North East Combined Authority (21 001 121)
Category : Transport and highways > Traffic management
Decision : Not upheld
Decision date : 14 Sep 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr C complains about a penalty charge he incurred for a toll charge. The Ombudsman has discontinued the investigation because there is insufficient injustice to warrant further investigation.
The complaint
- The complainant (whom I refer to as Mr C) say he incurred a toll charge and experienced poor customer service.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:
- any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
- The Ombudsman considers it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about the handling of the complaint, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered the information provided by Mr C.
- I shared my draft decision with both parties.
What I found
- Mr C says he incurred a toll charge of £30. He also says the subsequent customer service from the Authority was poor.
- The Ombudsman will not investigate complaints where the alleged injustice is relatively low. That applies to this case. In addition, Mr C says thousands of people may be affected. We can only consider whether there is a personal injustice to him which warrants investigation. I understand Mr C is also dissatisfied with the handling of his case by the Authority. However, we will not look into customer service matters where the substantive part of the complaint is not being investigated. For those reasons I intend to discontinue the investigation.
Final decision
- I have discontinued the investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman