Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Transport for London’s advice about compliance with its Ultra Low Emissions Zone requirements. There is insufficient evidence of fault which has caused any injustice to Ms X.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the authority’s failure to explain to her why her car which was made in 2012 is not complaint with the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) requirements but she has seen older more polluting cars for sale which are ULEZ-compliant.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Ms X says she asked the authority why her car did not comply with the ULEZ requirements when she had seen older cars which came up as exempt from the charge when she checked their registration on the authority website. She says the authority only explained to her that her car did not meet the Euro 6 diesel requirement because its was in a Euro 5 category.
6. The authority takes its data for compliance from the DVLA. The DVLA is responsible for issuing the V5 registration documents which classify the tax classes of all vehicles. Some vehicles are exempt from tax because they fall into certain categories. One of these categories applies where the driver has a disability and has applied for an exemption. The DVLA updates the V5 document which gives the exemption to the vehicle for that driver only. Any vehicle which has this exemption on the record is exempt also from the ULEZ charge until 2025.
7. If such a vehicle is sold to the motor trade the trader does not amend the V5 and the vehicle remains on sale on the forecourt with its exemption still applied. The V5 will only be changed when someone buys the car and applies to the DVLA to update the registered keeper. At that point the V5 will have the exemption removed unless the new owner is also applying for a disabled exemption.
8. This means that anyone who inputs the vehicle’s registration when it is on sale into the authority’s ULEZ checker will be informed that at the time of checking, the car is exempt. This is not a fault by the authority, it relies on the DVLA having an up to date database and the motor trade does not provide this information. This is why Ms X received inaccurate information about other vehicles.
9. She has not suffered any injustice as a result of this because her own car does not meet the requirements so she should be paying the ULEZ charge. If she had bought an older car which is checked as exempt, she could have faced difficulty when she registered the car in her name because the exemption would be removed by the DVLA.
10. There is no fault in this matter by the authority because it can only use data which is provided by the DVLA at the time. Its website does advise any users of the site that the information is based on what it knows about the vehicle and could be subject to change.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint about Transport for London’s advice about compliance with its Ultra Low Emissions Zone requirements. There is insufficient evidence of fault which has caused any injustice to Ms X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman