Bristol City Council (24 023 049)
Category : Transport and highways > Parking and other penalties
Decision : Upheld
Decision date : 19 May 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s conduct while dealing with her appeal against a penalty charge notice. This is because the Council has apologised and offered a suitable remedy for the injustice its actions caused Mrs X.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains the Council referred to her in a derogatory way in its response to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal about an appeal against a penalty charge notice (PCN). She says this caused her shock and distress and she had to spend time on the phone during her holiday to respond to the Tribunal.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X’s representative, Mr Y.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council acknowledges the upset its actions caused Mrs X and has agreed to cancel the PCN as a gesture of goodwill. This provides the best possible outcome Mrs X could have hoped for when she made her appeal but she believes she would have won if the Council had not cancelled the PCN. The Council has therefore offered to reissue the PCN, allowing Mrs X a further opportunity to test this at appeal, and if Mrs X chooses to go down this route it has agreed to pay her £50 for the impact its actions had on her.
- Where we find fault we may recommend a remedy. Such remedies aim to put the person complaining back in the position they would have been, had the fault not occurred. Where this is not possible, such as in this case, we may recommend a modest financial payment to acknowledge the impact of the fault on the person complaining.
- In this case the Council’s offer provides a suitable remedy for the injustice caused to Mrs X and it is therefore unlikely further investigation would achieve anything more for her.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has provided a suitable remedy for the impact of its actions on Mrs X.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman