Anthony Steen MP accuses TfL of "administrative mismanagement"

Anthony Steen, who represents Totnes, Devon, was awarded �440 by the Local Government Ombudsman for wrongly issued penalty notices.

Mr Steen claims it took him more than a year "to get to the bottom of a catalogue of errors".

A spokesman for TfL said it apologised for the delay and said it had improved its complaints procedure.

Mr Steen said: "The Ombudsman upheld my complaints against (TfL) for gross incompetence and administrative mismanagement.

The Ombudsman had to wield his stick at the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone to force him to look into the complaints Anthony Steen MP

"The Ombudsman had to wield his stick at the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone to force him to look into the complaints."

Mr Steen said his complaints involved wrongly-issued congestion charge penalty notices, failure to process appropriate applications for refunds, wrong registration of replacement vehicles and failure to make refunds of congestion charges wrongly imposed.

Mistakes made

A spokesman for TfL said that nowhere in the correspondence had the Ombudsman accused TfL of gross incompetence or administrative mismanagement.

"He upheld some of Mr Steen's complaints, but also turned down some of his complaints.

"But we accept that mistakes were made and have apologised as well as having made a payment to Mr Steen as recommended by the Ombudsman.

"This has been a long-running dispute, but we have now made improvements to our complaints procedures."

Mr Steen said he intended to give the money to charities in his constituency.