Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council (24 011 778)
Category : Transport and highways > Parking and other penalties
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 03 Dec 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the conduct of a traffic warden because we could not add to the Council’s investigation. Mr X also has a right of appeal against the parking penalty he received.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the conduct of a Traffic Warden who issued him with a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for parking while using a Blue Badge for his son. Mr X says the Traffic Warden treated him poorly and he felt humiliated. He wants the Council to apologise for the distress caused to him and his family by the Traffic Warden’s conduct and for the Council to accept fault.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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)
- The Traffic Penalty Tribunal considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for all areas of England outside London.
- 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:
- we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
- there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X complained about the conduct of a Traffic Warden who issued a parking ticket. He says he had returned to his vehicle to retrieve items for his son, to whom the blue badge is issued. The Traffic Warden issued the parking ticket to Mr X because his son was not with him when he returned to his vehicle.
- The Council has responded to Mr X’s complaints about this incident under all three stages of its corporate procedure. The Council has confirmed it had spoken to the Traffic Warden involved and examined the footage they recorded of the incident on body worn camera. The Council has described what it has observed in the video footage in detail. The Council has said it does not accept Mr X’s account of the incident based on what it has seen in the camera footage.
- We will not investigate the decision to issue a parking ticket to Mr X as he has a right of appeal, which is reasonable for him to use. And he is doing so.
- The Council has completed a thorough investigation of the complaints Mr X has raised about the conduct of the Traffic Warden and has found no evidence of misconduct. There is nothing more we could meaningfully add to the Council’s investigation. In any case, we could not recommend any disciplinary action as that is a matter for the Council as an employer and such action falls outside our remit. We therefore will not investigate further because there is no worthwhile outcome we could achieve by doing so.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we could not add to the Council’s investigation and he has a right of appeal against the PCN.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman