Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s provision of parking enforcement for a location near Mr X’s home. There is insufficient evidence of fault by the council which has caused any injustice to Mr X.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s failure to regularly enforce parking restrictions in his area. In particular he says he has reported cars parked with blue disabled badges which have remained after the 3-hour time restriction has expired.

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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 continue 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

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by the complainant and the Council’s response.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X says the council does not enforce parking restrictions in his street sufficiently well. He has reported cars being parked on double yellow line restrictions on various occasions over the past year but says that the Council has not responded by sending enforcement officers to ticket these vehicles.
6. The Council says it has limited resources but has asked its contractors to carry out visits six times a day. It also says that vehicles displaying timed blue badges will be considered more closely in future. It is trialling nighttime enforcement but at present, as with most authorities there is no out of hours service for parking services.
7. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.

In this case any injustice caused by disabled drivers staying longer than the 3-hour time-limit does not cause sufficient personal injustice to Mr X to warrant an investigation.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s provision of parking enforcement for a location near Mr X’s home. There is insufficient evidence of fault by the council which has caused any injustice to Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman