Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s pursuit of payment for a penalty charge notice. This is because he has put the matter to the Traffic Enforcement Centre at Northampton County Court.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains about the Council’s escalation of a penalty charge notice (PCN). He says his family have suffered stress as a result of visits from the Council’s enforcement agents (bailiffs) who demand he pays £423.

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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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (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.
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. We may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court but cannot investigate if the person has already been to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I reviewed Mr X’s complaint, shared my draft decision with him and considered his comments.

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What I found

7. The Council issued Mr X a PCN for a parking contravention in 2018.
8. 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’.
9. 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.
10. If the motorist does not pay or make formal representations the council will issue a charge certificate, increasing the amount payable by 50%. It may then apply to the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) at Northampton County Court to register the debt, before instructing bailiffs to recover it.
11. Mr X says he did not receive the original PCN and believes someone may have removed it from his car. He says he only found out about it at a later stage by which point the Council said he owed more than £170. He contacted the Council about the PCN but says the Council refused to cancel the PCN or take it back to an earlier stage. He wants it to cancel further enforcement action and reissue the PCN so he can pay it at a lower rate.
12. It is possible that a third party may have removed the original PCN from Mr X’s vehicle and it is unlikely we could attribute this to any fault by the Council. But regardless, Mr X confirms he has applied to the TEC to make a late witness statement to challenge the Council’s escalation of the PCN. The TEC refused his application and Mr X has sought a review of its decision. Because Mr X has put the matter to the TEC we cannot investigate his complaint.

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Final decision

13. The Ombudsman cannot investigate this complaint. This is because Mr X has applied to the TEC to make a late witness statement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman