Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of a penalty charge notice. This is because the Council has provided a suitable remedy for the matter.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms X, complains the Council failed to suspend enforcement action and make other attempts to contact her when its correspondence about a penalty charge notice (PCN) was returned. She says that had her representative not intervened the Council’s enforcement agents (bailiffs) would have clamped her car and demanded payment.

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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, or
• the Council has provided a satisfactory remedy, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

(Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6), 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I reviewed Ms X’s complaint and the Council’s responses. I shared my draft decision with Ms X and invited her comments.

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What I found

5. The Council issued Ms X a PCN for a moving traffic contravention which she did not receive. This appears to be because she had moved address. The Council confirms its correspondence about the PCN was returned but it did not accept this as evidence of non-receipt. Mr Y, on Ms X’s behalf, complains the Council has failed to comply with London Councils’ code of practice on this point. He believes it should have suspended the process and any enforcement action at the point the correspondence was returned and make enquiries to find a new address for the motorist. He says it should then restart the process from the appropriate stage to ensure documents are properly served so the motorist has the opportunity to exercise their right of appeal.
6. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. The Council remedied Ms X’s injustice by cancelling the PCN in response to Mr Y’s complaint. This provides a suitable remedy for her and it is unlikely we would recommend anything further.
7. While Mr Y wants the Council to change its processes the issue does not cause him significant personal injustice. It also carries its own right of challenge at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) at Northampton County Court. In accordance with Paragraph 3 a complaint from a motorist affected by this issue falls outside our jurisdiction unless there are good reasons why it would not be reasonable to expect them to go to the TEC. We would consider this on a case by case basis.
8. It is also worth noting that the code of practice referred to concerns an authority’s enforcement of PCNs issued for parking contraventions whereas this case concerned a PCN for a moving traffic contravention; it is therefore not directly applicable in this case.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has provided a suitable remedy for Ms X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman