Essex County Council (20 009 721)
Category : Transport and highways > Parking and other penalties
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 28 Jan 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mrs X complains the Council does not inform her hire company when it has passed on penalty charge notices to their customers. We will not investigate as the injustice Mrs X claims is not sufficient to warrant our involvement.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains the Council does not inform her company when it has passed penalty charge notices on to their customers and that the company itself has to chase up the outcomes.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered what Mrs X said in her complaint and considered the comments she made in response to my draft decision on it.
What I found
- Mrs X runs a van hire company. The penalty notices they receive for vans out on hire are returned back to the Council to pass on to their customers.
- Mrs X complains the Council does not inform her company when it has passed a penalty on. Mrs X says the penalty notices say responses to challenges will be provided within 56 days. Mrs X says she has to chase the penalties up herself so she can close her files on them.
Analysis
- While Mrs X would prefer to receive confirmation of the notices being re-allocated to her customers, I do not consider this represents a level of injustice to her that would warrant our involvement in this complaint. We will not therefore investigate.
Final decision
- My decision is we will not investigate this complaint as there is insufficient injustice arising from the alleged Council fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman