Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a penalty charge notice it issued to Mr X. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault or fault causing a significant injustice to Mr X and Mr X had the right to challenge the notice via an appeal to an independent tribunal.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains he incurred a penalty charge notice (PCN) from the Council due to, he says, its poor signage for visitors to the city regarding roadworks and its one-way system. Mr X complains the Council did not properly respond to his questions about this matter and that he was unable to pay the discounted PCN as he says he was poorly advised about the time frame for doing this by a Council advisor. Mr X wants the Council to account for its handling of the matter.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review 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 use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
3. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or of fault causing a significant injustice to the person who complained (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. Parliament has provided an appeal mechanism by which Mr X could have challenged the PCN, ultimately to an independent tribunal, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT). It is reasonable to expect Mr X to have followed this process and that he chose not to, but to pay the PCN, does not change this view.
7. I recognise Mr X feels he was denied the right to pay the discounted PCN but he has not clearly explained how alleged fault by the Council led to this. In addition, Mr X says his complaint to us is not about the money but about the Council’s alleged failure to accept some blame for the poor signage and that it has not properly answered questions he asked when he subsequently complained. We will not investigate if there is insufficient evidence of fault plus the associated complaints Mr X has, about the Council’s administration of this matter, do not represent a level of injustice to justify our further involvement. The substantive injustice to Mr X was the PCN in itself and this could have been addressed by way of an appeal to the TPT, as explained.
8. For these reasons, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing a significant injustice to Mr X and he could reasonably have appealed the PCN to the TPT.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman