The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a Penalty Charge Notice. This is because there is not significant enough injustice to justify our involvement.
The complaint
Mr Y complains on behalf of his company, that the Council wrongly rejected his representation against a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for entering its Clean Air Zone (CAZ) without payment.
Mr Y says the Council’s initial rejection of the representations led him to submit an FOI request, reinterview the driver with a union representative present, having photographs taken and prepare an appeal for the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, costing his company in time approximately £300. Mr Y says the information from the FOI then led to the Council cancelling the PCN, but Mr Y says the Council has refused to reimburse his company for the time spent.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates 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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information Mr Y provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council issued a PCN to Mr Y’s company after its vehicle drove into the CAZ in April 2022. The company made representations to the Council that there had been a road block and a diversion into the CAZ.
After the Council rejected the company’s representations in July, Mr Y says he submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which showed that the block had been in place. After providing this information back to the Council, the Council cancelled the PCN.
Mr Y’s company complained to the Council in August 2022 and asked for compensation for the time spent by senior members of the company, which he said had cost the company £300. The Council responded, but said it would not compensate the company for the cost of submitting representations to it. Mr Y approached us in October.
Analysis 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 a 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, it was the choice of Mr Y’s company to spend its time, including the time of senior members of its staff, to re-interview the employee who drove the vehicle, take photographs and to prepare for a potential tribunal hearing.
The company did need to gather its evidence for a tribunal through an FOI request, which then led to the Council cancelling the PCN. However, this is not a significant enough injustice to justify our involvement. We will not investigate this complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr Y’s complaint because there is not significant enough injustice to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman