Summary: We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about a Penalty Charge Notice for an alleged parking contravention. Mr X has used the statutory representations and appeals procedure and so the law prevents us from investigating. We will not investigate the Council’s handling of Mr X’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for an alleged parking contravention and about the Council’s handling of his resulting complaint.
2. Mr X says the matter caused inconvenience and frustration.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes limits on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. If the person has already appealed, we have no power to investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. London Tribunals considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for London, and the Traffic Penalty Tribunal for the rest of England.
6. 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

7. I considered information from the complainant and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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Final decision

8. We cannot investigate this complaint because Mr X has already used the representations and appeals procedure and it would not be proportionate to consider the Council’s handling of his complaint, given we cannot investigate the substantive matter.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman