HM Courts and Tribunals Service

5. Mr R complains that a speeding fine was issued to him 14 days after the offence. He also complains that HMCTS would not let him record his telephone calls to try and sort things out after promising it would as part of a reasonable adjustment.

6. Mr R says because of this a deduction was made from his benefits payment without telling him and this affected him financially and mentally. Mr R feels let down by HMCTS’s failed promise.

7. Mr R would like a financial payment for the alarm and distress and for his complaint to be resolved by removing the points from his licence and repaying the payments he made.

8. In November 2019 a court imposed a fine of £811and put six penalty points on Mr R’s licence. In May 2021 the court reviewed the fine and reduced it by £320.

9. At the time, Mr R was paying the fine through deductions taken from his benefits. For that reason, HMCTS told the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about the review and asked it to reduce the amount Mr R owed by £320. DWP told HMCTS it had adjusted Mr R’s benefit.

10. In February 2022, Mr R contacted HMCTS to say he was not happy money was still being taken from his benefits. HMCTS responded and said there was only £1 left to pay. It said it would ask DWP to stop making deductions and would refund any overpayment.

11. Mr R complained to HMCTS about the failure to refund his money. He also complained that HMCTS staff had been refusing to allow him to record telephone calls when he contacted them (Mr R says he has memory problems so wanted to record the calls as a reasonable adjustment). HMCTS replied and said Mr R needed to ask DWP about the refund as it would come from DWP and not HMCTS. HMCTS accepted staff had declined his request to record calls, but said it would have been happy to allow it if it knew about his disability.

12. Mr R says the speeding fine should not have been issued because of a procedural error (he said he should have been notified of the fine within 14 days of the event but was not). He also said that despite HMCTS’s commitment to allow him to record calls in future, this has not happened and further requests have been refused.

Speeding fine

13. The Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 (the law) says we cannot investigate a complaint unless it has been made, in writing, to an MP within 12 months of the event being complained about (or the date the person knew there was a problem).

14. Mr R knew about his speeding fine in February 2019 so he needed to raise his concerns with his MP (with a request to bring those concerns to us) by February 2020. Unfortunately, he only complained to his MP in May 2022.

15. We can put our time limit to one side if we can see a good reason for the delay in progressing the complaint. We also look at what outcome is wanted from making the complaint and if we could achieve this.

16. Mr R wants the speeding fine and points on his licence to be removed and the money he paid to be returned to him. This is not something we can achieve, even if we put the time limit to one side. The evidence shows that a magistrate decided to impose the penalty and fine. This was a judicial decision and by law we have no authority to challenge the decision. If Mr R wants to challenge that decision he would need to get independent legal advice on how he may do this. This is not something we can help him with.

17. Mr R also raised concerns about a failure to refund the overpayment. As HMCTS told him, he needs to take this up with DWP.

Reasonable adjustments

18. Before we decide if we should do a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not seen any signs that something has gone wrong.

19. Our ‘Principles of Good Administration’ say we expect organisations to treat people with sensitivity, bearing in mind their individual needs and to respond flexibly to the circumstances of each case. With that in mind, we would have expected HMCTS to consider carefully Mr R’s request to record phone calls. The evidence suggests it did that. Although there seems to have been some confusion about why Mr R wanted to record the calls, once his reasons were understood HMCTS made arrangements to make sure it allowed this in future. This is in line with our Principles and we would not have expected HMCTS to do more.

20. We have noted Mr R’s concern that since making this commitment HMCTS has failed to keep to it. We are unable to find evidence of this. We asked Mr R to give us details of when HMCTS staff refused his request to records calls but he was unable to give us specific examples. We also contacted HMCTS who said it had no record of continuing to refuse Mr R’s request.

21. We recognise that Mr R’s memory issues are likely to have made it difficult for him to give specific details. We have no reason to doubt that HMCTS will keep to its commitment to Mr R and we hope this reassures him that he will be able to record calls in future (as long as he lets the call handler know he is doing this). If this does not happen and Mr R wishes to complain about this again, it may help if he makes a record of the refusal and takes this up with HMCTS as soon as possible.

1. We have carefully considered Mr R’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). We have decided we cannot look at Mr R’s complaint about the speeding fine because it falls outside of our time limit and we have not seen a good reason to put our time limit to one side.

2. We looked at the complaint about HMCTS not meeting Mr R’s reasonable adjustments and we do not think it did anything seriously wrong.

3. We understand this is unlikely to be the outcome Mr R hoped for and we apologise for any further upset or stress this decision may cause.

4. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank Mr R for taking the time to bring his concerns to us.