Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of a parking dispute at a council run car park. This is because we have decided any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council wrongly backlisted his vehicle from council run car parks following alleged abusive behaviour towards staff and unpaid parking charges of £31.50. Mr X says this has caused him injustice because it has made shopping, appointments, and daily travel much harder and he has had to spend extra time and money finding alternative parking. Also the disputed parking charges and allegation of abusive language have caused emotional distress.  Mr X would like the Council to remove the blacklist, provide and apology and review its procedures.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. People may complain to us about injustice caused by:
• ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’ by a public organisation we could investigate; or
• the actions of an organisation in connection with privately arranged adult social care.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(1) or section 34C(1)(a)).

3. 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 (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), or section 34B(8)).
4. We will not normally investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), or section 34B(8)).

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The law means we can choose only to investigate a complaint where the person has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by the body complained about. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
8. I recognise the circumstances of Mr X’s complaint have affected him, but this is not significant enough to warrant us investigating.
9. We will not investigate the way the Council handled the complaint and correspondence here because we are satisfied it did not cause enough separate injustice to warrant it.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman