Disability badges

Why are Disability badges issued by local authorities, if qualification for a DWP benefit is a pre-condition why not have them managed by the DWP as part of the benefits process (they are after all a benefit). This is the sort of citizen centric change I'd like to see coming out of the implementation of Transformational Government.

To make usage simple why not have two forms of the badge, one for parking at home (in which case it should be fixed to the vehicle) and the other for travel e.g. shopping etc. This would enable the rules on use to be simplified and the probability of error in use to be dramatically reduced.

RFID is a proven technology now and there don't appear to be any major privacy problems here so why not include RFID tags and make the badges machine readable (but only an identifying number). Having photographs on badges would be unnecessary as it should be replaced by having central storage of data on the holder to enable parking managers to deal with misuse, saving inconvenience and cost in the processes for issue and update of disabled badges. Having RFID could also enable the problem of stolen / copied badges to be managed more effectivly