Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about damage caused to his car by a Council officer. Only the courts can decide liability for the damage, so it is reasonable for Mr X to take the matter to court. For the remainder, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures when we decide not to deal with the substantive matter.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains a Council officer damaged his car when attaching a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) to its windscreen, and about the Council’s handling of the resulting complaint.
2. Mr X says this has caused distress and financial hardship.
3. Mr X wants the Council to repay him for the cost of repair to his car and review its processes.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
6. We will not usually 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), section 34B(8))

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by Mr X.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. We consider our powers on what we could achieve as part of our consideration of whether an alternative remedy exists and whether it is reasonable for a person to use it.
10. Negligence claims and interpreting the law around civil liability are generally best decided by a court where the Council does not accept insurance liability. Only a court can decide whether the problem should have been dealt with by the Council before it caused damage to a person’s property, or if it is liable to pay damages for a person’s loss.
11. We will not investigate this complaint. We cannot decide liability nor order the Council to pay Mr X damages, so it is reasonable for him to take the matter to court.
12. We will also not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s complaint handling. When we apply our discretion not to investigate the substantive matter, we can also decide not to look at how the Council handled the complaint about it.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is reasonable for him to take the matter to court, and it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaints procedures when we decide not to deal with the substantive matter.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman