Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s refusal to cancel several penalty charge notices. This is because it would have been reasonable for her to appeal to London Tribunals.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains the Council has issued her several penalty charge notices (PCNs) for parking without displaying a blue badge. She accepts she may have committed the contraventions but says there are good reasons for this and believes the Council should have cancelled the PCNs. She says the Council has failed to make reasonable adjustments and has not listened to her concerns.

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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)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)
5. London Tribunals considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for London.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Where a council issues a PCN and where the recipient wishes to challenge it they may appeal, firstly to the Council and then to a Tribunal.
8. Miss X has challenged several of the PCNs with the Council and in some cases (nine in total) the Council has decided to cancel them. This shows the Council has taken account of the issues Miss X describes and cancelled the PCNs where it found good reasons to do so.
9. In the cases where the Council has not cancelled the PCNs Miss X had a right of appeal to London Tribunals. It is clear she was aware of this right as the Council has referred her to the process on numerous occasions and we consider it would have been reasonable for her to use it to challenge the PCNs, if she thought the Council’s decisions were wrong. The fact she did not was entirely her choice and not the result of any fault by the Council.
10. Because Miss X did not appeal to London Tribunals and did not pay the PCNs, the Council has escalated the cases in accordance with the statutory process. Again I cannot say this was the result of any fault by the Council and I do not therefore consider further investigation would achieve anything worthwhile for Miss X.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it would have been reasonable for Miss X to appeal against the PCNs to London Tribunals and there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s escalation of the cases following her non-payment.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman