Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions relating to a Parking Charge Notice, including how it communicated with X, relating to that same matter. Any injustice to X is not significant enough to justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. X complained about the Council’s actions relating to the issue of a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). He said he was misadvised about the statutory appeal rights, resulting in him paying the penalty. He said the Council then wrongly declined to respond fully to a complaint, because it said he had accepted liability by paying the PCN. X also said the Councils subsequent correspondence on the matter was unsatisfactory.
2. X said he has now wrongly paid a penalty, missed an opportunity to challenge his PCN and has unnecessarily spent time trying to obtain a complete response to the matter from the Council.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 there is no worthwhile outcome achievable. (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 I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. X was unhappy with several aspects of his contact with the Council relating to advice and information, after it issued him with a PCN. He said incorrect advice meant he was not told about an opportunity to challenge the PCN. X said he has paid the £25 charge.
6. Additionally, X pointed to several flaws in how the Council communicated with him about this subsequently, meaning he spent additional time, unnecessarily writing to the Council, asking it for information to obtain a comprehensive response to his complaint.
7. I will not investigate this complaint. This is because any injustice to X, caused by the Council’s actions relating to the PCN is not significant enough to justify an investigation, given the small sums of money involved and not having an opportunity to appeal. We will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm or distress, and I am not satisfied X’s injustice meets the threshold for our involvement.
8. Nor will I investigate a complaint about complaint handling, because it is not a good use of public resources, to investigate a complaint about complaint handling faults, where we decide not to investigate the substantive matters giving rise to the complaint.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate X’s complaint because there is no significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman