Review of the Orange Badge Scheme

The Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee is a statutory body established under the Transport Act 1985 to advise Government on the needs of disabled people in connection with public passenger transport.

Chairman: Robert Taylor OBE DL

Secretariat:

Zone 1/14 Great Minster House 76 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DR Tel: 020 7944 8011 & 020 7944 8013 Fax: 020 7944 6998 E-mail: dptac@detr.gov.uk

Introduction

The Orange Badge Scheme was established under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. It provides a virtually national arrangement of concessions for disabled and registered blind people regarding on-street parking in England, Wales and Scotland (the cities of London and Westminster and parts of the borough of Camden are not included). Badge holders may also be allowed access to some town centres where vehicle entry is restricted and may have the use of some off-street parking areas free of charge. By allowing badge holders to park closer to their destination, the scheme makes a valuable contribution to promoting social inclusion and to improving quality of life for disabled people.

Disabled people are eligible for the badge if they:

• receive the higher rate of the mobility component of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
• are registered blind
• use a vehicle supplied by a Government Department
• receive a grant towards their own vehicle
• receive a War Pensioners' Mobility Supplement
• have a severe disability in both upper limbs, regularly drive a motor vehicle but cannot turn the steering wheel of a motor vehicle by hand, even if that wheel is fitted with a turning knob.

Those criteria constitute the "automatic rights". Additionally, disabled people may be issued with a badge by the local authority if they have a permanent and substantial disability which means they are unable to walk or have very considerable difficulty in walking. These are known as the "discretionary" criteria. In those cases, an applicant's GP may be asked to answer a series of questions to help the local authority determine whether the person is eligible.

The scheme which is administered in England by County, Metropolitan District or Unitary Councils (and in Wales and Scotland by the Unitary Councils) was reviewed in the late 1980's and again in the early 1990's. A redesigned badge and modified concessions were introduced in March 1992.

DPTAC strongly believes in the continued need for the Orange Badge Scheme but is concerned about:

a) the dramatic increase since 1987 in the number of badges which are on issue and, in particular, in the number of discretionary badges;

b) the continuing reported abuse/misuse of the scheme which is undermining the value of the scheme.

The matter is likely to become even more critical as the measures outlined in the 1998 White Paper on transport are developed and implemented and authorities come under even more pressure to issue badges under the discretionary criteria. This report presents an analysis of the current situation and makes recommendations for improving the scheme.

Number of Badges on issue

At 31 March 1987 there were 673,000 Orange Badges on issue in England. By 31 March 1997 this had more than doubled to 1,638,000. However, during this period, the number of cars on the road increased by only 24% and there was no comparable increase in the number of severely disabled people.

In fact, the number of Orange Badges on issue has risen substantiallyevery year since 1987 (see Appendix 1). Of the 1.6 million badges on issue in England as of March 1997 little more than one third were issued as a right; two thirds of all badges were issued under the discretionary criteria and this element is increasing much faster than the as of right.

The changes introduced in 1992 appear to have had no effect on this trend apart from in a few local authority areas - for example, Sandwell, Northumberland, Leicestershire and Kingston upon Thames (see Appendix 2) - where there has been a significant reduction in the number of discretionary badges (53% fewer in the case of Kingston).

Detailed information relating to England regarding the number of "discretionary" badges issued as a percentage of all badges shows remarkable variation. It ranges from 8% in Gloucestershire to 89% in the London Borough of Brent. There is also considerable variation within comparable types of authority, for example, within Metropolitan Districts or among the inner London Boroughs.

In Metropolitan Districts in North England, for example, the number of "discretionary" badges as a percentage of all badges issued to individuals varies from 22% in Knowsley to 87% in Sunderland. In the Shire Counties, the variation is from 47% in Nottinghamshire to 83% in Devon. The inner and outer London Boroughs exhibit similar variations, from 59% in Camden to 87% in Westminster and from 55% in Barking & Dagenham to the 89% previously referred to in Brent.

The number of orange badges on issue compared with the population in a given area also varies considerably. It ranges from 8 per 1000 of the population in Kingston upon Thames to 71 per 1000 in Salford. Once again, there is significant variation in the rate per thousand of the population between comparable authorities. For example, in Metropolitan Districts the range is from 17 per 1000 in Sandwell to 71 per 1000 in Wakefield and Salford.

In order to try to determine why there should be this variation, comparison has also been made between the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions figures for the number of cars per thousand of the population in 33 London Boroughs in 1996 and the number of orange badges per thousand of the population in the same boroughs. There is, however, no obvious correlation.

The above analysis suggests that it is difficult to justify any of these variations on demographic, disability or economic grounds. The conclusion is that despite national ground rules, local authorities are interpreting the discretionary criteria differently and are administering the scheme in different ways with varying degrees of strictness. There is also the strong possibility that authorities are reacting to pressure as restrictions on access and parking are intensified.

Abuse and misuse of the Orange Badge Scheme

The second concern of DPTAC and a major factor undermining the value of the orange badge scheme is the widespread view that the orange badge scheme is being abused. Hard and fast evidence is notoriously difficult to obtain and analyse and is therefore rarely collected. However contact with various Police and Highways Authorities and with organisations representing disabled people indicates that there are at least five different ways in which the scheme is being abused:

• badges being issued to and subsequently used by ineligible people;
• non-disabled drivers parking illegally in spaces set aside for the use of orange badge holders.
• non-disabled relatives, partners or friends of bona fide orange badge holders misusing the badge by illegally making use of the parking concessions associated with the badge when the disabled badge holder is not involved;
• ineligible, non-disabled people securing the use of orange badges; and
• bona fide orange badge holders misusing the parking concessions offered by the scheme or infringing parking regulations;

The extent of these abuses and the manner in which these can best be combated will differ, but DPTAC believes that a general lack of enforcement has allowed these various forms of abuse to prosper and is devaluing the scheme.

Updated: 9 November 2000

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