Summary: Mr X complained about the way the Council dealt with a blue badge application. There were no issues with the Council’s decision-making process. However, we found fault with the way the Council told Mr X about his appeal rights and communicated the outcome of his appeal. This caused frustration and uncertainty to Mr X and the Council has agreed to apologise for this.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council wrongly refused a blue badge for his daughter, Y.
2. Mr X says this caused stress and frustration to the family as they are unable to find parking near to the hospital and they have missed appointments because of this.

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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. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have discussed the complaint with Mr X and considered the information he provided. I also considered information the Council provided in response to my enquiries.
6. Mr X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered these comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Guidance

The Blue Badge Scheme

7. The Department for Transport’s (DfT) Blue Badge Scheme helps people with severe physical mobility problems, or other conditions affecting their mobility, to access goods and services. It does this by allowing them, or their carer, to park near their destination. The scheme gives parking concessions to blue badge holders. Councils are responsible for the day-to-day administration and enforcement of the scheme. This includes assessing applicants’ eligibility for the badge.
8. The DfT guidance sets out what assessors may wish to consider when assessing a person’s mobility.
9. The guidance says councils must make sure they only issue badges to residents who satisfy one or more of the criteria set out in legislation.
10. There are two types of eligibility criteria:
• where a person is eligible without further assessment, they will receive a blue badge;
• where a person may be eligible subject to further assessment.
11. People who are automatically entitled to a blue badge (without further assessment) must be over two years old and fall within one of the following categories:
• receives the Higher Rate of the Mobility Component of the Disability Living Allowance (HRMCDLA); or
• receives eight points or more under the “moving around” activity of the mobility component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP); or
• receives the mobility component of PIP and have obtained 10 points specifically for descriptor E under the “planning and following journeys” activity, on the grounds that you are unable to undertake any journey because it would cause you overwhelming psychological distress.
12. To qualify under the second criteria, an applicant must be more than two years old and fall within one or more of the following descriptions:
• drives a vehicle regularly, has a severe disability in both arms, or;
• has been certified by an expert assessor as having an enduring and substantial disability which causes them, during a journey, to:
1. be unable to walk;
2. experience considerable difficulty while walking, which may include considerable psychological distress; or
3. be at risk of serious harm when walking; or pose, when walking, a risk of serious harm to any other person.
13. The DfT issued revised guidance (May 2022) to councils when providing blue badges to disabled people with severe mobility problems. The guidance provides a structured functional mobility assessment. The guidance is non-statutory meaning that councils are not legally obliged to adopt it. In practice, however, most councils do follow it.
14. Applicants who can walk more than 80 metres and do not display considerable difficulty walking for any other reason, including considerable psychological distress, or serious risk to themselves or others, would not be eligible. If an applicant is unhappy with the outcome of an assessment, they may ask the council to review the decision.

The Council’s Policy

15. The Council does not have its own policy around blue badges. Instead, it has confirmed that it uses the DfT guidance when considering eligibility for a blue badge. The Council also asks a series of questions when assessing non-visible (hidden) disabilities.

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Principles of good administrative practice

16. In 2018 the Ombudsman published a guidance document setting out the standards we expect from bodies in jurisdiction called ‘Principles of Good Administrative Practice’. This includes being open and clear about policies and procedures and ensuring information, and any advice provided is clear, accurate and complete and stating the criteria for any decision making.

What happened

17. Mr X’s daughter, Y, had a blue badge. In June 2023, Mr X applied to renew this blue badge on her behalf. On the application, Mr X said he was applying to renew this badge under the non-visible (hidden) criteria, which meant this application would be subject to further assessment.
18. In October, an occupational therapist completed Y’s blue badge assessment using the information from the application and a phone call with Mr X. The Council confirmed it does not have a recording of this phone call.
19. In the assessment, Mr X provided the assessor with information about Y’s health conditions which included both hidden disabilities and physical health conditions.
20. As a result of this assessment, the Council decided Y was not eligible for a renewal of her blue badge. The Council sent a decision letter and a copy of the assessment to Mr X to tell him this.
21. This said that Y did not meet the criteria because she only scored 8 points out of a possible 36 on the physical matrix, which is below the threshold for a blue badge. The assessor also said that Y could walk a sufficient distance with no signs of pain or breathlessness.
22. The letter also addressed Y’s hidden disabilities. It explained there were other coping strategies in place to manage these and there was no evidence that Y needed to park outside places as her family could push her in her wheelchair. The letter therefore said the Council could not justify issuing a blue badge based on Y’s hidden disabilities.
23. The Council’s decision letter provided Mr X with his right to ask for an appeal within eight weeks. The letter said that Mr X would need to provide new supporting evidence if he appealed.
24. Mr X said he tried to appeal the decision in December, within the 8-week deadline as was stated in the decision letter. However, he got a response from the Council to say that he could not appeal as he was outside of the ‘28-day appeal’ timeframe.
25. Mr X contacted the Council using an online form to explain that he wished to appeal its decision. He said the decision not to award Y a blue badge was unjust and unfair. He said Y was very tired and out of breath after walking short distances. He also said that he told the assessor over the phone that he was unsure if Y experienced pain while walking, as she is non-verbal and unable to communicate this.
26. Mr X provided supporting evidence with the appeal in the form of a medical letter which confirmed her diagnoses and treatment that she receives. He said he was unable to provide details of Y’s disability living allowance as the system would only allow him to upload one document.
27. The Council wrote to Mr X six weeks later to say it had considered the appeal, however Y was still not eligible for a blue badge renewal. The letter gave the same reasoning it provided in the original decision letter.

Analysis

28. The Ombudsman’s role is to review how councils have made their decisions. We may criticise a council if, for example, it has not followed an appropriate procedure, not considered relevant information, or not properly explained a decision it has made. We call this fault, and, where we find it, we can consider any consequences of the fault and ask the relevant council to address these.
29. However, we do not make operational or policy decisions on councils’ behalf, provide a right of appeal against their decisions, or seek to replace their judgement with our own. If a council has made a decision without fault then we cannot criticise it, no matter how strongly a complainant feels it is wrong. We do not uphold complaints simply because someone feels a council should have done something different.
30. What that means in this particular case is that it is not for me to make my own judgement about whether Y is eligible for a blue badge. However, I can consider whether the Council properly made and explained its decisions about this.

Blue badge assessment

31. Mr X made the renewal application under the hidden disabilities criteria, and not under the automatic eligibility criteria, meaning that the Council would need to complete further assessment.
32. The Council confirmed it does not record telephone assessments, and so I cannot confirm what Mr X told the assessor. However, I have reviewed the assessment tool document.
33. This document shows the Council considered both Y’s non-visible (hidden) conditions and physical diagnoses when completing the assessment.
34. The Council used the guidance provided by DfT in the assessment. It properly considered the information provided by Mr X in the application, when deciding that Y was not eligible for a blue badge.
35. The Council then properly explained its reasons by saying that Y scored below the threshold for blue badge eligibility. It also said that Y could walk a sufficient distance without pain or breathlessness and that a wheelchair and support from family was an effective coping strategy. Therefore, there is no fault here and this is a decision the Council was entitled to make.
36. However, there are examples of the assessor not completing all parts of the assessment fully.
37. Mr X told me Y has an award of disability living allowance, which includes higher rate for care and lower rate for mobility. The assessor did not complete this part of the assessment.
38. When I asked the Council the reason for this, it responded to say that Mr X had not provided any supporting evidence about benefits and so it could not complete this part. However, Mr X says the Council did not ask about this in the assessment.
39. If Mr X was unhappy about this part of the assessment, he could have provided further evidence within the appeal. He has said that he was unable to do this, as the system would only allow him to upload one document.
40. The decision letter contained other contact details for the department. Mr X could have used these methods to provide the Council with this information if he wished this to be considered in the appeal.
41. However, even if the Council had asked Mr X about disability living allowance, as Y only receives lower rate for mobility, this would not provide her with automatic eligibility. Therefore, it is unlikely it would have changed the result of the assessment.
42. There are also 12 other sections or tick boxes within the form that I would have expected the assessor to complete but remained blank. This is fault. However, completing these sections would not have changed the result of the decision as it would not have provided Y with automatic eligibility, and so this has not caused Mr X and Y any injustice.
43. I find fault which did not cause injustice in this element of Mr X’s complaint.

Blue badge appeal

44. The Council said it apologises that its decision letter said Mr X could appeal within 8 weeks when this should have said 28 days. This is fault and caused Mr X frustration, as he had to appeal via a generic online form rather than follow the appeal as set out in the letter.
45. The Council said it had made some changes to the process and failed to reflect this within the decision letters. The Council has confirmed that it has now made changes to all decision letters.
46. In his complaint to the Ombudsmen, Mr X said that he told the assessor that Y could walk 100 yards, however he was not sure how far 100 yards was. He said that when he researched this, he realised it was around 90 metres. Mr X said that Y could only walk 30 yards and so he made a mistake with this information in the original assessment.
47. However, Mr X did not provide this information to the Council as part of the appeal and so the Council could not be expected to take this into consideration. Instead, in his appeal he said that Y struggled to walk 200 yards, which is around 182 metres. The guidance measures eligibility on a person’s ability to walk 80 metres and so this is not information that would meet the criteria for a blue badge. Therefore, there is no fault by the Council, on this matter.
48. Mr X sent a hospital letter confirming Y’s diagnoses and treatment with the appeal. However, this is information the Council had already considered and recorded on the renewal assessment document. The Council was clear it would only accept appeals where there is new supporting evidence, and so the Council was entitled to still come to the same conclusion and there is no fault here.
49. I am however concerned the Council sent Mr X a poorly written appeal decision letter. This letter stated that a “mobility assessment will be undertaken by an expert assessor” and then goes on to explain the appeal has been unsuccessful, suggesting that no such assessment will be undertaken. The letter is poorly written and difficult to understand in parts.
50. The letter is also unsigned and does not have the name of the officer who completed the appeal.
51. The Ombudsman’s guidance document ‘Principles of Good Administrative Practice’ states that Council’s should be open and clear about policies and procedures and ensuring information, and any advice provided is clear, accurate and complete and stating the criteria for any decision making.
52. This is not the case here as this letter provides conflicting and unclear information. This is fault and this has caused Mr X uncertainty about whether the Council has assessed Y’s appeal properly and whether the Council will complete a further mobility assessment or not.
53. The Ombudsman has already recommended in a previous case, that the Council should complete a review of the standard letters used by council officers when reviewing blue badge appeals and amend the standard wording to ensure that they are all clear, accurate and complete. The Council has already agreed to complete this and so I will not recommend anything further here.

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Agreed action

54. Within one month of my final decision the Council has agreed to:
• apologise to Mr X for the frustration caused by providing incorrect appeal information in the decision letter and the uncertainty caused by providing an unclear appeal decision letter.
55. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above action.

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Final decision

56. I have completed my investigation with a finding of fault causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman