Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about a Penalty Charge Notice because Mrs Y used her right to appeal to the Tribunal and there is not enough significant injustice to warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mrs Y complained the Council issued a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) to her for parking without a visitor permit after only three minutes, which she says is not a sufficient amount of time to allow her to obtain a permit for her house she was visiting. She also complained that she had to appeal to the Tribunal, but the Council then cancelled the PCN after a date for the hearing was set.
2. Mrs Y says the issue upset her and her mother, whom she was visiting, and wasted her time in making her appeal to the Tribunal.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information Mrs Y provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mrs Y appealed to the Council and then the London Tribunals, as the Council did not accept her representations initially. As Mrs Y used her right to appeal to the tribunal, despite a hearing not being held before the PCN was cancelled, we do not have the power in law to investigate the PCN.
7. Further Mrs Y has said the issue has upset her and her mother and made her waste time in appealing. While she may feel strongly about this, our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered a serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss of injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
8. In this case we would not consider the upset caused to be sufficiently serious to warrant investigation. We will not investigate.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint because Mrs Y used her right to appeal to the Tribunal and there is not enough significant injustice to warrant our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman