Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to refund Ms X’s payment of a Clean Air Zone (CAZ) charge which she made in error. This is because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council sufficient to warrant an investigation and the injustice caused to Ms X is limited.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Ms X, complains about the Council’s decision not to refund her the CAZ charge she paid in error when she paid for a date which had already passed rather than the upcoming date she had intended.

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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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

3. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Ms X, including the Council’s response to her complaint.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. In error, Ms X went online on 9 December 2022 and paid the CAZ charge for the weekend of 3-4 December instead of the weekend of 10-11 December as she had intended.
7. Realising her mistake, she quickly asked the Council for a refund but it refused stating that it was unable to process a refund where a payment had been made but the vehicle had not entered the zone.
8. In response to Ms X’s complaint about this matter, the Council agreed with Ms X that its website did not state explicitly that a refund cannot be made if an error is made filling in the form but it said it would look into adding this information. However, it pointed out that the CAZ charge can be paid up to six days in advance, on the day, or six days after the driver enters the zone which is why the different date options are available. It said that while it was possible to do so, it did not have the officer time to carry out manual checks to see if a car had or had not entered the zone.
9. We do not investigate every complaint we receive and while Ms X is frustrated that she has been unable to obtain a refund for the £18 charge she paid in error, the decision not to use officer time to manually check vehicle movements in situations such as this is one for the Council to make and we cannot review the merits of it.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council sufficient to warrant an investigation and the injustice caused to Ms X is limited.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman