The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about problems with a controlled parking zone. Any fault by the Council did not cause Mr X a significant enough injustice for us to investigate.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council charged for a residents’ parking scheme despite delaying for two years replacing flawed signage and meanwhile not enforcing against vehicles parking without permits. He says this means he was charged without justification and he had problems parking near his home because of vehicles parking without permits.
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 provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
As paragraph 2 explained, we do not necessarily investigate every complaint that a Council is at fault. We must consider whether the alleged or actual fault caused a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.
As Mr X understands, even if there were no signage problems, the permit scheme would not guarantee him a parking space on the street outside or near his home. It only entitles him to use a space if one is available. Also, if vehicles without permits did not park near Mr X’s home, it is possible others with permits would legitimately park there. So we cannot attribute all the occasions of Mr X being unable to park nearby to the signage problems and any consequent lack of Council enforcement.
Mr X described often having to park elsewhere, a couple of times ten minutes’ walk from his home. I do not consider such inconvenience is significant enough to warrant investigation.
I recognise Mr X’s frustration when he could not park near his home and his sense of dissatisfaction at other people parking without permits. However, those points do not amount to enough a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation of the complaint.
Mr X wants the Council to refund the cost of his parking permits (£95 a year) for the two years the Council did not replace the signage, when he understands the Council did not enforce against vehicles parked in the bay nearest his home. However, the parking permit fee is not a payment in exchange for a particular or guaranteed level of enforcement. Also, as explained above, we cannot conclude that any lack of enforcement in itself directly deprived Mr X of being able to park in a way that amounted to a significant injustice. So there is not a direct causal link between any fault by the Council and the cost of Mr X’s parking permits.
The Council has now replaced the signage, so there is no continuing problem for us to investigate.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman devoting time and public money to investigating.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman