Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s administration of a moving traffic penalty charge notice as ultimately Mr X can challenge the enforcement in court.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council escalated a penalty charge notice (PCN) it had issued to him despite Mr X having asked the court at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) to consider his case. Mr X also complains Council staff were rude and dismissive when he says he sought urgent help. Mr X says this has caused him stress, anxiety and disruption.

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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. The courts have said that where someone has sought a remedy by way of proceedings in any court of law, we cannot investigate. This is the case even if the appeal did not or could not provide a complete remedy for all the injustice claimed. (R v The Commissioner for Local Administration ex parte PH (1999) EHCA Civ 916)
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. 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)
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 alleged fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained (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.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr X challenged the enforcement of a PCN by making a statutory declaration to the TEC. Mr X says he heard nothing back and when he contacted the Council it gave him conflicting information about what had taken the place, in respect of the statutory declaration. The Council told Mr X it had re-issued the PCN several months earlier, that the debt was still outstanding and had been passed to its enforcement agents again. Mr X says he knew nothing of this. The Council advised Mr X of his right to challenge this by making an out of time statutory declaration to the TEC. Mr X contacted the TEC and it gave Mr X the same advice.
9. I recognise that Mr X is anxious and confused about what took place, but we cannot investigate what happened in respect of the initial PCN as once Mr X submitted a statutory declaration to the TEC, we no longer had any legal remit to look into it, as per paragraph three.
10. We will not investigate what took place after this as Mr X can challenge the further enforcement action by making a late statutory declaration to the TEC. I appreciate Mr X may be unhappy at having to go through this process again, but this is the procedure provided in law and is the appropriate challenge at this stage. We are not another level of appeal in the statutory process and cannot make the decisions of the TEC. It is reasonable therefore to expect Mr X to take the matter to court.
11. I recognise Mr X is upset at how he says the Council dealt with him when he sought assistance from it. However, this matter has only been considered at the first stage of the Council’s complaint procedure. The procedure must be exhausted before we will consider a complaint. Notwithstanding this, it seems unlikely this will have caused Mr X a level of injustice, separate to the PCN enforcement, that would warrant our involvement.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is reasonable for him to challenge the enforcement of the PCN via the court at the TEC. Mr X’s complaint about rude conduct has not completed the Council’s own procedure and it seems unlikely in any case that any injustice from this is sufficient to warrant our involvement. We will not therefore investigate this aspect of Mr X’s complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman