Summary: The Council has provided an appropriate remedy, to address its fault in how it dealt with this complaint about a penalty charge notice, and as such, we will not investigate.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council did not accept the independent parking adjudicator’s recommendation that it should cancel a penalty charge notice (PCN) the Council had issued to her for a parking contravention. Ms X has had to pay the PCN and spend time dealing with this.

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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 provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions a council has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Ms X was issued with a PCN after a family member inputted the car registration incorrectly into the parking ticket machine by inputting the letter ‘O’ instead of a zero.
6. Ms X appealed against the PCN to the independent parking adjudicator at London Tribunals. The parking adjudicator refused Ms X’s appeal as the PCN was properly issued but felt there were compelling reasons why the PCN should be cancelled and made this recommendation to the Council. The Council decided not to cancel the PCN. Ms X paid the PCN and then complained to us.
7. In response to my enquiries, the Council has acknowledged that it:

• failed to refer the decision on whether to cancel the PCN, following the parking adjudicator’s recommendation, to the Chief Executive’s office, as per London Councils’ Code of Practice on Civil Parking Enforcement 2018.
• failed to notify either Ms X or the parking adjudicator that it did not accept the recommendation to cancel the PCN.
• wrongly issued Ms X with a Charge Certificate when it had failed to notify her of its decision on the parking adjudicator’s recommendation.

8. In recognition of this, the Council has cancelled the PCN, refunded Ms X’s payment to her and apologised for how it dealt with her case. It has also introduced a new internal procedure to ensure all such cases are managed in line with the code of practice.
9. The action taken by the Council represents a suitable remedy to this complaint and as such, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because the Council has taken action which provides a suitable resolution to it.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman