Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s issue and handling of several penalty charge notices. This is because it would have been reasonable for Miss X to appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains about several penalty charge notices (PCNs) issued by the Council for parking contraventions. Miss X says she paid for parking but accepts she input her vehicle registration number (VRN) incorrectly. She believes the Council should have cancelled the PCNs and says the Council made numerous mistakes in dealing with her correspondence about the matter. She also claims it lied to her and she believes it has harassed and discriminated against her.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)
4. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for all areas of England outside London.
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
6. 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

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

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My assessment

9. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’.
10. We could not say the Council was at fault for issuing the PCNs because although Miss X paid for parking, she did not enter her VRN correctly. It did not therefore show on the civil enforcement officer’s records and they were entitled to issue the PCNs.
11. The proper route to challenge a PCN is via the appeals process and it would have been reasonable for Miss X to appeal against the PCNs issued in this case.
12. Miss X followed the first stage of the appeals process for the first two PCNs by informally challenging them. The Council considered Miss X’s reasons and agreed to cancel the PCNs but said it would not cancel anymore.
13. Miss X says she did not receive the Council’s response and was therefore unaware that she had made a mistake, so she continued to use park expecting that her monthly pass remained valid. The Council therefore continued to issue Miss X PCNs but instead of following the appeals process and taking the matter to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, Miss X continued to send letters and emails to the Council complaining about the PCNs and the Council’s handling of the matter.
14. I appreciate Miss X had recently lost her mother and grandmother, was experiencing family issues and had recently lost her job, but I do not consider this provides good reason to exercise my discretion to investigate the complaint. Miss X was clearly able to correspond and argue with the Council over the matter and the appeals process is not significantly more arduous than this. It would also have provided an independent and definite end to any dispute over the validity of the PCNs, whereas Miss X says her continued correspondence with the Council caused her stress, time, pain and impacted on her mental health.
15. There is some suggestion that Miss X did not receive some of the formal documents issued by the Council about the PCNs but where this is the case, and if it affected Miss X’s ability to appeal, she may apply to the TEC to make late witness statement. If successful the TEC may order the Council to take the process back to an earlier stage, reducing the amount of the PCN and reinstating her right of appeal. If the TEC refuses Miss X’s applications she may apply for a review of its decisions.
16. While Miss X has concerns about the Council’s handling of her correspondence and the way it dealt with her complaint I do not consider these issues are sufficiently separate for us to investigate them. This is because the courts have said that where we cannot investigate a complaint about the main or underlying issue, we cannot normally investigate related issues either. So, where the substance of a complaint is not subject to investigation, the Ombudsman does not investigate the Council’s handling of the issue in isolation. This is because there is little we could achieve by looking at the Council’s handling of a complaint about a matter which itself is not within our jurisdiction to investigate.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it would have been reasonable for Miss X to appeal to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman