Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about how the Council considered and decided her blue badge application. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Miss X applied for a blue badge to allow her to use parking spaces closer to her destinations. She complains the Council:
1. failed to take into account the enduring and chronic conditions she has which affect her mobility when determining her blue badge application;
2. incorrectly refused her a blue badge.
2. Miss X says she will be unable to access her new workplace and is considering quitting work. She says the lack of a blue badge means she will lose independence and be more isolated. Miss X says she is embarrassed when out if she cannot walk further and needs others to help her. She says her stress, anxiety and depression would be lessened by having a badge. Miss X wants the Council to grant her a blue badge.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Miss X, relevant government information and guidance on the blue badge scheme, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. We may only criticise a council’s decision if there is evidence of fault in its decision-making process and but for that fault a different decision would have been made. So we consider the processes councils have followed when making their decisions.
7. The Council did paper-based, telephone and in-person assessments to decide Miss X’s blue badge application. Officers took account of the information on her conditions and the medications and treatments she receives for them. They noted that Miss X’s main condition affecting her mobility is one for which she is awaiting further treatment. After the in-person assessment, the Council decided Miss X’s mobility was not sufficiently reduced at that time for her to qualify for a badge under the blue badge criteria. The officer’s final decision also mentioned Miss X’s ongoing and future treatment meant they could not determine her current mobility level would endure for the three-year life of the blue badge. But the Council’s key decision at the end of its assessment process was that this mobility level as assessed in-person did not entitle her to a blue badge.
8. Officers based their decision on the documents Miss X provided, and the information from the in-person assessment. They applied the relevant tests from national government guidance to that information to make their decision. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making processes here to warrant us investigating. We realise Miss X disagrees with the Council’s decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.
9. Miss X may reapply for a blue badge once six months have passed after the Council’s final October decision. She may also reapply if the conditions affecting her mobility get worse, providing the evidence of this with any such application. It would then be for the Council to consider that information and decide how to proceed.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to warrant us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman