Nottingham City Council (20 011 786)

Category : Transport and highways > Parking and other penalties

Decision : Not upheld

Decision date : 02 Aug 2021

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We have discontinued our investigation of this complaint. This is because we are satisfied any injustice to the complainant has already been remedied, and so there is no value to further investigation.

The complaint

  1. I will refer to the complaint as Ms F.
  2. Ms F complains that enforcement agents, acting on the Council’s behalf, began visiting her without giving proper notice in November 2020, in pursuit of an outstanding debt for a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN).

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:
  • any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
  • we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
  • further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I reviewed Ms F’s correspondence with the Council and enforcement agency.
  2. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

  1. Ms F received a PCN for a moving traffic violation in August 2018. In November, after the Council had registered a debt against her, Ms F made an agreement with to pay the charge at a rate of £10 per month.
  2. Ms F paid her instalments in December, January and February, but when the Council received no payment in March 2019, it referred the matter to its contracted enforcement agency (EA).
  3. In December 2020, Ms F contacted the Council. She said a bailiff from the EA had come to her property, and after speaking to her through the closed door, posted a removal notice through the letter box. She said this had happened twice recently. Ms F complained the EA had never contacted her before about the debt.
  4. The Council says it contacted the EA on 18 December. The EA said it had made its own payment plan with Ms F, which she had broken in April 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic meant debt enforcement was suspended at that time, but it sent Ms F a letter on 17 July to say enforcement would being again on 24 August.
  5. The EA again said Ms F had been making payments between June 2019 and March 2020, and that it had added enforcement fees to her debt in May 2019. It also confirmed Ms F had made a complaint, to which it would respond.
  6. The Council replied to Ms F to explain the EA’s comments. On 21 December, Ms F wrote back to she had never received any documentation from the EA, and had not entered any payment arrangements since April 2019. The Council replied on the following day, reiterating what the EA had told it, and saying Ms F would need to contact the agency to discuss when they had sent documentation to her.
  7. Ms F wrote to the Council again on 1 February 2021 to say she had not received a response from the EA to her complaint. The Council contacted the EA the following day, which confirmed it had wrongly not put enforcement on hold pending the complaint investigation, and had visited Ms F again on 27 January. She had then made a second complaint, and the EA had now put the case on hold until 26 February.
  8. The Council relayed this to Ms F on 4 February, and asked her to contact it again if she had not received a response from the EA by 22 February. The Council says it also asked the EA to expedite Ms F’s complaint.
  9. Ms F wrote to the Council on 5 February, and said it was simply repeating itself. The Council replied on 8 February to explain again what had happened.
  10. Ms F also approached the Ombudsman on 5 February. She reiterated her account, that the EA had never contacted her, and so considered she had not been given a reasonable opportunity to settle the debt before the commencement of enforcement action.
  11. We referred Ms F back to the Council at this point, because her complaint was still premature.
  12. The EA responded to Ms F’s complaint in an undated letter. It noted Ms F’s comment that she was entitled to receive seven days’ notice of enforcement, before the first bailiff’s visit in December. However, it explained it had sent a notice of enforcement in April 2019, and that it was not lawfully obliged to give any further notice than this.
  13. The EA said Ms F had set up an arrangement to pay £10 per month against the debt, and had made these payments each month between June 2019 and March 2020. It had then written Ms F after she did not make the payment due in April.
  14. The EA explained enforcement action was suspended until 26 August, but the COVID-19 regulations had extended bailiffs’ warrants for 12 months if they expired during the suspension period. Despite this, and the fact it was not lawfully obliged to, the EA accepted it should have contacted Ms F again before it had begun to visit her in November.
  15. The EA therefore agreed to clear the remaining PCN balance of £43, and to revoke the £235 enforcement fee it had added, meaning Ms F’s debt was now clear and no further action would be taken.
  16. The EA also noted Ms F had complained about the conduct of a bailiff during a phone call, but said it had no record of the call and so could not make any finding on this.
  17. Ms F replied to the EA on 12 February to say she was satisfied with its response.

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Analysis

  1. Both Ms F and the Council agree she originally made an agreement to pay £10 per month towards the PCN debt, which broke down in March 2019.
  2. The Council says it then passed the debt to its EA, and the EA says it made another payment arrangement with Ms F in April 2019. It says this ran from June 2019 to March 2020, when Ms F again stopped making payments, and that it wrote to Ms F to warn her enforcement action would begin again in August 2020. It then began making visits in November.
  3. But Ms F says she did not make a second payment arrangement with the EA, and in fact she says she had had no contact with it at all until the bailiff’s visit in November 2020. She therefore considers she was not given a reasonable opportunity to resolve the debt.
  4. On the information available to me, I cannot resolve this conflict in their accounts. I do note, however, that in Ms F’s complaint form to the Ombudsman, she says she stopped making payments in March 2020 because she had been furloughed. This would appear to undermine her account that she had not made any payments towards the debt since April 2019.
  5. Either way, I consider it would be disproportionate to continue my investigation here. This is because, as part of its response to the complaint, the EA has now waived the remaining portion of Ms F’s PCN debt (£43) as well revoking its own £235 enforcement fee. This means Ms F has paid less towards the PCN than she would have done if she had maintained the original payment arrangement.
  6. I am satisfied this remedies any potential injustice Ms F has suffered, and it is highly unlikely I would recommend any further remedy, regardless of any findings I might make by completing an investigation.

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Final decision

  1. I have discontinued my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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