Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint that the Council has not yet published its annual report on its parking activities. He has unlikely to find fault by the Council has caused the complainant significant injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mr B, has complained the Council has not yet published its annual report on parking activity.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate something that affects all or most of the people in a council’s area. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(7), as amended)
4. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, about a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’.
6. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if, for example, we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault; or
• the 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)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I have considered what Mr B said in his complaint. Mr B commented on a draft before I made this decision.

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What I found

8. For the sake of clarity, the law says we cannot consider a complaint about how the Council uses its resources as this would affect all or most of the people in the Council’s area.
9. Councils should publish a report on their parking activities containing financial and other information every year. The Council has not yet published its report for 2019-2020.
10. Mr B says because the Council has not published the report he has been unable to look at how the Council used its profit from parking enforcement.

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Final decision

11. I have decided we will not investigate this complaint. This is because, while it is the case the Council has not yet published its annual report, I do not consider this in itself can have caused Mr B injustice that would warrant our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman