Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of three penalty charge notices. This is because the Council cancelled one of the penalty charge notices in response to Mr X’s representations and it has now cancelled the other two following Mr X’s appeals to London Tribunals.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council refused to cancel several penalty charge notices (PCNs) issued to him for contraventions carried out by a third party who had cloned his vehicle. He says the Council refused to accept his vehicle had been cloned, ignored his evidence and rejected his representations against the PCNs.

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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. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions 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. We may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right but cannot investigate if the person has already used it. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. London Tribunals considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for London.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The Council issued Mr X three PCNs for various contraventions he says relate to the cloned vehicle. Mr X made representations against each of the PCNs and the Council agreed to cancel one (PCN 1) but rejected his representations against the other two (PCNs 2 and 3).
9. Mr X subsequently appealed against PCNs 2 and 3 to London Tribunals and the Council decided not to contest Mr X’s appeals. The Adjudicator therefore ordered the Council to cancel the PCNs, which it has now done.
10. There is nothing further to investigate in respect of PCN 1 because the Council considered Mr X’s representations and cancelled the PCN as part of the normal statutory process. It is therefore unlikely we would find fault or that further investigation would achieve anything more for Mr X.
11. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s issue of PCNs 2 and 3 or its handling of Mr X’s representations against them because Mr X used hi right of appeal to London Tribunals. The restriction at Paragraph 4 therefore applies.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council cancelled PCN 1 in response to Mr X’s representations and it is therefore unlikely we could achieve anything more for Mr X. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about PCNs 2 and 3 because Mr X has used his right of appeal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman