Disability Badges - Freedom of information requests
Title or Description
Disability Badges
FOI Number
15792
Date Received
12/11/2021
Type of Request
FOI
Request or Question
1. Can you please provide the price of a Blue Badge used by disabled people every year since 2015 and including for 2021/2022?2. Can you please provide the number of applications received for badges in each of those years and so far this year?3. Can you also please tell me how much the council collected in fees for the badges during the same time frame and so far this year?
Response
1. The cost for a Blue Badge has been £20 since 2015, badges are valid for between 12 months and 3 years.
2. We have 2 resources which can give us information on Blue Badge applications, The Department for Transport's Blue Badge system and our internal case management system. However, each of these have limitations. The Department for Transport system contains records of all successful awards of Blue Badges, but unsuccessful applications are not recorded on that system. Our case management system records all customer contact regarding Blue Badges, but that includes basic requests for information only, requests for a paper form to be issued all the way through to fully completed applications. Unfortunately due to the limitations of our current reporting tools, we are not able to break down these records of customer enquiries in a manner which would provide the information that you have requested. Our case management system records show that we have had over 10,000 customer interactions relating to Blue Badges since 2015 and each record would need to be checked manually to establish the specific nature of the enquiry. Taking an average of 2 minutes each, the cost of investigating this would exceed the prescribed limits therefore this part of your request is refused under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act Scotland 2002.
However, I can confirm that following a successful application, the following badges have been issued up to 30 November 2021:-
Financial Year - Number of badges issued
2015 - 2059
2016- 2044
2017- 2024
2018 - 2333
2019 - 2432
2020 - 1706
2021 - 1830
