Surrey issues 164,000 parking tickets in a year as FOI reveals outsourced enforcement details

• Surrey County Council issued 164,071 penalty charge notices in the 2025/26 financial year.
• Civil enforcement officers are provided by external contractor NSL/Marston Holdings under a contract expiring 31 March 2030.
• Back-office PCN processing and appeals is handled by four council-employed FTE staff alongside nine to fourteen contractor staff depending on volumes.
• The number of civil enforcement officers deployed has been withheld under the commercial sensitivity exemption in Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
• The council judged that the public interest in protecting the contractor's commercial position outweighed the case for transparency on officer numbers.

Surrey County Council issued 164,071 penalty charge notices (PCNs) during the 2025/26 financial year, according to a Freedom of Information disclosure released in response to a request submitted via WhatDoTheyKnow.

The disclosure was made in response to a request seeking details of the council's civil parking enforcement operation, including staffing levels, PCN volumes, and contractual arrangements.

The council confirmed that its civil enforcement officers — the personnel who issue PCNs on the street — are not directly employed but are provided under contract by an external provider. Back-office processing and appeals handling is split between council staff and the same contractor. The council directly employs four full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in PCN processing and appeals, while the contractor supplies between nine and fourteen FTE depending on workload volumes.

Both enforcement and back-office functions are provided by NSL/Marston Holdings under a contract running until 31 March 2030.

The council declined to disclose the number of civil enforcement officers deployed, citing the commercial sensitivity exemption under Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It concluded that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighed the public interest in disclosure, on the basis that releasing the figure could prejudice the commercial interests of the contractor and/or the council in relation to service provision costs.

The council also noted that some of the requested information is held by Surrey County Council rather than the responding authority, but stated it was unable to provide that information.

The requester has the right to seek an internal review within 40 working days, and may subsequently appeal to the Information Commissioner's Office.