Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s management of vehicles parked on Council-owned land. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault and insufficient claimed personal injustice to warrant further investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X lives next to a Council-owned car park. She complains the Council has failed to properly manage abandoned and SORN vehicles on the land. She says the Council did not properly respond to her complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. 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, or

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says the Council moved abandoned and SORN vehicles from another site without proper disposal or enforcement. She also says the Council failed to properly manage its land and the risks associated with the vehicles. She says this has resulted in vandalism and caused concern for nearby residents.
6. The Council says the car park is funded through tenant rents and for residents on a first come, first served basis. It says the vehicles have permission to be there, so there was no need to investigate them under its estate policy. It also says it moved the vehicles to allow development work, inspected them, and found they are in a safe condition with sufficient parking remaining.
7. We will not investigate this complaint because the claimed personal injustice is not significant enough to warrant further investigation. I appreciate Mrs X is concerned about the vehicles. However, the vandalism she refers to did not involve her property. Mrs X does not say she has suffered any direct personal injustice as a result or that she has been unable to park because of the vehicles.
8. There is also insufficient evidence of fault to warrant further investigation. The Council owns the car park, and the spaces are available on a first come, first served basis. Its policy allows SORN vehicles to be parked with permission, which the owners have. The Council has inspected the vehicles and concluded they were safe and there was sufficient parking available. It is for the Council to decide how it manages its land, allocates its resources, and what action, if any, it takes.
9. 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.
10. Mrs X is also unhappy with the Council’s complaint handling. As we are not considering the substantive issue, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaint handling separately.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault and insufficient claimed personal injustice to warrant further investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman