Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs Q’s complaint about the Council’s refusal to extend its concessionary travel scheme to include more women affected by an increase in the state pension age. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision and so we cannot question the merits of the decision for this reason.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I have called Mrs Q, complained about Durham County Council’s decision not to extend its concessionary travel scheme to include more women affected by the increase in the state pension age. She said she was one of the affected women and the Council’s decision affected her financially.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information Mrs Q provided. I considered information available on the Council’s website. I considered Mrs Q’s comments on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

Background

4. Changes to the law in 1995 and 2011 resulted in the state pension age for men and women being equalised. Some women born in the 1950s suffered financial hardship because of the changes.

What happened

5. The Council’s Cabinet considered a report in which it proposed introducing a concessionary travel scheme for some women affected by the increase in the state pension age. The report recommended women born up to 5 November 1954 should be eligible for the scheme. The Council picked this cut-off date because available data (a Parliament briefing paper) showed women born between December 1953 and November 1954 suffered the greatest financial hardship because of the changes. The report recognised there were many more women affected by the changes but said the Council could not afford to provide concessionary travel for them all. The Cabinet approved the proposals, which came into effect in March 2020.
6. The Parliament briefing paper the Council referred to in its report actually says women born between December 1953 and October 1954 - not November 1954 - are most affected by the state pension age changes.
7. Mrs Q was born in mid-November 1954. So she is not eligible for the Council’s concessionary travel scheme. She complained to the Council saying it should extend the scheme to include all women affected by changes to the law in 1995, including herself. She referred to another authority’s concessionary travel scheme and its decision to include more women. The Council told Mrs Q it had used data available to it at the time it made its decision. It said it would consider extending its scheme if money became available.
8. Mrs Q complained to us. She said the Council’s decision was based on flawed data and it should extend its concessionary travel scheme. She said its decision meant she had to continue running her car and paying for repairs when she might otherwise have sold it.
9. In response to a draft of this decision, Mrs Q said if the Council’s goal is to help those women who had suffered the most financial hardship it should have considered those women who were in genuine hardship. She believes that by picking the cut-off date it has, there will be less take-up of the scheme, less time during the entitlement period, and less likelihood of a comparison with men in the same age group.

Analysis

10. Our role is to consider whether Mrs Q has been caused an injustice because of fault by the Council. We cannot question the merits of a decision properly made by the Council.
11. In this case, the Council chose to introduce a concessionary travel scheme for women affected by changes to the state pension age. It chose an eligibility cut-off date for the scheme based on a Parliament briefing paper.
12. I recognise the cut-off date does not match the information in the Parliament briefing paper. I also recognise Mrs Q wants the Council to extend its scheme to include all those affected by the 1995 law changes, or to select women in genuine financial hardship. However, the report to the Council’s Cabinet acknowledges there are many women affected by the state pension age changes and that it cannot afford to help them all.
13. The Council was entitled to choose a way of selecting which women it would help as well as a cut-off date that would make its concessionary travel scheme affordable. It was also entitled to rely on a Parliament briefing paper when it decided on the cut-off date. The fact that the dates in the Council’s report and the Parliament briefing paper do not match does not mean the Council’s decision was flawed.
14. In summary, therefore, my view is that there was no fault in the way the Council considered its concessionary travel scheme. So we cannot criticise the merits of its decision for this reason.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot criticise the merits of a decision properly made.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman