Guidance

Review of eligibility criteria for the Blue Badge scheme: recommendations

Published 5 August 2021

Applies to England

Summary of outcomes

In 2019, the government extended the eligibility criteria of the Blue Badge scheme in England to people with non-visible disabilities.

In 2020, the Department for Transport (DfT) commissioned Valtech Ltd providers of the Blue Badge Digital Service, to seek feedback from local authorities and people who use the Blue Badge scheme in England, to determine how the new eligibility criteria were working in practice.

DfT has accepted all the recommendations put forward by this review and will start work at once to implement them.

However, the results of the review must be viewed against the backdrop of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The pandemic has changed our behaviour in many ways and disrupted normal business practices of local authorities including their administration of the Blue Badge scheme.

As such, the impacts of some of the changes made in 2019 have been difficult to measure. In particular, it is extremely difficult to isolate the specific costs on authorities associated with the criteria changes when so much of their activity has been fundamentally affected by the response to the pandemic.

Nevertheless, feedback received about the changes has been positive. All local authority responders agreed that the change has led to applications from people who would not have applied previously. It is estimated that 39% of new applications have been from people who may not have previously qualified for a badge. In 2019 to 2020, 39,000 more badges were issued than the previous year with 26,000 of those badges being issued under the new eligibility criteria

But the review also highlighted some common issues encountered by local authorities and citizen users, particularly the difficulty people with non-visible disabilities have in providing the right evidence to support their badge application.

Fortunately, the Blue Badge Digital Service (BBDS), introduced in 2019 and currently used by nearly 80% of all Blue Badge applicants, allows us to react quickly and intuitively to such issues and work is already underway to address many of the problems raised, through improvements to the online service.

In addition, DfT will continue to work closely with the local authorities (LAs) that administer the scheme in England, to ensure all applicants, whether they apply online or not, benefit from the changes made, by making it easier for local authority administrators and health care professionals to communicate and share best practice.

We are committed to continuous improvement and review and, as such, DfT will continue to work closely with LAs and people who use the Blue Badge scheme to identify further improvements to the scheme and the digital service with the aim of ensuring they work in the best way possible.

Recommendations

Provide the right evidence

To Increase evidence quality, we will:

• provide guidance on the medical evidence required to assess the application
• make it clear to Blue Badge applicants that they need to provide evidence that is relevant to the eligibility criteria and that the earlier they obtain this the better
• produce guidance (and a specific form) aimed at medical experts on how to provide high-quality evidence that is relevant to the eligibility criteria for Blue Badge applicants
• review the order of the application process on the BBDS, especially where evidence is requested – we will introduce relevant examples in alignment with Government Digital Service (GDS) standards
• consider allowing Blue Badge applicants to submit video evidence to provide better context

We will also review the holistic service view (in BBDS) where it asks for evidence and produce promotional material for each step in the application process from initial enquiries through to feedback communications.

Where possible, we should provide high-quality templates (for example, when rejecting applications or asking for further details) and make these available to LAs.

Understand the impact of eligibility

Service design and user research is recommended to integrate the BBDS interaction with other government departments.

To avoid confusion, we will also consider separating out the ‘distress’ element from the other elements of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) descriptor E, ‘Planning and Making a Journey’, in Blue Badge promotional material and guidance. (Applicants who score 10 points under PIP descriptor E can gain eligibility for a badge through the ‘without further assessment’ route in relation to the non-visible disability criteria).

Improve language and flow

We need to create a survey to research whether using specific wording makes a difference to the application outcome in different LAs.

We will also look at successful and unsuccessful applications to see if there is any correlation with using ‘the right words’. If so, we aim to correct any bias with guidance, training and scoring matrices.

We will improve the online application by making clear what is needed and breaking down choices so that users do not have to write explanations.

Standardise assessments

To standardise assessments, we will:

• expand on this research and undertake a more in-depth examination of the assessment processes employed by LAs and external healthcare professionals
• share best practice: while it’s logical that there are different styles in assessment across LAs, we should share these centrally by mimicking an online marketplace with peer ratings and comments
• create efficiencies: look at assessment process and work with LAs to automate what we can – concepts and tools should aim to free up time

Level the playing field

To create a unified approach, we will:

• work with LAs to look at expanding the BBDS to cover the approval/rejection and appeal processes. This will be a first step in unifying guidance
• review reporting: applications are often a combination of factors and reporting an application as non-visible or physical is not strictly correct

We will also monitor approval rates. Taking into account the variety of assessment methods across authorities, we will review the number of successful applications across LAs and consistency within the individual LA Blue Badge teams.

Share feedback

We need to find out what does and does not work by identifying LAs that provide good feedback to Blue Badge applicants. We can then:

• create model responses for other LAs to use
• personalise responses more and develop responses that list the eligibility criteria relevant to an individual’s assessment and where the application failed to meet them
• get the wording right: design the content of the responses in line with GDS standards and conduct research with real users