Councils fed up with unpaid parking fines and Fines Victoria delays

A bungled enforcement system has left Melbourne councils with shortfalls of millions for unpaid parking fines — to the point where services are under threat, they say.

Councils say they are owed millions of dollars in uncollected parking fines.

Councils say the bungled Fines Victoria system has cost them millions of dollars in uncollected parking fines.

They are calling on the State Government to urgently address the issue, saying the shortfalls are gouging their budgets and ability to deliver community services.

But Ratepayers Victoria says councils have become too reliant on parking fine revenue.

Fines Victoria allows authorities to register unpaid fines for enforcement — as an alternative to taking people to the Magistrates’ Court — but councils say issues with the system have led to inadequate enforcement and collection of fines.

The issue is the latest in a string of problems for the contentious system, which also saw hundreds of Victorians’ licences suspended erroneously.

Ombudsman Deborah Glass said her office had been “inundated” with public complaints since Fines Victoria was introduced due to delays in processing and completing fine reviews and issues with payment plans.

Ms Glass said Fines Victoria began operating in late 2017 with only partial IT functionality.

In October 2018, the agency said its system would be fully functional by February this year — it has since revised that deadline to this month.

The agency says it has put significant resources into addressing the IT challenges and eliminating backlogs.

Port Phillip mayor Dick Gross said the council was owed an extra $5.9 million in outstanding fines — taking the total debt to $20 million — since the Fines Victoria system was introduced in December 2017.

“Our budgets continue to be impacted by this cashflow shortfall, with no solution in sight,” he said.

“While savings have been made across the budget to manage this shortfall, it limits our ability to provide services for our growing community.”

Problems with Fines Victoria has left some councils millions out of pocket.

Since December 2017, the unrecovered amount of fines for Glen Eira grew from $2.73 million to $6.41 million — an increase of 135 per cent — while Darebin’s grew by $2.2 million to $5.64 million.

Darebin chief executive Sue Wilkinson said the percentage of fines collected had dropped from an average of 19 per cent to just 5 per cent.

Boroondara mayor Jane Addis said Fines Victoria was “far from an improvement on the old one”.

The eastern suburbs council is owed at least $860,000 in unrecovered fines.

Maroondah mayor Rob Steane said there was about $1.8m of fines owed to the council, which it expected to be paid.

Councils have joined forces lobbying the State Government to:

■ Immediately suspend council fine registration fees until Fines Victoria operations are restored;

■ Guarantee the old debts won’t be cancelled; and

■ Provide more information about the problems plaguing the new system and what was being done to fix them.

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Greater Dandenong Council city planning, design and amenity director Jody Bosman said the council had experienced some difficulties with Fines Victoria over the past year, but had also seen an improvement in the system during the past two months.

Ratepayers Victoria vice president Frank Sullivan said councils were relying too much on fine revenue.

“They’re relying on people to do the wrong thing just so they can boost their revenue,” he said.

“They should be looking at how council revenue is spent and the misuse of those funds.”

A State Government spokesman said they were aware there had been some “completely unacceptable” “significant shortcomings” in the implementation of Fines Victoria.

“Fines Victoria continues to work with its service providers to fix remaining issues to improve services for Victorians,” he said.

Monash mayor Shane McCluskey councils were paying for an “underperforming service”.

“While nobody likes receiving a fine, our experience tells us that most people take responsibility and pay their fines,” Cr McCluskey said.

“It is unfair that some people don’t pay their fines and it is important that these people are made accountable.”