Summary: Mr X complained about how the Council monitored and enforced “school streets” traffic restrictions, which restrict vehicles entering the street during school drop-off and pick-up times. The Council failed to consider its duties under the Equality Act in how it considered the impact of its processes on blue badge holders needing to use school streets. It also provided unclear information to Mr X. Mr X and his partner were caused avoidable distress. The Council agreed to apologise, pay a financial remedy, and review its process for introducing active CCTV monitoring on school streets.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about how the Council monitored and enforced traffic restrictions within “school streets”. In school streets, vehicles should not enter the street during school drop-off and pick-up times, unless the Council has granted the vehicle holder an exemption. Mr X’s partner, Mr Y, has a disability and a blue badge, and the Council previously granted him exemptions for two school streets he regularly uses. Mr X complains that:
• in December 2023, the Council wrongly issued three warning letters to Mr Y about driving in the school streets for which it had previously granted him exemptions;
• when Mr X complained about this, the Council wrongly told him Mr X and Mr Y should not use the school streets for several weeks while it investigated the complaint; and
• during Mr X’s complaint the Council wrongly told him blue badge holders could not apply for school streets exemptions.
2. Because of this Mr X says:
• Mr Y, who has a terminal illness, missed medical appointments he needed, because he has significantly limited mobility and needs to use the school streets to attend the appointments; and
• Mr X experienced distress, frustration, and time and trouble in seeking clarification and making his complaint.
3. Mr X wants the Council to:
• provide assurances it will treat vulnerable people with limited mobility fairly and allow them access to school streets; and
• compensate Mr X and Mr Y for the distress caused.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered:
• information provided by Mr X and discussed the complaint with him;
• documentation and comments from the Council;
• relevant law and guidance; and
• the Ombudsman’s Guidance on Jurisdiction and Guidance on Remedies.
7. Mr X and the Council had opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

The Equality Act 2010

8. The Equality Act 2010 provides a legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance 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.
9. The Equality Act makes it unlawful for organisations carrying out public functions to discriminate on any of the nine protected characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010. The ‘protected characteristics’ referred to in the Act are: age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation.
10. Organisations must also have regard to the general duties aimed at eliminating discrimination under the Public Sector Equality Duty. The Public Sector Equality Duty requires all local authorities (and bodies acting on their behalf) to have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010;
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not; and
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

11. The broad purpose of the Public Sector Equality Duty is to consider equality and good relations into the day-to-day business and decision making of public authorities. It requires equality considerations to be reflected into the design of policies and the delivery of services, including internal policies, and for these issues to be kept under review.
12. Indirect discrimination may occur when a service provider applies an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice which puts persons sharing a protected characteristic at a particular disadvantage.
13. Objective justification allows organisations to discriminate in certain circumstances. The organisation must show that its actions or policies are “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”. To prove objective justification has happened or is happening:
• the aim must be a real, objective consideration, and not in itself discriminatory and
• there must be no alternative measures available that would meet the aim without too much difficulty and would avoid such a discriminatory effect. If proportionate alternative steps could have been taken, there is unlikely to be a good reason for the policy.
14. We cannot find that an organisation has breached the Equality Act. However, we can:
• find an organisation at fault for failing to take account of its duties under the Equality Act; and
• make decisions about whether or not an organisation has properly taken account of an individual’s rights in its treatment of them.
15. Organisations will often be able to show they have properly taken account of the Equality Act if they have considered the impact their decisions will have on the individuals affected and these decisions can be challenged, reviewed or appealed.

Background

16. Since 2017 the Council has introduced over 50 “school streets”. School streets restrict access to vehicles during school drop-off and pick-up times.
17. Residents of school streets are automatically exempt from the restrictions. Other people who need access can apply for an exemption, including blue badge holders. Blue badges are parking permits which help people with disabilities or health conditions to park closer to their destination.
18. Mr Y has a disability and a terminal illness and is a blue badge holder. He needs access to different parts of the Council’s area for health appointments. He cannot walk far, and Mr X, his partner, drives him to appointments.
19. In 2021, Mr X applied to the Council for an exemption for the couple’s vehicle, for two school streets. They needed to access the streets regularly for Mr Y’s health appointments. In November 2021, the Council granted them exemptions for the two streets. We upheld a previous complaint by Mr X because the Council took too long to consider the application and grant the exemption.
20. In early 2023, Mr X and Mr Y replaced their vehicle. Mr X applied to transfer the school streets exemptions to their new vehicle. Mr X complained about how it considered this application to transfer the exemptions. The Council upheld the complaint and transferred the exemptions.
21. In November 2023, the Council installed CCTV at a school street which Mr X and Mr Y’s vehicle was exempt from. This was so it could begin monitoring compliance with the school street restrictions and issuing fines for non-compliance.
22. In late-December 2023, the Council sent three penalty charge warning notices to Mr Y on the same day. The notices said that on three separate days the previous week Mr Y’s vehicle had failed to comply with restrictions for the school street. These notices all said:

“On this occasion we have issued a warning notice rather than a Penalty Charge, as this is a new restriction which we want to help drivers understand, and therefore no payment is needed. We are only issuing one warning notice per vehicle seen contravening the new restrictions, so be aware that your vehicle may have been identified as passing through this location on more than one occasion during the warning notice period. If any subsequent contraventions of this restriction occur, Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) will be served at full charge.”

23. The following week, in early-January 2024, Mr X contacted the Council to query the notices because the vehicle should have been exempt. He had various contact with the Council about the issues throughout January, raising his concerns as a complaint. A month later, the Council wrote to Mr X, but not via its complaints procedure. It told Mr X he did not need to take further action about the warning notices and that its CCTV monitoring team had now correctly recorded the exemptions so the issue would not happen again. Mr X said he wanted a response via the complaints procedure.
24. Three weeks later the Council responded at Stage 1 of its complaints procedure. Mr X escalated his complaint to Stage 2, and the Council issued its final response in March 2024. In response to Mr X’s complaint the Council said:
• When it started CCTV monitoring for the school street, it treated this as a new scheme, so did not carry over pre-existing exemptions and record these within the CCTV monitoring systems. It also did not write to pre-existing exemption holders to tell them to reapply. Instead, for the first couple of weeks of monitoring, it issued warning notices instead of PCNs and fines, to alert those using the school street to the fact it had begun active CCTV monitoring. The Council’s view was this was a valid way to prompt people to apply for exemptions before it began issuing PCNs instead of warnings. It said this was the same process it had previously used in other school street locations. The Council apologised that it had not explained to Mr X in 2023, when it transferred his exemptions to his new vehicle, that he would need to re-apply if it began active CCTV enforcement.
• It was sorry for the inconvenience caused to Mr X by it issuing the warning notices. However, it was satisfied the information in the warning notices was clear that no payment was needed.
• It was reasonable that a member of staff told Mr X he should not use the school street for several weeks while it investigated the complaint and established why he had received warning notices.
• It was sorry that another member of staff provided confusing information which said blue badge holders could not apply for school streets exemptions.

Findings

25. I found the Council responded appropriately to Mr X’s complaints about how its staff communicated with him during the interactions about his complaint. It has apologised for confusing information provided, and I consider this to be suitable to remedy any injustice caused.
26. However, I found the Council did not properly consider its duties under the Equality Act in how it decided its process for implementing active CCTV monitoring at school streets.
27. When the Council begins CCTV monitoring at a school street, it treats this as a new school street. This means blue badge holders with a pre-approved exemption for the street need to apply for this a second time. This only affects blue badge holders (i.e., disabled people), because the process is such that residential exemptions are applied automatically.
28. The Council created a process which placed an added administrative burden on disabled people. Therefore, I would expect to see evidence it properly considered whether there was an objective justification for that process, i.e., that it was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. I am not satisfied the Council considered this. There was no evidence it properly considered whether it could take alternative measures to manage the process to avoid placing an added burden on disabled people. For example, in Mr X’s case, the Council told me Mr X and Mr Y’s vehicle was the only pre-existing blue badge exemption for the school streets in question. It could have considered whether it could manually record the exemption without requiring Mr X to reapply. It was able to record this manually when Mr X complained, without needing a further application from him, which suggests it could have done this earlier, when setting up the CCTV monitoring.
29. Also, although I agree the warning notices were clear that no payment was needed, I found the notices still should have been clearer, which was fault, because:
• The Council had told Mr X previously the vehicle had a valid exemption from the school street restrictions. Therefore, I find it understandable the notices would have caused confusion. The notices only provided contact details for queries about how the Council would process the recipient’s data. They did not link to information about the school streets scheme or explain how the recipient could apply for an exemption if they needed one. If it is the Council’s position these notices were intended to prompt pre-existing exemption holders to reapply, I do not consider that was clear from the information included in the notice.
• The notices said, “We are only issuing one warning notice per vehicle seen contravening the new restrictions”. In Mr Y’s case, this was not correct. The Council issued three notices on the same date. Mr X said this caused him confusion about whether he would be receiving a PCN because he had received multiple warnings. In the circumstances I understand why Mr X may have thought this. The information in the notice should align with what the Council is doing in practice.
30. The Council’s faults caused Mr X and Mr Y an injustice because:
• Mr X experienced avoidable distress and confusion on receiving the warning notices;
• Mr X spent avoidable time and trouble in making a complaint to have the pre-existing exemptions reinstated; and
• Mr Y could not visit the school streets for a month which meant he missed health appointments, which caused him distress. This also caused Mr X distress in worrying about Mr Y’s health and wellbeing.
31. The Council should remedy the injustice caused. I have recommended a financial payment for distress at the higher end of the range in our guidance on remedies. This is to recognise the impact of the missed health appointments on Mr Y, who is terminally ill.

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Agreed action

32. Within one month of our final decision the Council will:
1. apologise to Mr X for the faults identified and the impact of those faults on Mr X and Mr Y. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology; and
2. pay Mr X £400 to recognise the avoidable distress, time, and trouble caused to Mr X and Mr Y.
33. Within three months of our final decision the Council will review its standard process for introducing active CCTV monitoring for school streets. It will:
• check its warning notice template aligns with its process. It should not say it will only issue one warning if this is not the process;
• where it is using warning notices as a prompt for people to apply or reapply for exemptions, ensure the template contains clear information about how to do this; and
• properly consider its duties under the Equality Act. It should consider whether the requirement for previously approved blue badge exemption holders to apply again when it starts CCTV monitoring, is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
34. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

35. I have completed my investigation. There was fault by the Council which caused Mr X and Mr Y avoidable distress. The Council agreed to our recommendations to remedy this injustice and review its process for introducing active CCTV monitoring on school streets.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman