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

1. 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.
2. Mrs X says her daughter should have received her blue badge earlier, the family incurred avoidable distress and time and trouble.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

5. 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.
6. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Law, guidance and policies

7. The Council follows guidance in the Department for Transport Blue Badge Scheme Local Authority Guidance (England).
8. 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. 
9. 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?

10. This is a brief chronology of key events. It does not contain everything I reviewed during my investigation.
11. Mrs X applied for a blue badge for her daughter in February 2023.
12. The Council decided to decline the application at the end of April.
13. Mrs X requested a review of the Council’s decision at the end of May.
14. The decision review was completed in November.
15. Mrs X complained about the delay to completing the decision review.
16. The Council reviewed the decision about the blue badge and decided to award it.

Analysis

17. 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

18. 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.

Back to top

Agreed action

19. 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.
20. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

Back to top

Final decision

21. 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

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman