Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). We cannot investigate matters if someone has appealed to a tribunal.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council lacks compassion by refusing to cancel his Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). He says he parked in a disabled bay and displayed his blue badge but mistakenly set the wrong time on the blue badge timer. He also says the Council issued a charge certificate after he paid the penalty charge.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter. We also cannot investigate a complaint if in doing so we would overlap with the role of a tribunal to decide something which has been or could have been referred to it to resolve using its own powers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. London Tribunals considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for London.
5. 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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr X says he displayed his blue badge but mistakenly set the wrong time on the blue badge timer. The Council issued Mr X a PCN, and he appealed to the tribunal. The adjudicator refused the appeal. We cannot investigate complaints where the tribunal has already considered the same matter.
9. Mr X says the Council wrongly issued a charge certificate the day after he paid the penalty charge. It is open to Mr X to raise this through the Council’s complaints process, but it is unlikely we would investigate the point further. Mr X had to pay the PCN within 28 days of the adjudicator’s decision, but did not arrange payment until that day. His receipt shows the transaction date as the following day, so it is unlikely we could say the Council had caused Mr X injustice on this point which is significant enough to warrant us investigating.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he already appealed to the tribunal about the same matter, and we could not say the Council caused him significant extra injustice by issuing a charge certificate which crossed with his payment.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman