Blue badge processing times getting shorter in Wolverhampton

At Wolverhampton Council's scrutiny board meeting on Tuesday, members heard how application processing times had lessened favourably compared to many other local authorities.

Blue badges help people with disabilities or health conditions to park closer to their destinations.

The council’s contact centre manager Lisa Powell told the meeting: “The report we are presenting to provide an update on blue badge processing progress covers the period of the period April 1, 2022, to December 31, 2022, during which the average processing time decreased from 32 days to 20 days.

“Guidance that we follow for processing applications set by the Department for Transport (DfT) is 84 days, so this is a massive improvement – not just for our service, but generally.

“During this time period we received and processed 3,982 blue badge applications. 94 per cent have already been processed, three per cent are currently at the Desk Based Assessment (DBA) stage, two per cent are awaiting further evidence and then one per cent are at different stages, whether that’s awaiting payment or further enquiries.

“We manage all customer contact and have noticed an eight per cent reduction in calls and 47 per cent in emails. We’ve also added an additional resource to the team to help us move forward with the processing. 77 per cent of our calls were answered in 80 seconds, which is really fantastic for the contact centre as we do have peak periods,” she added.

“We’ve got four surgeries currently running to deliver support to customers who do not have access to digital technology or are unable to complete their application online. One of the most recent is at the Institute in Tettenhall. Others have been delivered from the Civic Centre, Wednesfield Library and Bilston Library. Customer feedback has reduced a lot. We do get web enquiries but these are normally centred around how the processing works.

“What we want to do now is move to the next stage where we are looking at the misuse of blue badges – people using other people’s etc, and all the areas in which they can be improved. I’ve only ever heard of one complaint in the last 18 months, if you could call it that.”

Scrutiny board vice-chairman Councillor Ellis Turrell said: “I think it’s really good to see the figures going in the right direction in terms of the length of time it’s taking to process the applications.

“Looking at the figures and the number of applications received – nearly 4,000 – it’s quite a sizeable number. There are people who are eligible for blue badges who, for whatever reason, don’t actually apply for them. So that number could well be a lot higher. This is good news.”