Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to respond to his correspondence about a penalty charge notice. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council and it would have been reasonable for Mr X to use his right of appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council failed to respond to his correspondence about a penalty charge notice (PCN) for a parking contravention and did not issue him a ‘notice of rejection’. As a result he says he was unable to appeal against the PCN.

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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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. The law says 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for all areas of England outside London.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

The statutory process

8. There is a set procedure councils must follow when pursuing PCNs for parking contraventions and handling appeals against them. When a council issues a PCN the motorist has 28 days to pay the penalty charge or appeal; appeals at this stage are known as ‘informal challenges’.
9. If the motorist submits an informal challenge to a PCN and the Council decides not to accept them, it will write to the motorist and explain why. If the motorist accepts the Council’s reasons they may pay the PCN; if not, they may wait for a ‘notice to owner’. This provides a further opportunity for the owner of the vehicle to pay the charge or make ‘formal representations’ against the PCN. If the council rejects the motorist’s formal representations the motorist may appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

Mr X’s case

10. The Council issued Mr X a PCN for a parking contravention on 2 August 2023.
11. Mr X informally challenged the PCN but the Council rejected his challenge on 18 August 2023. It told Mr X it would reconsider if Mr X could provide any evidence to show he was loading/unloading at the time and gave him seven days to provide this information. Its letter also stated “If you would like to dispute the matter further, please do not make payment. A Notice to Owner will be sent to the owner/ keeper of the vehicle… Should the owner/keeper wish to take this matter further, they may make a formal representation…”
12. Mr X wrote to the Council again on 22 August 2023 but did not provide any evidence; he said he was visiting a resident to deliver books but had no invoice and could not park elsewhere as there were no spaces. He disputed that there were any yellow lines on the road and asked for a photo as evidence of the contravention.
13. The Council did not receive Mr X’s letter so did not respond. Mr X is unhappy about this as he says it stopped him from appealing. But he confirmed to the Council that he received the Notice to Owner, issued on 2 October 2023, and this set out Mr X’s right to make formal representations against the PCN. He did not make formal representations so the Council did not issue him a Notice of Rejection and he could not therefore appeal.

Analysis

14. There is no evidence of fault by the Council in its issue of the PCN or its handling of Mr X’s correspondence about it. The information it has provided shows it was satisfied Mr X was parked in contravention of a parking restriction and it was therefore entitled to issue him a PCN. The Council cannot be at fault for not responding to correspondence it did not receive and because Mr X has confirmed he received the Notice to Owner it would have been reasonable for him to make representations to the Council and appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal under the process set out above, if he wished to challenge it further.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council in its issue of the PCN or its handling of Mr X’s correspondence about it. If Mr X wished to challenge the PCN it would have been reasonable for him to appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman