Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Penalty Charge Notices. Most of the matters have been resolved and we would be unlikely to achieve significantly more for the remaining matters.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council acted wrongly when dealing with his Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs). He says this caused distress and resulted in avoidable time and trouble.

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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 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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

3. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

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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. The Council issued PCNs to Mr X for alleged moving traffic contraventions. Mr X appealed to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (‘the Tribunal’), which decided he had not committed any contravention. The Council says it then cancelled all the PCNs it had issued on the matter up to the time of the Tribunal’s decision.
7. After the Tribunal’s decision, the Council sent Mr X four more PCNs for the same matter the Tribunal had already decided was not a contravention. The Council accepted that should not have happened, apologised and stated it had also cancelled those PCNs. While receiving the extra PCNs was frustrating for Mr X, I consider the Council’s actions put matters right adequately. There is not significant enough remaining injustice to warrant us investigating the issuing of the four extra PCNs.
8. Mr X complains the Council has not issued legal cancellation notices for all the PCNs. He worries the Council might therefore not have cancelled the PCNs properly, so might start recovery action in error. I understand Mr X would prefer to have legal notices of the cancellation of each PCN. However, the Council has clearly said it has cancelled the PCNs. The concern about possible future mistakes is speculative. In the circumstances, it would be disproportionate to use our limited resources to pursue this point.
9. The Council said it would not offer Mr X a symbolic payment because the Tribunal had decided against awarding him his appeal-related costs. Mr X argues that is irrelevant to the separate matter of whether the Council should make a payment for any maladministration. However, I do not consider any remaining injustice Mr X might have suffered from any alleged faults by the Council is significant enough to justify us asking for a payment. In that context, it would be disproportionate for us to devote time and public money to investigating the Council’s reasons for not offering a payment.
10. Mr X also complains about the Council’s handling of his formal complaint, including delays, one of the Council’s responses saying there had been no procedural errors and the Council allegedly not saying he could now complain to the Ombudsman. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because most of the matters have already been resolved and any remaining injustice is not significant enough to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman