Hundreds denied Blue Badges under ‘flawed policy’, council admits

Cllr Chris Kennedy

Town Hall health chief Cllr Chris Kennedy. Photograph: Hackney Council

Hackney Council has scrapped a “flawed” scoring system for disabled parking assessments after hundreds of residents were denied Blue Badges.

Health and social care chief Cllr Chris Kennedy yesterday confirmed the council would abandon its additional guidelines, which were found to have caused “injustice”, and would write to all 149 individuals refused a permit since January 2024.

In April, the local government and social care ombudsman judged that Hackney’s “flawed policy” went against government guidance and had made it “very difficult for people with disabilities to qualify for a permit”.

The verdict came because a local woman, ‘Mrs D’, appealed to the regulator after the council refused to renew her Blue Badge.

Ombudsman Amerdeep Somal said it was “likely more people were also denied a permit when they would have qualified, had Hackney’s guidance followed that of the government”.

During a cabinet meeting at the Town Hall, Cllr Kennedy said the local authority had honoured the regulator’s ruling by apologising to the resident, paying her £500, and offering her another in-person appraisal.

All 149 people refused a permit under the same policy will also be offered a reassessment.

Cllr Kennedy added that the watchdog “did not tell us that Mrs D should be given a Blue Badge”, but rather that she was entitled to another assessment without the flawed scoring system.

The Greens’ co-leader, Cllr Zoë Garbett, asked the health and social care chief if the council had identified any lessons it had learned from the process to avoid a repeat of the situation.

Kennedy said this was “very difficult” because of the circumstances under which she was given a Blue Badge in the first places.

“Mrs D was offered a permit without a physical, in-person assessment during the pandemic,” he said.

“Her subsequent desire to really investigate how we did our assessments was driven by the fact that the subsequent decisions from an in-person assessment did not match with what happened when there were no in-person assessments.”

However, he acknowledged the council had not “handled it very well as an organisation” and had communicated poorly with the resident, including getting her date of birth wrong.

In April, the watchdog said the council had only “partially” accepted its findings and had disputed the conclusion that it had caused injustice.

A Town Hall spokesperson subsequently told the Citizen that it had accepted the findings but was “confident” the majority of Blue Badge applications were assessed correctly.

They added that the council would undertake a review to ensure processes were “fair and robust”.