The government's own impact assessment values its new private parking code at a net loss to society of £7.95 million over ten years. Its only promised check cannot report for up to three years, and even then ministers can ignore it.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
In short. The Private Parking Code of Practice 2026's own Explanatory Memorandum tells Parliament, in one sentence, that "a Scrutiny and Oversight Board will be established to review data and evidence relating to the operation of the Code and provide recommendations to government on potential future changes" [1]. The fuller final-stage impact assessment, published the same day, says what that sentence does not: the Board's recommendations are "non-binding," it need not be operational for a year after the Code takes effect, and its first published report is not due until "within 2 years of it first meeting" [2]. The same impact assessment totals the whole preferred package, charge cap, appeals, certification and the Board together, at a net present social value of minus £7.95 million over ten years [2]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
Picked from the same collection as the Private Parking Code of Practice 2026, laid before Parliament on 20 October 2026, with its own 40-day scrutiny period still running. This teardown is built from the Explanatory Memorandum MHCLG laid alongside the Code, and from the 137-page final-stage impact assessment that supports it, a document the scanner's sources did not surface and that this site has added to the registry, source-verified, in the course of this investigation. It scores on three criteria: the scale of people affected, close to 17 million private parking charges were issued in the UK last year [3], the fact that it amends a document in a tracked family already torn down on this site, and a live 40-day Parliamentary scrutiny deadline the Explanatory Memorandum itself exists to support.
What the Explanatory Memorandum tells Parliament
The Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 places a legal duty on the Secretary of State to prepare the Code; the Explanatory Memorandum is clear that "the Code itself is not directly enforceable in law," and that the only lever the Act gives is the power to restrict an operator's access to DVLA vehicle keeper data if it fails to comply [1]. That leaves monitoring as the only other check on whether the Code actually changes anything, and the Explanatory Memorandum's entire account of that monitoring, in the section headed "Monitoring and review," is one paragraph: the Board "will be established to review data and evidence relating to the operation of the Code and provide recommendations to government on potential future changes" [1]. On the figures, the same document frames the Code's financial stakes narrowly, under "impact on small or micro businesses": using an illustrative scenario of a 5% fall in parking charge notices, "the government estimates a £320 million reduction in parking charge revenue, partly offset by £2.3 million in savings from fewer second-stage appeals," while the public sector's own compliance and administration costs, including "supporting the Scrutiny and Oversight Board," total £0.69 million [1].
The claim, tested
| The claim | What we found | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| The same-day press release says the government's 2025 consultation showed "motorists were clear that they wanted fairer appeals, and independent oversight of the private parking industry" [3] | The impact assessment's own description of the chosen option says the Board makes "non-binding recommendations to raise standards across the private parking industry" and reports only "every two years" (paragraph 215); its monitoring section adds that the Board "will be operational within one year of the Code coming into force," with "a published report available within 2 years of it first meeting" (paragraphs 291 to 292) [2] | The independent oversight motorists asked for exists on paper from day one. Its first public verdict on whether the Code is working can arrive up to three years after the Code takes effect, and government is not bound to act on it |
| The Explanatory Memorandum presents the Code's financial stakes as a £320 million industry figure, set against a £0.69 million government cost of administering the whole framework [1] | The impact assessment's own ten-year net present value table scores the entire preferred package (the new Code, the retained charge cap, the appeals service, the certification scheme and the Board) at a Net Present Social Value of minus £7.95 million: a £320.25 million gain to households, a £327.52 million loss to business and a further £0.69 million loss to government, the three figures summing to the net loss [2] | The £320 million is not new value the Code creates. It is money moved from operators to motorists, and the government's own methodology scores the package built around it as a net cost to society, not a saving |
| The Explanatory Memorandum's £0.69 million administration figure reads as a single, modest line covering the whole framework [1] | Of that £0.69 million, £0.58 million, more than four pounds in every five, is the cost of running the Scrutiny and Oversight Board alone: a chairperson and four members, contracted for a combined 80 days of work a year between them, plus a departmental secretariat for the biennial review [2] | Almost the entire government budget for making this Code work is spent on the one mechanism whose own output is advisory and arrives, at best, every two years |
Why the government chose this option anyway
The impact assessment does not hide the trade-off. It shortlisted and rejected a cheaper alternative, Option 5B, under which officials alone would produce reports from improved data at a tenth of the cost, £63,000 over ten years, specifically because "it would not provide additional independence, as assessment and evaluation would remain with government rather than an independent body" [2]. The 2025 consultation responses it cites back that choice: motorists valued independence over speed or cost. What the Explanatory Memorandum does not carry into Parliament's 40-day scrutiny window is the other half of that same trade-off, set out by the government's own analysts a few pages later: independence was bought by making the Board's findings non-binding and by building in up to three years before the public sees a first verdict.
Credit where due
Nothing here is hidden if a reader goes looking. The final-stage impact assessment is published in the same gov.uk collection as the Code and the Explanatory Memorandum, it received a fit for purpose rating from the Regulatory Policy Committee, and its own net present value table is public, numbered and auditable rather than buried in prose [1]. The choice of an independent board over a cheaper in-house alternative reflects what the 2025 consultation's respondents actually asked for, and the government was honest in its own assessment that this was the costliest of the options it considered, not the cheapest one dressed up as thorough.
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. An independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board is a real improvement on no oversight at all, and the government weighed that choice against a cheaper alternative in public, numbered detail. What does not survive contact with the government's own figures is the framing: a £320 million headline figure that is a transfer between private parties, not a saving, folded into a package whose own net present value calculation is negative, and a review body whose independence Parliament is asked to take on trust from one sentence in the document written for its scrutiny, while the document that actually prices and times that independence sits in a 137-page companion PDF.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: (1) the Explanatory Memorandum frames the Code's £320 million financial impact as an industry cost offset by a modest £0.69 million government administration budget, without disclosing that the impact assessment's own net present value table scores the whole preferred package at a net loss to society of £7.95 million over ten years; and (2) the Explanatory Memorandum's one-sentence account of the Scrutiny and Oversight Board omits that its recommendations are non-binding and that its first published report is not due for up to three years, detail that exists only in the impact assessment, not in the document laid for Parliament's scrutiny. One fall in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. Checked directly against the Explanatory Memorandum, the 137-page final-stage impact assessment (added to the registry in the course of this investigation, not surfaced by any scanner source) and the Prime Minister's press release, fetched 24 October 2026. The document is tracked in the Daily Register; the Scrutiny and Oversight Board's first published report will get a diff entry when it appears.