Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the visitor parking permits he bought or the Council issuing Penalty Charge Notices to his visitor. It would be reasonable for Mr X or his visitor to use their rights to appeal to tribunal or take the substantive matters to court, and there is not enough evidence the Councils actions caused Mr X significant injustice otherwise to warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council:
1. mis-sold him visitor parking permits by providing unclear information;
2. wrongly issued Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) to his visitor even though there was a valid parking permit; and
3. failed properly to handled his representations about the PCNs and his contacts and complaints about the matter.
2. Mr X says this caused him significant inconvenience and more than 15 hours dealing with the matter, taking him away from his work, and significant distress. He wants the Council to cancel the PCNs, compensate his time and distress, apologise, and improve its procedures.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes limits 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, or could take a matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use these rights. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a) and (c), as amended)
5. It also says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
6. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has adversely affected the person complaining, 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, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

Parking permits

9. Mr X bought some virtual permits for visitor parking. His visitor used them but received two PCNs for not having a valid permits for the location the car was parked. Mr X says the Council did not provide clear enough information about the difference between two different types of visitor permit, so it mis-sold them to him. The Council has explained the information on its residents’ portal sets out the difference between a permit for on-street parking in a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) and one for off-street parking in a housing estate location. It says Mr X bought permits for the CPZ, but his visitor parked the car in an off-street housing estate parking bay so the permits were invalid.
10. Even if we were to investigate, we could not know precisely what information Mr X saw when he bought the permits. He has not provided any information to support what he says about the information being misleading, nor would we expect he could do so. However, I have therefore no reason to think what the Council says about its resident portal is wrong. This means we could not decide whether the Council is wrong, or whether Mr X bought the wrong permit despite the information online. If Mr X still wishes to pursue any contract law matter arising from this, it would be reasonable for him to do so through the courts, which can and do decide contract disputes.

Penalty Charge Notices

11. The main result of what happened was the Council issued two PCNs to Mr X’s visitor. The law sets out a clear process for the registered keeper of a car to challenge a PCN by making representations to the issuing authority, then by appealing to a tribunal if the PCN remains, in this case London Tribunals. It says on its website: “The keeper is usually, but not always, liable for the penalty whoever was driving. This is known as keeper liability”. In some circumstances the keeper and driver, if different, can agree to transfer liability between them. It is or was reasonable for Mr X’s visitor to use the fixed process to challenge the PCNs. The Council had no duty to reply to Mr X’s representations on them; although it would have been helpful if it had told him that more quickly than it did, any delay does not amount to fault we would investigate because it was always open to the keeper of the vehicle to follow the procedure as set out on the PCNs and the Notice to Owner which followed.
12. The remedy Mr X seeks is mainly about the impact of the PCNs on the third party. We could not recommend the Council cancels the PCNs, as that is a matter for the tribunal. However, we understand the Council has now cancelled the PCNs which resolves that part of the complaint. Only an adjudicator from London Tribunals could decide on the facts whether the Council correctly issued the PCNs, so we could not achieve anything by investigating the point as Mr X wants.

Complaints and contacts

13. We do not normally investigate the way a council handles complaints and correspondence on a matter if we are not investigating the subject of the complaint itself. I recognise Mr X took some time to pursue this with the Council, not least to support his visitor, and it may not have replied quickly. However, the information we have seen, which I have set out above, would suggest that was a matter of his own choosing rather than a direct result of a clear error by the Council. We will not therefore investigate the Council’s later handling of the matter on its own.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it would be reasonable for Mr X or his visitor to use their rights to appeal to tribunal or take the substantive matters to court, and there is not enough evidence the Councils actions caused Mr X significant injustice otherwise to warrant our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman