Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about problems she had exiting the Council’s car park on two occasions. This is because the matter has not caused Mrs X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains she was unable to exit a Council car park on two occasions despite paying for parking. On the first occasion, Mrs X paid the £1.10 parking fee again in order to exit and on the second occasion she spoke to someone over the intercom and the barrier was lifted so she could exit. On both occasions the issue was caused by Mrs X inputting her car registration number in the payment machine incorrectly. Mrs X complains the payment system did not prompt her to correct the details she provided. She says the system is flawed.

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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. We do not start 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

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

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My assessment

6. Mrs X complained to the Council about the matter set out in paragraph one, above.
7. The Council investigated. It found that on both occasions the issue had been caused by Mrs X incorrectly inputting her car registration in the payment machine. This meant that when she went to leave the car park the details she had provided did not match her car and so the barrier did not lift as it did not recognise the payment had been made for that car. As such, the issue was caused by user error rather than any fault in its payment system. It explained that it relies on customers entering their details correctly and when this is done its process works as intended. The Council arranged to refund the additional payment Mrs X made.
8. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because the matter complained about has not caused Mrs X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to merit the use of limited public funds to carry out a further investigation. We do not investigate every complaint we receive. We must focus our limited public resources on investigating those complaints where a person has suffered a significant personal injustice as a result of fault by a body in our jurisdiction. This is not the case here.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the matter has not caused Mrs X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman