Westminster City Council (05A16230)

Parking                                          Maladministration causing injustice

16 October 2006

Problems with Westminster City Council’s system of handling parking penalty charge notices mean that many motorists may have suffered injustice. The Ombudsman found fault by the Council on a complaint about its handling of a penalty charge notice issued to a company’s delivery driver, and said that problems with the Council’s computer system may have led to similar problems for others. He wanted to raise London-wide public awareness of the issue, so that other complaints arising from the same faults would be dealt with speedily by the Council.

The Council issued a penalty charge notice to a delivery driver employed by ‘Forest Ltd’ (not its real name for legal reasons). Two of Forest Ltd’s employees submitted representations on four occasions asking for the Council to waive the fine.

However, the Council did not consider these, or reply to Forest Ltd; nor did it say that it would be taking action to recover the penalty charge. It also did not deal properly with a letter of complaint by Forest Ltd. But over the next six months or so it pursued the matter through various legal stages, eventually instructing its bailiffs, who then served a notice of seizure on Forest Ltd.

The Council had introduced a new computer system in March 2005. The new system’s failings resulted in ‘holds’ (that prevented matters being progressed until each stage had been properly dealt with) falling off, and the cases wrongly being taken to the next stage. It also failed to deal properly with Forest Ltd’s attempts to make representations. The new system led to backlogs. The Council estimates that these problems affected several hundred penalty charge notices issued each month, until the problems were resolved between November 2005 and May 2006.

The Council cancelled Forest Ltd’s penalty charge, and offered to pay £150 as compensation. The Ombudsman found four points of maladministration by the Council, in that it:

• through its new computer system, failed to deal properly with Forest Ltd’s attempts to make representations and then moved matters onto subsequent stages in the enforcement process without statutory requirements having been satisfied;
• did not deal with four sets of representations by Forest Ltd;
• apparently failed to keep Forest Ltd informed after it issued a charge certificate; and
• failed to process incoming correspondence properly.

The Ombudsman found that, as a result, Forest Ltd suffered injustice. Its representations were not considered, its complaint was not dealt with, and it received a notice of seizure out of the blue. It had to take time and trouble to deal with these issues that should not have been necessary.

The Ombudsman endorsed the Council’s decision to cancel the penalty charge and to pay £150 as compensation. Because other motorists might have suffered similar injustice as a result of the Council’s maladministration, he considered it in the public interest that this report was publicised widely to provide an alert. He recommended that the Council took steps to ensure that any other complaints arising from this maladministration were dealt with speedily and appropriately.

Date Published: 15/01/09