House of Commons - Transport

Select Committee on Transport Sixth Report

2 Eligibility

10. The English Blue Badge Scheme has two main eligibility routes for people over the age of two. People who meet at least one of the following criteria are automatically eligible and may be issued with a Badge without further assessment providing that they supply the correct supporting evidence:

a) they receive the Higher Rate Mobility Component of the Disability Living Allowance (HRMCDLA), except where the award is for a period of less than 12 months;

b) they are registered blind; or

c) they receive a War Pensioner's Mobility Supplement (WPMS).

11. The HRMCDLA is a benefit available to people aged three or over who

a) are unable or virtually unable to walk due to a physical disability, or have no legs or feet; or

b) are assessed to be both 100% disabled because of loss of eyesight and not less than 80% disabled because of deafness and need someone with them outdoors; or

c) severely mentally impaired, with severe behavioural problems and also qualify for the highest rate of the care component of DLA; or

d) by making the effort required to walk would endanger their life or cause deterioration in their health.[13]

12. Those who are automatically eligible account for around a third of all Badge-holders. The vast majority of these holders are recipients of HMRCDLA. Those who are registered blind account for only around 2% of all Badge-holders and recipients of the War Pensioners' Mobility Supplement less than 1%.[14] However, a person can only make an initial claim to Disability Living Allowance before their 65th birthday, so it is necessary to have alternative eligibility criteria for those who develop mobility problems after the age of 65 or who are unable or unwilling to claim DLA for some other reason.

The assessed eligibility criteria

13. The second eligibility route is eligibility subject to further assessment (also known as the "assessed eligibility criteria") Under these criteria, local authorities can also award Badges to people after further assessment if:

a) they drive a vehicle regularly, have a severe disability in both arms, and are unable to operate, or have considerable difficulty in operating, all or some types of parking meter; or

b) they are unable to walk or have considerable difficulty in walking because of permanent and substantial disability.

14. By far the most significant growth in the number of Badges issued has been in this second, assessed category, as shown in the Table below.[15]Table 2: Proportion of Badges on issue to those on automatic entitlement, and issued at local authority's discretion

Year Number of badges Automatic entitlement Assessed by local authority

1995 1,463,000 45% 54%

2000 1,854,000 37% 62%

2005 2,092,000 40% 58%

2007 2,318,000 36% 63%

Source: Parking Badges for Disabled People: supplementary document (DfT, November 2007)

The number of Badges issued by local authorities under the discretionary criteria also varies considerable from one are to another. In outer London, for example, Bexley has 52 Badges per 1,000 residents, Greenwich only 16. In the North West of England, Liverpool has 111, Manchester 37. The North West Region overall has more Badges-holders than any other—60 per 1,000 people—whereas in Yorkshire & the Humber it is only 42.[16]

15. Some of these variations are down to demographic differences and differing travel patterns. Inner London, for example, which has the fewest Badges (22 per 1,000 people), also has the lowest rate of car ownership and some of the best public transport links; the North West Region, which issues the most Badges, also has the second-largest number of residents aged 85 and over.[17] Witnesses agreed that much of the variation was down to differences in the way that the Scheme is administered and the way the criteria are interpreted.

16. The Department advises local authorities that

In some authorities, Badges are issued by the Social Services Department, in others by the Parking Management Department. Sheffield City Council checks applications from people with severe disability in both arms (who are eligible for a Badge if they cannot operate some types of parking meter) to see if they also had adaptations in their home and to see if they drive an adapted vehicle, but some authorities do not.[19]

17. The Department is right to strive for greater consistency in the way in which the assessed eligibility criteria are applied across different local authorities. This is a fundamental matter of fairness: a person's entitlement to a Blue Badge should not depend on where he or she lives. However, it appears that adherence to the Guidance is patchy. We recommend that the Department engage with local government officers involved in the assessment of Blue Badge applications in order to establish what more could be done to promote consistent good practice. The Department should pay particular attention to variations in practice between those authorities which issue many Badges and those which issue fewer, especially with reference to applications from people who are aged under 65 but do not receive the Higher Mobility Rate Component of Disability Living Allowance.

ASSESSING MOBILITY

18. The DfT recommends that independent health professionals, such as an occupational therapist or physiotherapist, are used to assess eligibility where necessary, but we were told that some authorities still use a local GP. We were told that occupational therapists working on behalf of Westminster City Council rejected around half of all applications, whereas authorities which relied on a report from the applicant's own GP tended to approve more applications.[20]

19. The use of an applicant's own GP to assess their mobility, or of any other doctor directly involved in the applicant's care or treatment, is likely to produce a bias in favour of approving the application; it is also contrary to DfT Guidance on the subject. We recommend that the Minister write directly to those authorities which still use GPs to carry our mobility assessments, drawing their attention to the aspect of the Guidance that calls for independent assessments of applicants' mobility.

Permanent disability and the badge issue period

20. The requirement under the assessed eligibility criteria for the disability to be "permanent" means, in practice, that it should have persisted for three years or more. This is not a criterion for HRMCDLA, so some individuals who qualify for DLA could also qualify for a Blue Badge whereas somebody with the same disability who was not claiming DLA could be excluded under the assessed eligibility criteria.[21] The Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the principal legislative vehicle for safeguarding the rights of disabled people, applies to anybody with a "long-term" disability which means a disability which has lasted, or is expected to last, for at least 12 months, or for the rest of that person's life.[22]

21. There was a general consensus among witnesses that reducing the minimum issue period could bring benefits for people with genuine, short-term disabilities, provided that Badges could be issued quickly enough to be useful and cancelled effectively when they were no longer needed.[23] Mr Lawson of DPTAC pointed to the example of children with hip dysplasia, a condition which can usually be successfully treated over a few months.[24] Children with this condition became eligible for a Blue Badge in October 2007.[25] Citizens Advice described a case dealt with by one Bureau in which a man who was using a wheelchair because of a short-term injury was unable to use the wider disabled spaces in off-street car parks in order to get the chair in and out of his car.[26]

22. The three-year minimum issue period under the assessed eligibility criteria is in our view unfair, since it excludes those with disabilities of more limited duration who could in principle have qualified automatically had they been eligible for, or wished to claim, Disability Living Allowance. It is also inconsistent with the definition of "disability" given in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. We therefore recommend that the minimum issue period for a Badge awarded under the assessed eligibility criteria be reduced to one year.

23. It might be that, in the future, if more sophisticated technology were to be put in place, an even lower minimum threshold could be introduced to accommodate those with even more short-term mobility problems, such as people recovering from major surgery. However, with the current, paper-based badge, we believe that the potential for fraud is too great. We discuss the potential role of "smarter" Badge technology in paragraphs 56 and 57, below.

24. Some witnesses argued that the maximum issue period should be increased: Devon Buchanon described the triennial reassessment process as "horrid and humiliating":

it is totally unfair to put people like me whose condition will not improve and is constantly deteriorating through a ritualistic reassessment procedure that only causes further anxiety and stress to an otherwise already challenged existence.

Help the Aged told us that most older Badge-holders were suffering from conditions which were unlikely to improve but conceded that, although a lifetime Badge might be justified on this basis, the three-year renewal was necessary to prevent abuse.[28] The need for an expiry point was echoed by Mr Low of TAG, who pointed out that individuals were not re-assessed during the lifetime of the Badge, nor was there any systematic process for rescinding or recalling a Badge when the holder had died.[29] The expiry date was therefore the only way of preventing the Badge's ongoing fraudulent use.

25. We do not propose that the three-year maximum issue period be increased. However, where it is established during the first assessment for a Badge that the holder's condition is unlikely to improve we do not see any case for requiring them to undergo potentially intrusive, time-consuming and, if it is carried out thoroughly, expensive reassessment. We recommend that in these cases, renewal should be granted after a review of the evidence submitted with the original application. Badge-holders should only be required to offer further proof of their condition where there is thought to be some discrepancy in the original application.

Extending eligibility

26. Since the Disabled Parking badge was first introduced, there have been proposals for entitlement to be extended to groups who do not currently qualify. On the basis of proposals from the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) in 2002, the Department commissioned Transport and Travel Research Ltd (TTR) to conduct research into extending eligibility for the badge to five new groups: people with autism and parents and carers of autistic children, people with colitis of Crohn's disease, people with Alzheimer's disease or similar dementia, people with learning difficulties or mental health problems and people who are partially sighted.[30]

27. The project found that there was a case for extending eligibility to people in these groups whose condition imposed severe limitations on their mobility or personal safety, but noted that such a move would also bring potential problems such as increased administrative complexity and potential for fraud. It concluded that eligibility for the scheme should be extended to people who meet the following new criterion:

28. The Minister told us that "there does seem to be a case to say that these people do have quite terrible problems and ought we not to be doing something in these circumstances".[32] That is an understandable and compassionate approach, but it avoids the question of whether issuing a Blue Badge is the best thing to do in the circumstances.

29. Mr Smith suggested that some local authorities already issued Badges to people with the conditions considered by TTR but some did not.[33] As we have already noted, it is clearly unsatisfactory if individuals' entitlement to a Badge depends on where they live, rather than on the degree of their mobility impairment.

30. It appears that there has been a de facto extension of the eligibility criteria in many local authority areas beyond those applicants who meet the narrow criterion of being unable to walk, or having considerable difficulty in walking. Conversely, we were given examples of people with serious difficulty walking who were told by their local authority that they did not qualify for a Badge.[34] It would be far better, in our view, to extend the criteria at the national level while pressing for greater consistency of application between local authorities than to allow the issuing of Badges to grow in a haphazard and piecemeal fashion. It is nonetheless important that the focus on people with mobility problems—as opposed to other types of disability or health problems—not be lost.

31. We recommend that the assessed eligibility criteria be re-drafted to encompass a wider range of people with severe mobility difficulties. The focus should be on mobility in the wider sense, rather than simply on an applicant's ability to walk and should include those who require help, in the form of physical contact from another person, in order to cross a road safely.

13 HB5 - A guide to non-contributory benefits for disabled people and carers (Department for Work and Pensions, November 2006). Back

14 Strategic Review, Annex C, p. 27. Back

15 Figures are for Badges issued to individuals. Just over 1% of Badges are issued to institutions so the figures in the Table do not add up to 100%. Back

16 Parking Badges for Disabled People: supplementary document (DfT, November 2007). Figures are for the number of Badges on issue at 31 March 2007. See also Q 19. Back

17 Revised 2004-based Subnational population projections, Government Office Regions, Quinary age groups, persons (Office for National Statistics, 2007). Back

18 The Blue Badge Scheme Local Authority Guidance (England) (DfT, 2008), section 3.3.2. Back

19 The Blue Badge Scheme Local Authority Guidance (England) (DfT, 2008), section 3.3.4. Back

20 QQ 63 [Mr Low] & 112 [Ms Winterton]. Back

21 Automatic eligibility for a Badge is conferred on anybody whose claim to HMRCDLA lasts for 12 months or more. Back

22 Disability Discrimination Act 1995, section 1(1) and paragraph 2 of Schedule 1. Back

23 Ev 44, para. 12, Ev 46. Back

24 QQ 41 & 42. Back