The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Authority issuing several Penalty Charge Notices to the complainant. They have already submitted a Statutory Declaration out of time to the Traffic Enforcement Centre, and it is then reasonable for them to use their right to appeal to London Tribunals. There is insufficient evidence of fault in the matter we could investigate.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call X, complained about the Authority issuing them Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs), despite them having an account to automatically pay charges for driving in the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ). They say they did not receive the PCNs and so they were not aware of them until the Authority had passed some of them to the courts. They say the Authority did not make sufficient efforts to contact them via different methods about their account before cancelling their automatic payment. They say the matter has caused them significant distress and they cannot afford to pay the fines. They want the Authority to cease enforcement action and cancel the PCNs.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The courts have said that where someone has sought a remedy by way of proceedings in any court of law, we cannot investigate. This is the case even if the appeal did not or could not provide a complete remedy for all the injustice claimed. (R v The Commissioner for Local Administration ex parte PH (1999) EHCA Civ 916) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended) 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
X’s complaint to us is about the Authority having issued them several PCNs for driving in the ULEZ without paying the congestion charge. X says they did not know about the PCNs until the Authority had already registered some of them with the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC). X told us they have already submitted a Statutory Declaration out of time to the TEC. This is the correct process. We have no power to revert PCNs back to an earlier stage, and we cannot consider this matter.
X says they did pay the congestion charge in any event, and that the Authority is wrong to have issued them the PCNs. When someone has a statutory right to appeal to a tribunal, we will normally not consider the matter. The above argument is one for the tribunal rather than the Ombudsman. We are not an appeal body, and we have no power to cancel the PCNs. If X’s submission to the TEC is successful, the PCNs will be reverted to an earlier stage, providing X the opportunity to appeal to London Tribunals.
I have considered whether we could investigate X’s claim the Authority did not make sufficient attempts to contact them about their account before closing it, as this matter is sufficiently separable to the above processes. There is insufficient evidence of fault in this respect to justify investigating this matter alone. The Authority sent several messages by email, which X confirmed they received, albeit to their junk email folder. We cannot hold the Authority responsible for the emails having gone into X’s junk email folder.
Final decision
We will not investigate X’s complaint because it is reasonable for them to use the statutory processes available to them. There is insufficient evidence of fault in the part of the complaint we could investigate.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman