Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to refund her £2.90 parking payment. This is because the matter complained about has not caused Ms X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms X, complains about the Council’s decision to refuse her request to refund the £2.90 she paid to park in a station car park. Ms X said she only stayed in the car park for 5 minutes because she found there were no trains running. Ms X also complains the Council delayed in responding to her refund request.

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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 provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. 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.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Ms X complains about the Council’s decision not to refund her £2.90 parking payment as set out in paragraph 1, above.
7. The Council refused Ms X’s request for a refund. It said it found no evidence to support Ms X’s claim there were no trains running on that date and it could not verify that Ms X did not use the parking session she paid for. It told Ms X it may be able to consider her request if she is able to provide evidence to support her claim.
8. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. This is because the matter complained about has not caused Ms X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough that it warrants the use of public funds to carry out an 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.
9. Ms X also complained about the Council’s delay in responding to her refund request. The Council acknowledged the delay and apologised to Ms X for this in its complaint response. We do not consider complaint handling issues in isolation where we are not also considering the substantive matter This is because it is not a good use of public funds to do so.

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Final decision

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

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman