Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council charging him twice to park his car. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council and the additional charges are not significant enough to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains he has to pay twice for parking when he takes his son to his swimming lessons. He says he uses the RingGo app and RingGo initially refunded his second payment but has now stopped doing so. He also complains the Council ignored his complaint and suggested he was complaining about its decision to increase prices.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. The Council’s website lists its parking charges for the car park Mr X uses as £2 per hour Monday-Saturday between 8am-6:30pm and a flat fee of £2.10 for parking from 6:30pm-8am Sunday-Friday.
5. Mr X says he uses the car park between 5:45-6:45pm; he has therefore been charged the hourly rate from 5:45-6:30pm and the overnight charge from 6:30-6:45pm.
6. The Council’s charges are in accordance with its parking charges and there is no evidence of fault in its refusal to refund one of the payments. While RingGo has previously agreed to refunds these are at its/the Council’s discretion and it is under no obligation to continue this.
7. Further, the amount of the additional charges- £2.10 per visit- are not significant enough to warrant investigation.
8. Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council or to show its actions caused Mr X significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman