Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of a Blue Badge application for his child. The Council has now issued a Blue Badge. An investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complained about the Council’s handling of a Blue Badge application for his child. Mr X says the Council failed to properly assess his original application, and insisted he pursue an appeal, rather than dealing with his concerns as a complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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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. While I understand Mr X’s frustrations, we will not start an investigation into his complaint. The Council has an appeals process, and we would not criticise it for expecting Mr X to challenge its refusal using this process. The Council considered extra information from Mr X and decided to issue his child with a Blue Badge. That is the outcome Mr X wanted. The Council has now responded to Mr X’s complaints and it accepted issues with some of the wording used in its assessment and correspondence. The Council apologised and set out some service improvements. An investigation by the Ombudsman would not achieve a different outcome or add anything to the Council’s response. Our further involvement is not therefore warranted.

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Final decision

6. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because an investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman