Essex County Council (23 009 758)
Category : Children's care services > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 21 Oct 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council handled a blue badge application. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, complained about how the Council handled her application for a blue badge for her son. Mrs X says the Council should have identified her form was not signed by an authorised person at the same time it asked for extra information. Mrs X says this would have avoided unnecessary delays later in the process.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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
- 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))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We will not start an investigation into Mrs X’s complaint.
- While I understand Mrs X’s frustrations, it is down to the Council to decide how it processes blue badge applications. The fact the Council did not identify her form was signed at the same time it requested extra information is unfortunate. But we could not say it represents fault by the Council which we could criticise it for. An investigation is not therefore appropriate.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman