The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a penalty charge notice issued by the Council. This is because the injustice he claims was not the result of the Council’s actions and lies largely in the impact he says the matter had on his health, which is a matter for the courts rather than for us.
The complaint
Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of a penalty charge notice (PCN). He says the Council refused to deal with him as the driver of the vehicle and instead wrote to the registered keeper of the vehicle about the PCN.
Mr X says he received no response to his representations against the PCN, the Council failed to provide evidence of the contravention and only disclosed the existence of such evidence late on. He also complains the Council failed to take account of his vulnerability, mental health issues and personal circumstances.
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, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or it would be reasonable for the person to ask for a council review or appeal; or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(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 Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The law says it is the owner/registered keeper who is liable for PCNs for parking contraventions, not the person who was driving the vehicle at the time the contravention occurred. Mr X is not therefore liable for the PCN and the Council could not transfer liability to Mr X simply because he was the one driving. It was also under no obligation to correspond with Mr X about the PCN as he was not the liable person and had no standing to challenge it.
Mr X claims injustice from the Council’s failure to respond to his representations, chasing responses, filing forms and paying the penalty charge. But it was his choice to do this when he was not liable for the PCN. I cannot therefore say his injustice is the result of any actions by the Council or say the Council must provide a remedy for it.
Ultimately the registered keeper applied to the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) at Northampton County Court to challenge the Council’s escalation of the case and, while the TEC refused that application, the Council exercised its discretion to take the process back to an earlier stage. Mr X then paid the penalty charge at the discounted rate of £35. This is not a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.
Mr X says the Council’s actions also impacted on his mental and physical health but this is not something we can remedy. This is because it is essentially a personal injury claim and if Mr X believes he is entitled to compensation he would need to make a claim to the Council’s insurers. If they refuse to pay him compensation, he may wish to consider taking the matter to court.
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 injustice Mr X claims is not the result of the Council’s actions or something we can provide a remedy for.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman