Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about disabled car parking at a local park. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council has failed to make reasonable adjustments to provide parking spaces for disabled people, including his mother, at a local park. He says taxi drivers frequently park in the disabled parking bays and the Council has not done enough to stop them or to provide alternative parking spaces for disabled people.

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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 effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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The Equality Act

4. The Equality Act 2010 (‘the Act’) protects the rights of individuals and supports equality of opportunity for all. It offers protection in employment, education, the provision of goods and services, housing, transport and the carrying out of public functions.
5. The Act makes it unlawful for organisations carrying out public functions to discriminate on any of the nine protected characteristics listed in the Act. It places a duty on organisations such as councils, to make changes to their services to ensure that they are accessible to disabled people as well as everybody else. This is referred to as making “reasonable adjustments”. It also requires councils to have regard to the general duties aimed at eliminating discrimination under the Public Sector Equality Duty.
6. The general equality duty does not set out a particular process for assessing impact on equality. Having due regard to the aims of the general equality duty is about informed decision-making, not about carrying out particular processes or producing particular documents.
7. We cannot decide if an organisation has breached the Equality Act as this can only be done by the courts. But we can make decisions about whether or not an organisation has properly taken account of an individual’s rights in its treatment of them.
8. Where we receive a complaint that an individual with protected characteristics has been unfairly disadvantaged by a council’s policy or approach to a particular issue we will consider whether the council had regard to the public sector equality duty as part of its decision making.

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My assessment

9. The Council allocated parking spaces at the park for use by people with disabilities. It was unaware of any issue concerning the use of these spaces by taxi drivers until Mr X complained.
10. The Council confirms the disabled parking bays are not currently enforceable but it is pursuing this with the County Council and hopes to resolve the issue by the summer. Meantime it has agreed to monitor use of the spaces, ask anyone using a disabled parking bay without a blue badge to remove their vehicle and report any taxi drivers occupying disabled parking bays to their employer. It considers this “to be fair and reasonable, in the context of the [Public Sector Equality Duty]”.
11. The Council has also considered Mr X’s request to provide alternative parking spaces for people with disabilities but it has explained the reasons why it will not allow car parking within the park as Mr X would like.
12. The Council’s response to Mr X’s complaint shows it has given due regard to its duties under the Equality Act 2010 and it is not for us to say its decision fails to comply with the law.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman