North Somerset Council (23 009 104)
Category : Children's care services > Disabled children
Decision : Upheld
Decision date : 23 Jan 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mrs X complains the Council has not dealt properly with an application for a blue badge for her daughter. The Council is at fault because it took too long to consider her appeal. Mrs X and her family suffered avoidable distress and had to chase their appeal outcome. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X, pay Mrs X £300 for avoidable distress, pay Mrs X £100 for time and trouble and provide an update about its service review.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, complains the Council did not deal with her application for a blue badge for her daughter properly because:
- It delayed dealing with her application and appeal; and
- It did not handle her complaint properly because it was not clear about its complaints process and did not signpost her to the Ombudsman.
- Mrs X says her daughter should have received her blue badge earlier, the family incurred avoidable distress and time and trouble.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
- If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I spoke to Mrs X about her complaint and considered documents she provided. I made enquiries of the Council and considered its response and the supporting documents it provided.
- Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
What I found
Law, guidance and policies
- The Council follows guidance in the Department for Transport Blue Badge Scheme Local Authority Guidance (England).
- There is no legal requirement for local authorities to have an appeals procedure in place if someone disagrees with the reason why their application for a Blue Badge was not successful. Local authorities are, however, strongly recommended to establish an internal procedure to deal with appeals against an authority’s decision not to issue a badge.
- The Council has a service level agreement (SLA) of 40 working days to decide blue badge applications. There is no SLA stating a time period in which it should complete a review of a decision. The Council aims to complete reviews within 6 months, considering the current staffing levels.
What happened?
- This is a brief chronology of key events. It does not contain everything I reviewed during my investigation.
- Mrs X applied for a blue badge for her daughter in February 2023.
- The Council decided to decline the application at the end of April.
- Mrs X requested a review of the Council’s decision at the end of May.
- The decision review was completed in November.
- Mrs X complained about the delay to completing the decision review.
- The Council reviewed the decision about the blue badge and decided to award it.
Analysis
- The Council said in its response to my enquiries that, “it is not acceptable to wait six months for a review of decision, this is an optimum target wait with the current staffing levels.” This is fault by the Council. Mrs X and her daughter had to wait longer than they should for the decision about a blue badge to be reviewed and as a consequence,
Action by the Council
- The Council says it is recruiting to the blue badge team which will allow it to undertake a complete review of the OT Blue Badge Service. It says this will facilitate timely blue badge application decisions.
Agreed action
- To remedy the outstanding injustice caused by the fault I have identified, the Council has agreed to take the following action within 4 weeks of this decision:
- Apologise to Mrs X for the delay in reviewing the blue badge decision;
- Pay Mrs X £300 in respect of avoidable distress;
- Pay Mrs X £100 for her time and trouble; and
- Provide an update to the Council’s recruitment process and a timeframe for its review of the blue badge service.
- The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.
Final decision
- I have found fault by the Council, which caused injustice to Mrs X. I have now completed my investigation.
Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman