The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about car parking charges. This is because there is not significant enough injustice to justify our investigation and it is not a good use of public resources to investigate how the Council dealt with the complaint.
The complaint
Mr Y complained the Council overcharged him for parking, failed to provide a suitable email for complaints, had confusing signage in a car park and was rude and judgemental towards him during its complaints process.
Mr Y says he has been caused inconvenience, having spent time dealing with the issues and feels he should be paid £25 to recognise this as well as a refunded of the money overcharged for parking.
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)) It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr Y parked in a Council owned pay and display car park in July 2022. He says the Council overcharged him for parking longer than he did.
Mr Y complained to the Council, but his email was not delivered as the email inbox was already full. He therefore sent his complaint to an alternative email address. Mr Y says the car park had signs asking if he had paid and displayed. However, on the ticket it said he did not need to display his ticket. Mr Y found this confusing. He also says the manager he spoke to about his complaint gave a poorly written response and had a poor tone.
The Council gave a final response to his complaint in August 2022. It agreed to refund the overcharge to Mr Y, said it had feedback to its parking team about the issues Mr Y had commented on about its email inbox and addresses. It declined to pay Mr Y £25 for inconvenience. Mr Y then approached us.
Analysis The Council has refunded Mr Y for the alleged overcharging and taken action to consider his comments about the emails he sent. Any remaining injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement so we will not investigate.
As we are not investigating the substantive issue, it is not a good use of public resources for us to consider how the Council dealt with Mr Y’s complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr Y’s complaint because there is not significant enough injustice to justify our investigation and it is not a good use of public resources to investigate how the Council dealt with the complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman