Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his enquiries and complaints about a penalty charge notice. This is because Mr X has appealed to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains about the Council’s actions in connection with a penalty charge notice (PCN). He says council officers have provided him with false and contradictory information. He is also unhappy with the Council’s handling of his complaint. He says this has taken time to deal with and caused him frustration.

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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. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. We may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal but cannot investigate if the person has already appealed. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for all areas of England outside London.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I reviewed Mr X’s complaint and his correspondence with the Council about the matter.

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What I found

6. The Council issued Mr X a PCN for an alleged parking contravention in 2019.
7. There is a set procedure councils must follow when pursuing PCNs for parking contraventions and handling appeals against them. When a council issues a PCN the motorist has 28 days to pay the penalty charge or appeal; appeals at this stage are known as ‘informal challenges’.
8. If the motorist submits an informal challenge to a PCN and the Council decides not to accept them, it will write to the motorist and explain why. If the motorist accepts the Council’s reasons they may pay the PCN; if not, they may wait for a ‘notice to owner’. This provides a further opportunity for the owner of the vehicle to pay the charge or make ‘formal representations’ against the PCN. If the council rejects the motorist’s formal representations the motorist may appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.
9. Mr X informally challenged the PCN but the Council rejected his challenge. He latter made formal representations but again the Council rejected them. Mr X then appealed to the Tribunal and the Tribunal cancelled the PCN. But Mr X remains unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his contact and queries about the PCN and about the Council’s website which he says contains inaccurate information and is difficult to navigate. He complained to the Council but was unhappy with its handling of his complaint.
10. The Ombudsman cannot investigate this complaint. Mr X has appealed against the PCN issued by the Council and while he seeks to separate his complaints from the PCN itself, this is not a distinction we can make.
11. Mr X’s contact and complaints all stem from the issue of the PCN and the courts have said that where we cannot investigate a complaint about the main or underlying issue, we cannot investigate related issues either. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration in England [2006] EWHC 2847 (Admin)).
12. Even if we could say the Council provided Mr X with false or misleading information this did not stop him from appealing to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal and it is the appeals process, rather than a council’s complaints process, which is intended to deal with the validity of PCNs. It was Mr X’s choice to pursue a complaint about the Council’s involvement in the matter in addition to his appeal and while he is unhappy with the Council’s handling of his complaint we will not investigate this for the reason given at Paragraph 11.

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Final decision

13. The Ombudsman cannot investigate this complaint. This is because Mr X has appealed against the PCN to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman