Luton Borough Council (24 014 114)
Category : Adult care services > Transport
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 30 Jan 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council initially refusing his blue badge renewal application, requiring medical evidence to support his appeal, or how it dealt with his application. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to warrant us investigating and investigation would not achieve a different outcome.
The complaint
- Mr X is a former medical professional. He applied to the Council to renew his blue badge. The Council refused his application so Mr X appealed, sending in further documents, including a private medical report he commissioned. The Council granted the badge on appeal. Mr X complains the Council:
- Mr X says he has incurred a £300 cost of the medical report which he should not have needed and has spent time and been caused trouble by the matter. He wants the Council to reimburse him the £300 and improve its blue badge process to protect future applicants.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
- 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.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information from Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We are not an appeal body. We may only criticise a council’s decision where there is evidence of fault in its decision-making process and but for that fault officers would have made a different decision. So we consider the processes councils have followed to make their decisions. We cannot replace a council’s decision with our own or someone else’s opinion if the decision was reached after following proper process.
- On assessing Mr X’s blue badge renewal application, officers considered the evidence he provided, including various documents about his medical conditions. They determined that none of the documents demonstrated Mr X had such difficulty with his mobility that he was and would remain eligible for a blue badge under the current criteria. Officers noted that Mr X’s application set out his view on his own conditions but that this was not corroborated by evidence from medical professionals currently involved in his care. They determined the information he had provided did not demonstrate he qualified for a blue badge.
- Officers took account of the information Mr X provided and applied the relevant mobility criteria to make their decision. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s initial decision-making process to justify an investigation. We recognise Mr X disagrees with the Council’s decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees. It follows that Mr X having to submit an appeal was not caused by fault by the Council.
- Mr X considers the Council forced him to commission and pay for a private medical report to support his appeal, which cost him £300. The Council advised Mr X that the evidence it required was medical assessment of his conditions and their impacts on his mobility from professionals involved in his care. Officers explained this should not be a new supporting letter from his GP as national Department for Transport (DfT) guidance on blue badge assessments has moved away from being based significantly on submissions from applicants’ GPs. We recognise Mr X believed he needed to provide this assessment for his appeal within 28 days and an NHS report may well have taken longer. But Mr X could have explained this delay and asked the Council to give him more time to appeal. Alternatively, he could have made a fresh blue badge application once an NHS report was ready and submitted it as newly available evidence. It was Mr X’s choice to commission a faster but chargeable private report rather than getting one with zero or a nominal charge from an NHS medical professional involved in his care. There is not enough evidence to warrant us investigating that it was Council fault which directly led to Mr X incurring the medical report fee.
- Mr X says the Council delayed in dealing with his application and taking too long to decide blue badge applications. The Council says the DfT notifies badge holders who have provided an email address three months before their badge expires so they can complete a renewal application before expiry. If Mr X did not receive that DfT email, that would not be due to Council fault. In any event, the Council says it expedited Mr X’s initial application on his request, then dealt with the appeal process and issued his badge within about a month. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s process here to justify an investigation.
- The key purpose of Mr X’s application was to receive a renewed blue badge. The Council has now issued that badge. It has also confirmed he will not need to reapply as it is satisfied his conditions affecting his mobility will remain. There is no different outcome an investigation by us would now achieve for Mr X regarding his current and future blue badge entitlement.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
- there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s processes here to warrant us investigating; and
- investigation could not achieve a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman