Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Mr X’s parking space. There is not significant enough remaining injustice to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council removed signage relating to his parking space, gave him the wrong tenancy agreement for the space and ended the tenancy in retaliation for his complaints. He says this has caused distress, he is being treated differently from others with tenancy agreements, and he has had the effort of pursuing the matter with the Council.

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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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
7. The Council granted Mr X a parking space using a tenancy agreement document wrongly referring to renting a garage. The Council now considers it granted the tenancy of the parking space in error, and it cannot enforce only giving Mr X the right to use the space. The Council later removed the ‘no parking’ sign at the space and cancelled Mr X’s direct debit for renting the space without consulting him.
8. The Council accepted it was at fault and apologised to Mr X. It has also offered to refund the rent he paid for the parking space and reminded staff not to issue any further parking space tenancies. It is unlikely that an Ombudsman investigation would achieve a significantly different outcome.
9. Mr X says the Council should put the ‘no parking’ sign back. Mr X’s dissatisfaction on this point and his disappointment from no longer being able to rely on the space being available in the way it was previously is not significant enough to justify the use of our resources on an investigation. This is particularly so as he does not live at the property, so does not rely on parking there all the time.
10. Mr X’s complaint about the Council issuing a retaliatory termination notice was not in the matters the Council dealt with before Mr X brought his complaint to us. It is reasonable for Mr X to give the Council an opportunity to deal with that point first, so we will not investigate this part of Mr X’s complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not significant enough remaining injustice to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman