The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his challenge to a penalty charge notice and his subsequent complaint about its delay. This is because the Council’s actions did not cause Mr X significant injustice.
The complaint
The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council failed to acknowledge is challenge to a penalty charge notice (PCN) quickly enough. He further complains about the Council’s handling of his complaint and that it took too long to issue the ‘notice to owner’.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
I understand Mr X is frustrated the Council did not acknowledge his challenge to the PCN according to its published timescales but this did not cause Mr X significant injustice. We will not therefore investigate the matter further.
Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the actions complained about did not cause Mr X injustice which is significant enough to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman