Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council not removing a vehicle parked near her property and delay in it dealing with her complaint. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant an investigation. There is insufficient significant injustice to Mrs X to justify us investigating. We do not investigate council complaint handling where we are not investigating the matters giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs X lives in an area with car parking spaces next to the road. She complains the Council has:
1. failed to remove a vehicle which is incorrectly taxed from one of the parking spaces, disregarding the law;
2. delayed in dealing with her complaint.
2. Mrs X says since mid-2024 the vehicle has been taking up a valuable space, in an area where parking is difficult. She says the vehicle’s presence is causing unpleasantness and anger among other residents and is concerned others may decide to leave vehicles there too.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. We are not an appeal body. We may only criticise a council’s decision where there is evidence of fault in its decision-making process and but for that fault officers would have made a different decision. So we consider the processes councils have followed to make their decisions. We cannot replace a council’s decision with our own or someone else’s opinion if the decision has been reached after following proper process.
7. Councils must consider reports of abandoned vehicles. They do not administer or enforce the laws on vehicle taxation. This is done by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). If a vehicle’s owner has not paid the correct tax or has given false information, the DVLA may enforce. This includes fines, clamping or impounding vehicles.
8. To assess reports of abandoned vehicles, councils follow criteria set down by national government. Officers should investigate by inspecting the vehicle, checking its tax and gathering information from the owner where possible. In response to Mrs X’s report of the vehicle near her property, the Council visited the area, assessed the vehicle’s condition and spoke to the vehicle’s owner.
9. The Council has explained to Mrs X that for its officers to treat the vehicle as abandoned, they would have to find that at least one of these criteria applied:
• there is no keeper registered on the DVLA database and is also untaxed;
• it has been stationary for a significant amount of time;
• it has significant damage, is unroadworthy, has missing wheels or smashed windows, has been burned out or has a missing number plate.
10. The Council’s visit to the vehicle, the information from Mrs X’s report and from its owner confirmed to officers that it did not meet any of the criteria for an abandoned vehicle. They found they did not have grounds to remove it or take other action. We understand Mrs X considers the vehicle is incorrectly taxed under a Statutory Off-Road Notice (SORN) when she believes it should be differently taxed. She considers this gives the Council grounds to remove the vehicle. But whether a vehicle is correctly taxed is not a criterion for the Council to remove a vehicle. Councils may only do so if they find the vehicle is untaxed and also there is no keeper registered with the DVLA. The Council’s officers were satisfied that was not the case after their investigation.
11. Officers followed their investigation process to decide whether the vehicle was abandoned. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision‑making process to warrant us investigating so we will not do so. We recognise Mrs X disagrees with the Council’s decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.
12. The issue of whether the vehicle is correctly taxed for its current use is for the DVLA to consider as it is the authority which administers and enforces these matters. If Mrs X considers the vehicle has the wrong tax status, she may wish to report this to the DVLA. It would then be for DVLA officers to decide what action, if any, they should take against the owner and their vehicle.
13. Even if there has been fault by the Council here, we would not investigate. Mrs X does not say she owns a vehicle she has found difficult to park near her home because of the other vehicle’s presence. The vehicle taking up a parking space and the annoyance to Mrs X caused by this is not a sufficiently significant personal injustice to her to warrant us investigating. Annoyance caused to other residents is not her personal injustice. We note Mrs X is also concerned others may park their own vehicles in the area for a long time, but that is a speculative injustice from an event that has not happened. We cannot take into account injustices which have not occurred.
14. Mrs X complains about the time the Council took to deal with her complaint. We do not investigate council complaint handling where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of Council fault to warrant an investigation; and
• there is insufficient significant injustice caused to Mrs X by the matters complained of to justify us investigating; and
• we do not investigate council complaint handling where we are not investigating the matters which gave rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman