Summary: We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of two penalty charge notices. This is because Mr X has used his right to challenge the Council’s escalation of the cases by applying to the Traffic Enforcement Centre, which is part of Northampton County Court, to make a witness statement.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains about the Council’s handling of two penalty charge notices (PCNs). He says he accepted the fines but was unhappy the Council did not fix PCNs to his vehicle, instead issuing them to him by post. He says appealed against the PCNs and did not receive a response. The Council escalated the cases and passed them to enforcement agents (bailiffs) to recover payment from him. He says this caused him stress and affected his mental health.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’.
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 could take the matter to court. We may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court but cannot investigate if they have already been to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
5. The Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) is part of Northampton County Court. It considers applications from local authorities to pursue payment of unpaid PCNs and from motorists to challenge local authorities’ pursuit of unpaid PCNs.

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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

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.
10. If the motorist does not pay or make formal representations the council will issue a charge certificate, increasing the amount payable by 50%. It may then apply to the TEC to register the debt, before instructing bailiffs to recover it.
11. The Council confirms it issued the PCNs by post as it had identified the contraventions by CCTV. It was entitled to do this and its actions did not amount to fault.
12. The Council then progressed the cases in accordance with the process set out above. Mr X says he made representations against the PCNs and appealed against the Council’s decision to reject them and did not receive a response. But the Council says it did not receive any representations from Mr X and did not therefore issue any rejection.
13. In any event, Mr X applied to the TEC to challenge the Council’s escalation of the case, citing the procedural error referred to above. He did this by applying to make a witness statement. The TEC accepted Mr X’s application and ordered the Council to take the cases back to an earlier stage, reducing the amount of the PCNs, removing the basis for the bailiffs’ charges and reinstating Mr X’s right of appeal. Mr X then paid the PCNs at the initial discounted rate.
14. Because Mr X has used his right to go to the TEC we cannot consider any complaint about the Council’s escalation of the case. The TEC has already considered the matter and this bars us from investigating it further.
15. The Council confirms the bailiffs have refunded Mr X’s payments and there are no outstanding issues for us to consider further.

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Final decision

16. We cannot investigate this complaint. This is because Mr X has applied to the TEC to make a late witness statement and we cannot investigate any complaint about the same issue the TEC has already considered.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman