prosecutions Unit, adding that since 1982 he had made several requests for a new organization and methods study but these had not been granted.
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