Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a penalty charge notice that the Council issued. The Council has cancelled it and ordered that it be reimbursed in full. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained that the Council wrongly issued her with a penalty charge notice (PCN) for idling her engine. Ms X states that the Council’s administrative errors and delays led to enforcement and she had to make a payment to stop further action being taken by the enforcement agency. She says this impacted her financially and has caused her distress.

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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 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:

• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council issued a PCN to Ms X as it said she was idling her engine. Ms X disputed this and appealed the PCN.
6. Due to an administrative error made by the Council Ms X’s appeal wasn’t picked up for 5 weeks. During this time, the DVLA had informed the Council that a car lease company was the registered owner of the car, so the Council did not respond to Ms X’s appeal as only the registered owner is able to make representations.
7. The car lease company then provided Ms X’s details to the Council, who subsequently recorded her as the registered owner, allowing her to make representations. The Council said it received no such representations from Ms X.
8. Ms X said that she had attempted to make representations but due to incorrect information sent to her by the Council, she was directed to the wrong forms.
9. The Council then issued a warrant and passed this to enforcement agents. Ms X paid a sum of £440 to enforcement agents to prevent further action, which she says put her under financial strain.
10. Ms X appealed the PCN again. It was reviewed by the Council which found that the PCN had been wrongly issued due to a coding error on their system.
11. The Council says it has instructed the enforcement agency to refund the penalty Ms X paid in full. It has also apologised for the inconvenience the error caused to Ms X. I recognise Ms X would like a greater remedy because the matter caused her some distress, but we would not consider successfully having to follow a representations and appeals procedure, even if not entirely straightforward, causes significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the Council has accepted her representations, cancelled the penalty charge notice and instructed a full refund. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome for Ms X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman