Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council's response to Mr X’s representations against a parking penalty charge notice as there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council is pursuing a parking penalty charge notice (PCN) it issued to him despite him having paid the fee to park. Mr X made a mistake when entering his vehicle registration number into the parking machine and the Council issued a PCN as it says Mr X did not therefore purchase a valid ticket to park.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal about the same matter. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The Council considered the representations Mr X made against the PCN but explained why they did not provide sufficient reason to cancel it. The Council explained that the parking ticket purchased must match the details of the vehicle parking, to avoid being issued with a PCN. The Council advised Mr X of what he could do next if he wanted to continue to challenge the PCN.
8. The Council considered Mr X’s representations and there is insufficient evidence of fault in the way it did this for us to take this complaint further. We are not empowered to question the Council’s assessment if there isn’t evidence of fault and we cannot cancel the PCN. It is open to Mr X to formally appeal against the PCN, using the appeal process provided in law, if he considers it was wrongly issued.
9. For these reasons, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council in how it dealt with Mr X’s representations against the PCN.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman