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Lovetoread

If anyone can offer any advice I would be grateful. My son who is 51 and still li8ves at home, has learning disabilities, is unable to read or write and does not go out on his own as he does not know his way. He has had a blue badge since he was 10 and on disability benefit, the Doctor would write a letter for him and everything was fine. In 2019 he was moved onto PIP, he has 12 points for planning and making a journey and 4 points for mobility. He also suffers with anxiety when he is out because he has no road sense and is afraid of traffic. I have applied and been refused twice for his blue badge, on the grounds that there is not sufficient evidence. I paid to have his Doctor fill in a pro forma but this was not accepted because the Doctor was only going on case notes and he hadn't seen my son. I gave them a letter from his Social worker, one from the disability nurse but they still said there was not enough evidence of his behaviour when he was out. They then asked for his Day center Manager to fill out a pro forma and because the Manager explained he could not go out on his own that he was always accompanied by staff as he was vulnerable they would not accept that as they said the Manager had not actually seen him putting himself in danger. I did say that if the Manager had seen him put himself in danger then he'd be out of a job. Now they asked me to take my son for a mobility test which I have refused to do as I applied for the badge on "hidden" problems and not mobility. on doing this I have been told that my request has been refused and my £10 refunded. I did telephone PIPs to ask if they could reduce his planning and making a journey 12 points to 10 so he would automatically be entitled to a badge but the chap there said instead they would send me a new Letter of entitlement and this should be enough for the council. Any advice please? Thank you

Amaya_Ringo

The current automatic entitlement for the blue badge on mobility for PIP is eight or more points for moving around, or ten points for planning a journey (specifically stating that the reason is that it causes distress). If those entitlements aren't met, it's down to the local authority's concessionary travel team to discern whether to issue a discretionary pass.

Part of my job is sending across evidence for blue badges and bus passes, and unfortunately, LA staff are tied with decisions as they have to satisfy government criteria. The demands for evidence re bus passes and blue badges for planning a journey points are much stricter, despite the fact they often have similar impact on the applicant.

I don't know if the DWP can alter the points in that way without a full review of the case. As I mentioned above, it has to be ten points for planning a journey due to extreme distress, and if that is not already on your son's report, any change in the point allocation might not matter.

Otherwise, it's a matter of gathering as much evidence as you can. The more the better, even if you think it is stating the obvious.

You mentioned that the doctor wrote a letter for your son without having met him - it might be worth scheduling an appointment with a GP (if you can) so that you can get a statement written by someone who has actually seen your son's condition first hand. (If he has any hospital or other specialists involved in his care, their statements about his condition would also help). And if he is on any medications to help with his conditions, sometimes sending that information across can also help. Really, you need someone with medical knowledge to see and write a statement about your son's capabilities and why he would be at risk out on his own so that the concessionary team can tick those criteria boxes.

Every LA is different and can have different thresholds, but this is how these cases are handled in my area.