Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to reject Mr X’s blue badge application. This is because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mr X.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s decision to reject his blue badge application. He says he had a blue badge, issued by another Council, for 12 years.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council completed an independent assessment for Mr X. Following this assessment, the Council rejected Mr X’s blue badge application.
6. If we were to investigate, it is likely we would find fault causing Mr X injustice. This is because we are not satisfied the Council completed the independent assessment appropriately for the following reasons:
• The independent assessor has not properly explained their rationale for their decision-making regarding score. For example, under manner of walking, the assessor scored Mr X a 2 and in the further details box, just noted “as above”. However, this doesn’t explain why the assessor did not consider Mr X met the criteria for a score of 3.
• There are areas of the assessment which is incomplete. For example, the assessor has not noted Mr X’s reported level of pain during the assessment nor recorded the level of pain observed. The assessor then went on to score Mr X a 2 without any refence to the level of pain Mr X might have experienced while walking. It is also worth highlighting the assessor noted Mr X took paracetamol. This might suggest this was due to pain Mr X was experiencing, but this was not explored in the assessment.
• The assessor noted Mr X showed some shortness of breath and fatigue during the assessment. The assessor was also aware Mr X stated he had COPD and asthma. However, there is no reflection of how these conditions might affect Mr X’s breathing during walking. I accept the assessor noted Mr X did not have evidence to support this diagnosis. However, there isn’t any evidence the Council gave Mr X the opportunity to provide the medical evidence.
7. We therefore asked the Council to consider remedying the injustice caused by the likely fault by completing a new face to face independent assessment and to provide Mr X with the opportunity to provide the specific medical evidence needed to support his application.

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Agreed action

8. To its credit, the Council agreed to complete the above within four weeks of the final decision to put things right.
9. The Council also noted it would complete a quality review of a range of recent assessments to satisfy itself assessments are being completed to an acceptable standard.

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Final decision

10. We have upheld this complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman