Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
21 JANUARY 2004
MS ANNE
MCCLEARY,
MR FRANK
BRANNIGAN AND
MR RICHARD
STEWART
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon; I am very
sorry we have delayed you. I am afraid sometimes the wheels of
democracy grind rather slow. Thank you for coming to help us with
our inquiry into the work of the Compensation Agency. We want
to talk to you about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.
This follows on from the Committee's visit to you, where we were
briefed very well and got some idea of what was going on. What
has been the overall reaction to and impact of the introduction
of the new Tariff Scheme?
Ms McCleary: May I begin by introducing
my two colleagues? I am Anne McCleary, I am the Chief Executive
of the Compensation Agency. To my right is Frank Brannigan who
is the Director of Operations. To my left is Richard Stewart,
who is our accountant. Your question was about the impact of the
new scheme. The impact of the new scheme would appear to be that
the number of new claims coming in has reduced and we are now
operating two schemes simultaneously. We are working on the remainder
of the old scheme cases and we are now introducing the new scheme.
Since the new scheme came in, we have seen a reduction in the
number of criminal injury claims coming to us as compared with
the old 1988 scheme. There have also been teething problems with
bringing the new scheme in, which we have largely overcome.
Q2 Chairman: The combined number of claims
seems to be quite a lot down, about 4,000 down. Do you think this
trend will continue?
Ms McCleary: We do not actually
know what caused the number of claims to go down, therefore it
is impossible to say whether or not the trend will continue. We
do not see any reason why it should not continue.
Q3 Chairman: You have no idea why the
number of claims has reduced?
Ms McCleary: We have some information
from the police that the overall level of crime has reduced by
about 30%, which is roughly the percentage by which the number
of claims has dropped. That is likely to be a factor, but to say
any more would be speculation.
Q4 Chairman: What target have you set
yourselves for an average time to reach a decision on claims under
the tariff system?
Ms McCleary: The target which
we have set ourselves is to take decisions in claims and 45% of
those decisions will initially be taken within a year and then
over the next few years that percentage will increase to 90%.
Q5 Chairman: Forty-five per cent within
a year. What about the other 55%?
Ms McCleary: Those cases will
be dealt with as speedily as possible.
Q6 Chairman: They will take more than
a year.
Ms McCleary: Yes.
Q7 Mr Swire: The processing of new claims
is more heavily reliant on IT. Do you have any evidence that this
will significantly contribute towards processing some of these
claims any faster?
Ms McCleary: The whole idea of
bringing in the new scheme and using a new IT system was that
it would speed things up. We are starting to see that happen.
In the initial period we had some teething problems with IT, but
those have been largely overcome. We are now starting to see a
greater number of decisions being taken than there are new claims
coming in. We are now starting to see a greater number of decisions
being taken that there are new claims coming in, so we are eating
into that backlog.
Q8 Mr Swire: You say you have had some
teething problems with the IT. What contingency and back-up plans
do you have for the IT system, given that so much more data is
going to be on computer?
Ms McCleary: In line with best
practice, we have a system whereby backups are done on a daily
basis; back-up tapes are located off site in a secure site and
if there were to be a problem with the system, we would be able
to acquire further hardware if necessary and start using the back-up
tapes.
Q9 Mr Swire: How often are those back-up
tapes physically removed from the building and stored in this
other secure location?
Ms McCleary: I personally am not
sure about that.
Q10 Mr Swire: Regularly? Whatever that
is.
Ms McCleary: Yes.
Q11 Mr Beggs: The Agency had experienced
problems initially in obtaining medical reports, required to process
claims under the Tariff Scheme, from accident and emergency departments.
What was the nature of those problems and have they now been resolved?
Ms McCleary: The problems which
initially happened emerged unexpectedly. When the scheme was set
up, the Criminal Injuries Tariff Scheme Implementation Project
Team (usually known at CITSIP) did preparatory work to create
the procedures for tariffs. They did not expect that there would
be difficulty getting medical reports from the A&E departments
of the various hospitals; there were similar arrangements which
worked very well in the GB scheme. However, when we reached a
stage where we were starting to request medical reports and statements,
it became clear to us that each of the hospitals and trusts was
treating the requests differently, both in terms of how they responded
to it and what they charged for it. When you take account of the
fact that these variations extended across all of the hospitals
and trusts in Northern Ireland, it became apparent that this was
an extremely major problem and medical reports just stopped being
received. What we then did was to send out a team to talk to the
hospitals and trusts personally, we established what the problem
was, we agreed a new procedure with them and that procedure is
now operating and operating well. We are now getting medical reports
in and we are now at a stage where the number of decisions being
made is starting to exceed the number of new claims coming in.
Q12 Mr Beggs: What action is being taken
to address outstanding claims under the old scheme and what is
the estimate of how long it will take to clear these?
Ms McCleary: The first thing is
that we have to make sure that we have the correct staffing levels
within the organisation and that is the first thing we do. The
other thing is that we are targeting the older cases. The staff
who are involved in handling these cases have key objectives which
include having structured reviews on a regular basis. That is
built into the staff's appraisal. The other thing is that we are
actively looking at how we deal with the old scheme cases and
we shall continue to look at that to ensure that we process them
as quickly as possible.
Q13 Mr Beggs: Approximately how long
have the oldest claims been awaiting resolution?
Ms McCleary: The oldest cases
that we have go back, I believe, to 1991-92; we have one case
going back as long as that. While we cannot predict precisely
when all these cases will have cleared, we are optimistic that
we will have dealt with the remaining cases within the next year.
Q14 Chairman: Do you have any idea why
a case would take 13 or 14 years and still not be resolved? Try
to illustrate to us some of the complexities, would you? Let us
take this case. Without mentioning names, tell us about this case
and why it has taken 13 years.
Mr Brannigan: In this particular
case, what has happened is that the applicant's solicitors have
lost contact with their client and they are reluctant to bring
the case to a close. Even though we are anxious to close and they
are anxious to close it, the applicant has just disappeared. For
that reason we have to keep it open because the applicant's solicitor
does not have the authority to clear the claim on his client's
behalf.
Q15 Chairman: So you are not working
on this case.
Mr Brannigan: Not on those very
old cases. I think we have about 24 cases which go back to 1994-95
and in all of those the Agency is not actively doing anything
other than going back to the applicant's solicitor and asking
whether they have heard any more.
Q16 Chairman: So they have to remain
a statistic.
Mr Brannigan: They have to remain
a statistic. We cannot bring them to an end until the applicant
appears.
Q17 Chairman: They are not cases which
are being delayed through any form of bureaucracy or anything;
the applicant has disappeared.
Mr Brannigan: There may be some
outstanding documentation, believe it or not, still awaited on
one or two of them. I know one of them is still awaiting an accountant's
report because the applicant's injuries are such that he has not
been able to go back to his previous employment and there is some
debate as to the extent of his financial loss as a result of not
being able to return to his employment.
Q18 Chairman: In none of these cases
is the delay anything you can do anything about.
Ms McCleary: That is correct.
Q19 Chairman: None of them.
Ms McCleary: I should like to
think so.
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