Summary: Mr X complains the Council wrongly pursued him for a debt he had already paid. He says he was caused an injustice as he went to a lot of time and trouble trying to get the Council to accept he had paid the debt. This included having to persuade its enforcement agents to remove a clamp from his car. He says the episode caused him embarrassment. The Council accepts fault. We have made some recommendations to remedy the injustice caused.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that the Council:

• wrongly refused to accept he had already paid a fine.
• wrongly clamped his car, even though he had been told the case was on hold.
• failed to investigate what happened, and
• failed to properly compensate him for the injustice caused.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I spoke to the complainant and read the paperwork he provided.
5. I made enquiries with the Council and reviewed the file provided.
6. Both the Council and the complainant had the opportunity to comment on this draft decision.

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What I found

Background

7. This summary does not contain all the relevant events but only the outline of the complaint.
8. In May 2018 Mr X was fined for a traffic contravention. He paid the fine of £65 shortly afterwards. However, the Council sent him a letter in August 2018 saying he owed a total of £195. It said the payment he made to the Council had been ‘charged back’ from Mr X’s bank, resulting in the fine not being paid.
9. The Council says this letter was sent as a result of a bank error. The payment was made but the Council then received a false notification that the sum had been ‘charged back’. This error was corrected on 8 October 2018 but the correction did not appear on their systems.
10. Mr X checked his bank statements, which did not show any payment had been charged back. On numerous occasions over the next few months he sent copies of his bank statements and payment confirmation to the Council. He also visited Council offices on more than one occasion.
11. The records also show that Mr X spoke with a Council officer on 3 September 2018. From that conversation, Mr X understood that the case would be put on hold until the matter of payment had been resolved. The Council record says that the officer told Mr X the case would be put on hold for two weeks while he raised a complaint.
12. The Council says it failed to place the case on hold as there was a breakdown of communication between officers.
13. In early October 2018 Mr X received an email from the Council saying his case had been passed to the Council’s finance department. He was told he would receive an answer within a week.
14. In December 2018, Mr X wrote to the Council again. He said he had assumed, that the matter had been resolved until he received a court letter demanding payment. He expressed frustration as he said he had provided all the evidence that he had paid. He asked the Council “…what do you want me to do.” He said he hoped that he did not find his car being clamped.
15. The records show that the Council did not respond to Mr X. A note was made that the case would ‘require an outcome’ before it was progressed, but this did not happen. Instead the case was passed to enforcement officers and a warrant was issued in January 2019.
16. The Council explains that it runs certain checks before advancing a case to enforcement. These checks appear to be principally around checking the identity of the person the Council has chosen to enforce against. The Council does not check if the service-user has raised a dispute about the debt or whether there are any other outstanding issues that might make forwarding the file to enforcement inappropriate.
17. The Council says that, usually, officers would have carried out a full investigation into the complaint along with the finance team. But, in this case, this did not happen.
18. The Council says there was also a breakdown in communication between itself and its enforcement agents.
19. Enforcement agents wrote to Mr X in February 2019. Mr X again produced evidence showing he had paid the penalty. Enforcement agents relayed this information to the Council and later chased a response. A senior officer said she would look into the matter but did not do so.
20. On 27 February 2019, an enforcement agent visited Mr X’s property. He was in the process of clamping Mr X’s car when Mr X was alerted. He says he provided evidence of his payment again to the enforcement agent who unclamped his car. The records show that enforcement agent team contacted the Council later that day. The Council asked the agents to hold off enforcement while it looked into the matter.
21. Mr X says he found the experience very embarrassing as he was concerned his neighbours and onlookers thought he was the type of person who did not pay his debts. Mr X also owns a business and he felt the episode harmed his reputation.
22. The records showed Mr X visited his local council offices that day to show the evidence to officers there again.
23. In March 2019, Mr X says he received a letter from a credit company saying that he was now liable to pay up to £500 as he had not paid the fine. He said he visited Council offices again and was, he says, told by staff, again, that they would put the claim on hold. He made a formal complaint.
24. On 21 March 2019, the Council says it told its enforcement agents not to enforce and the case was closed. The Council confirmed the closure in a letter to Mr X in June 2019.

Mr X’s complaint

25. Mr X formally complained about what had happened on 7 March 2019. The Council responded on 21 March 2019. It apologised for:

• a poor telephone call Mr X said he had had with a member of staff in one of his contacts with the Council, and
• the failure to investigate his case “…in the manner…the Council would obviously expect.”

26. It said that there had been a breakdown of communication between different departments and Mr X could be reassured this had been brought to the attention of relevant senior managers.
27. The Council said that Mr X had failed to provide ‘any evidence’ such as an authorised bank statement to confirm there had been no subsequent problem with payment. But, on balance, it had decided to accept his version of events.
28. The Council said that, while the enforcement agents’ visit to Mr X’s property might have caused him stress and embarrassment, the Council could not award compensation as it could only do this when a complainant suffered injustice and financial loss.
29. Mr X wrote back immediately. He said he felt ‘tormented’. He listed the numerous emails in which he had provided evidence of payment. He explained that writing to the Council had been very difficult for him as English is not his first language and he had spent a lot of time and energy trying to get the Council to accept that he had paid. He was insulted by what he saw as the Council’s claim to be ‘doing him a favour’ by agreeing not to take further enforcement action.
30. The Council responded in May 2019. It maintained that, while enforcement agents were wrong to clamp his car, he had failed to provide the ‘requested evidence’. It did not uphold his complaint about its actions.
31. It repeated that it would not pay Mr X any compensation. The Council considered the withdrawal of the parking fine to be a sufficient remedy for the wrongful clamping of Mr X’s car.
32. Following our enquiries, the Council says the officer involved had not understood that the Council had the ability to pay compensation. It says the officer has now been informed of the correct position.
33. It also accepted that the Council should have accepted Mr X’s bank statements and proof of payment as evidence.

Analysis

34. Mr X paid his fine in good time. That should have been the end of the matter. Instead, from August 2018 to May 2019, he struggled to get the Council to accept he had made payment. The case was not closed until June 2019, a full year after Mr X had paid the fine.
35. During that time, Mr X says, and I accept, that he visited Council offices numerous times. He has provided evidence of the repeated detailed emails he sent to the Council, accompanied with bank statements and evidence of payment. He says he was ‘tormented’ by the Council’s actions. He was sent letters from the bailiff and even though Mr X warned the Council about his fears that his car may be clamped, his car was wrongly clamped, causing him embarrassment.
36. The Council has accepted it was at fault and it is clear he suffered an injustice because of that fault.
37. When the Council finally accepted Mr X had made payment, it said (or implied) that its failure to accept that he had paid earlier had been caused by Mr X’s failure to provide evidence. This was not the case. He had provided evidence. If the Council considered the evidence was not sufficient, it should have said so. It did not. It appears that it did not consider Mr X’s evidence at all. If it had done so, it is likely it would have become clear that Mr X had paid and no charge back had occurred and that any error was not Mr X’s fault and had been corrected in October 2018. This is fault causing injustice.
38. Mr X would then have been spared months of exasperating communication and the eventual clamping of his car. Following our enquiries, the Council says it was wrong not to accept Mr X’s bank statements and other evidence as proof of his claim to have paid the penalty. It should have accepted his evidence before. In response to my enquiries the Council said it asked enforcement agents to ask Mr X for better evidence from his bank. There is no record of this having happened. In any event, it was wrong of the Council to wait until the case reached enforcement before asking for better evidence.
39. There was a breakdown of communication between officers in October 2018 but this does not explain why Mr X’s December 2018 emails did not alert the Council to the fact that there were issues with this case that had not been addressed, before progressing to the stage where it issued a warrant. This is fault causing injustice.
40. Internal emails show that normal practice would be for the Council to reach a determination on a complaint before progressing to enforcement, but it does not appear to have a system in place to help ensure this happens. Mr X says he was told by Council officers that this is a recurring problem. Given the evident lack of internal checks, this would be unsurprising. I have made a recommendation to address this system failure.
41. The Council also says there was a communication breakdown between itself and its enforcement agents. This is clear from the records.
42. The Council apologised for this. It said it would ensure the issue was brought to the attention of relevant managers. The response to my enquiries has not made it clear this has been done and I have made a recommendation to address this.
43. The Council also accepts that it was wrong to tell Mr X it could not compensate him for the embarrassment and stress caused by its failures. I consider it was also wrong to say that the injustice he suffered was sufficiently remedied by agreeing to cease enforcement. It should have closed the case in June 2018 when Mr X paid his fine. I have made a recommendation to acknowledge the prolonged distress Mr X was caused by the way the Council handled both the case and his complaint.

Agreed action

44. Within a month of my final decision, the Council should:
1. Apologise in writing to Mr X for the way it handled his case and his complaint, for the embarrassment its actions caused and for failing to consider the evidence he produced to prove his case.
2. Pay Mr X the sum of £600 to acknowledge the prolonged distress caused by the Council’s continued failure to address his concerns and for the consequential wrongful clamping of his car. This payment also includes a payment of £200 to recognise the time and trouble Mr X had to go through to bring this complaint to the Ombudsman.
45. Within two months of my final decision, the Council should:
1. Review what happened in this case, in particular in terms of why the Council’s systems were not updated when in October 2018, it was clear the apparent ‘chargeback’ had not occurred. Once the Council has identified what happened to cause this error, complete an audit of other similar cases and provide suitable remedies where appropriate. Provide a summary of any findings to the Ombudsman.
2. Review the Council’s system checks for progressing a case to enforcement to ensure that a case is not progressed before any issues raised have been addressed.

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Final decision

46. I have found the Council at fault. The fault caused Mr X an injustice and the Council has agreed to remedy that fault as outlined above.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman