Why Did We Recently Win Three British Parking Awards?
Why did we recently win three British Parking Awards?
At the British Parking Awards 2021 we were so grateful that we won not one, not two, but three awards!
BBFI Public Sector Investigations were recognised in the ‘The Parking in the Community’, ‘The Parking Person of the Year’, and ‘The Parking Partnership’ award with the London Borough of Waltham Forest and NSL.
These awards are important to us because they recognise all the hard work that the team put in to prevent Blue Badge fraud across the UK. With an estimated 500,000 out of 2.5m awarded Blue Badges being misused, the experienced team at BBFI work with local authorities across England. In 2020 we seized 632 badges and prepared 75% of cases against drivers for court and 2021 we have so far over 900 badges.
We know the difference that enforcing the blue badge scheme can make to communities and were delighted to sponsor the DMUK Baywatch Campaign in 2020. Gathering insight from those that are experiencing difficulties on a daily basis is invaluable. The survey told us that 95.6% of participants do not think that local authorities are doing enough to enforce the scheme, so clearly reason to continue our missions to eradicate misuse.
The more that we can do to increase awareness of this type of fraud the better and these awards are another way of getting the word out. In October 2020 we saw the highest number of fraudulent blue badges being seized, since we started operating. With an average of over 90 badges being seized a month (across a year) seeing up to 124 badges being seized in just one month means it is clear that the importance of the blue badge scheme and what it means to the disabled community is not getting through.
Receiving the ‘Parking Person of the Year’ award was incredibly rewarding for Paul. He created BBFI Public Sector Investigations, a CIC and not for profit, to protect the rights of the disabled, work in partnership with local authorities and to establish universal enforcement of the Blue Badge scheme.
Maintaining a happy and productive work force is very important to Paul and he has always valued diversity. The age of the team at BBFI ranges from 30 yrs. old to 75 yrs. old and 20% of employees are female. He proactively employs people with disability and from minority groups. Staff satisfaction surveys are consistently over 90% positive and understanding the need for a healthy work and life balance, Paul manages his team remotely but with a consistent level of support.
The BBFI approach to working with any authority is to establish a partnership and truly understand the community in which it operates. Receiving the ‘The Parking Partnership’ award, alongside the London Borough of Waltham Forest and NSL is testament to how those relationships can flourish.
“BBFI have performed to the letter of the contractual agreement to date and have far exceeded our expectations and whilst we have no targets for the number of badges seized or number of people prosecuted, we do expect BBFI to work with the police and the CEOs to enforce the scheme. BBFI have an excellent relationship with the local police and work with them to follow up leads from members of the public and carry out proactive operations most importantly we are seeing an increase in compliance with the scheme in some locations where misuse was previously prolific with misuse on now seeing 100% compliance”. LB Waltham Forest
BBFI Public Sector Investigations was created to support the disabled community and we remain committed to protecting their rights and enforcing the Blue Badge scheme.
Contact us now – https://bbfi.org.uk