Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council issued a charge certificate in error as there is insufficient remaining injustice caused to the complainant to justify our further involvement.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council wrongly issued her with a charge certificate for a parking penalty charge notice (PCN) which the Council had been directed to cancel by London Tribunals after Ms X successfully appealed to it. Ms X also complains her request for a stage two response to her complaint was ignored. Ms X would like the Council to make a payment to her of £60 in recognition of administrative overheads of having to deal with a charge certificate issued in error and for the delay in a stage two complaint response being provided.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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 fault has not caused significant 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

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. In its stage one complaint response, the Council acknowledged it had issued the charge certificate in error. It apologised to Ms X for this and confirmed it had cancelled it. The Council also said it had improved its processes to prevent something similar happening in future.
7. Ms X remained unhappy that no financial remedy had been offered and asked the Council to consider this at the next stage of its complaint procedure. After wating for around three months for a response, Ms X escalated her complaint to us. Following this, the Council sent its stage two response to Ms X, again stating that no financial payment would be made. The Council explained the stage two response had been compiled several months prior but in error had not been sent to Ms X. The Council apologised to Ms X for the delay and indicated it had identified what had gone wrong and had addressed it.
8. Once made aware, the Council cancelled the charge certificate, apologised to Ms X and said it had put measures in place to address what had gone wrong. I am satisfied with the actions the Council took and while I recognise Ms X remains unhappy at having to deal with the charge certificate unnecessarily, I do not consider there is sufficient remaining injustice caused to her to warrant our further involvement. We have limited resources and must direct them to the most serious cases.
9. I recognise Ms X was caused further inconvenience from the Council’s handling of her escalated complaint but again, the Council has rectified this, and any remaining injustice is not significant, even cumulatively, and not at a level that we would recommend a financial remedy for.
10. For these reasons, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because I am satisfied with the actions the Council took and there is insufficient remaining injustice caused to Ms X to warrant our further involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman