Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
21 JANUARY 2004
MS ANNE
MCCLEARY,
MR FRANK
BRANNIGAN AND
MR RICHARD
STEWART
Q20 Chairman: I should like you to "say"
so, not that you "think" so.
Mr Brannigan: It is part of our
strategy that we do actively look at these cases on a regular
basis and that is what we are anxious to do. It is an embarrassment
to us as you can imagine.
Q21 Chairman: It ruins all your figures,
does it not?
Mr Brannigan: Absolutely.
Q22 Mr Swire: I do not want to add to
your embarrassment, but there are significant differences between
the two cases you gave. One is that the applicant's lawyer has
lost contact with their client. The second case is that the accountants
have been unable to resolve the question of compensation due to
the loss of a job and that is presumably one of the cases going
back to ten or eleven years ago.
Mr Brannigan: Yes.
Q23 Mr Swire: There is a difference in
those two. Are you saying that these cases have to remain open
ended for ever? What are the implications for the tax payer if
you have to resolve these cases years later in terms of uprating
the amounts of money you will then have to pay them?
Mr Brannigan: In the circumstances
I described, where the applicant is no longer available, it really
can only be brought to an end by direction of the court and we
are unlikely to get a direction of the court.
Q24 Mr Swire: There is no automatic mechanism.
Mr Brannigan: No. When someone
makes an application under the old scheme, it has ultimately to
be determined by the court one way or the other, either that they
accept our offer in the early stages or it goes to appeal and
there is an appeal hearing. It is part of the system that it actually
has to be brought to a legal end.
Q25 Mr Beggs: What is the rate of appeal
under the old Criminal Injury Scheme and how many of these are
successful?
Ms McCleary: The percentage of
decisions we take which are appealed is in the region of 20 to
25%. You also asked me how many are successful: 75% of the appeals
which are made result in an award in the end.
Q26 Mr Beggs: Has the pattern of appeals
changed with the introduction of the Tariff Scheme?
Ms McCleary: Since the Tariff
Scheme came in, we now see about 40% of the first decisions which
we make result in a request for a review of that decision; that
is an in-house appeal mechanism. Then a number would result in
appeals. To date we have turned down 281 cases. Forty per cent
of those cases have applied for review. Eight-five per cent have
appealed to the Criminal Injuries Appeal Panel and 11 cases have
been heard by the Appeal Panel and have been decided.
Q27 Mr Beggs: How long would those making
the appeal have to wait to get their appeal heard after receiving
your decision?
Ms McCleary: The system has been
quite slow in starting up; it has undoubtedly taken some time
to get the new Tariff Scheme up and running. Our first appeal
hearings were in November/December last year, so since the scheme
started in May of the year before that we are talking about 18
months, something like that. The appeal dates are now being fixed,
things are now being arranged and it will be quicker.
Q28 Mr Luke: Following the drop in major
incidents in recent years the number of claims under the Criminal
Damage Compensation Scheme, which fell quite dramatically around
1999, has levelled off now to about 1,500 to 2,000 cases per year.
Has the nature of the claims changed over the last few years?
Ms McCleary: Yes. One of the significant
factors in relation to the Criminal Damage Compensation Scheme
is that in the past those claims were largely generated by large
events; we are talking really about explosions where you would
have a considerable number of claims all made in relation to the
same set of circumstances. We are now seeing claims coming in
for criminal damage in relation to one-off events.
Q29 Mr Luke: Heaven forbid that we have
to face a major explosion again, but do you have the capacity
to deal with that kind of contingency if it does arise?
Ms McCleary: The short answer
is yes. We have a major incident team who will go out and do whatever
needs to be done. Whether it means going out to the location or
providing advice and assistance to those who have been affected
by the damage, we have that capability within the organisation
at the minute. If there were to be a need for further individuals
to become involved, we could pull them in from other parts of
our organisation and if necessary go beyond that to those with
this type of experience who are currently working within the Northern
Ireland Office itself.
Q30 Mr Luke: The Criminal Damage Compensation
Scheme is going to be reviewed shortly. Could you outline for
us what you see as the major issues to be considered in this review?
Ms McCleary: The review is something
which is the responsibility of the department; it is not something
we will be carrying out. It is really for the department to decide
what it needs to look at. There are all sorts of issues coming
out. I am not really in a position to comment.
Q31 Reverend Smyth: I understand when
you say the department will be reviewing it, but from your experience
you will have some understanding of some of the problems. Can
you tell us how many claims are still outstanding, awaiting the
Chief Constable's certificate?
Ms McCleary: No, I am not in a
position to answer that at the moment. I can provide you with
that information at a later date.
Q32 Reverend Smyth: It would be helpful
if it were possible to have that, because I understand that recently
one which has been delayed for some years has been paid and I
wanted to find out the reasons for the delay. On the question
of the implementation of the old legislation it was held against
a person if they had been involved in terrorism.
Ms McCleary: That is correct.
Q33 Reverend Smyth: Are you aware how
many claims were turned down affecting businesses where one person
may have been involved in terrorism but the other folk were innocent
parties and therefore lost their claims as well?
Ms McCleary: The legislation specifically
provides that someone who has a conviction for a terrorist offence
is excluded from receiving compensation. Therefore there have
been cases where there are multiple applicants and only one of
those applicants has a terrorist conviction and the claims have
been turned down.
Q34 Reverend Smyth: Could you let us
know how many?
Ms McCleary: We could let you
know; I do not have the figures here.
Q35 Mr Bailey: Could we turn to compensation
under the Terrorism Act of 2000? The Agency memorandum shows that
"despite the greatly reduced operational deployment of the
Army in Northern Ireland" the number of claims under the
Terrorism Act had more than doubled from just under 3,500 in 1998-99
to nearly 8,000 by 2002-03. Why do you think this happened?
Ms McCleary: Again it would be
very dangerous for me to speculate as to why someone decides to
put in a claim. However, what I can say is that one of the factors
which led to that increase is the change in legislation when the
Terrorism Act came in in 2001. Prior to that the governing legislation
had been the Emergency Provisions Legislation, which required
that claims had to be submitted to the Agency within six months
of damage being caused. When the Terrorism Act came in in 2001,
it required that notification of a claim had to be made to us
within 28 days. Typically what happened was that someone who was
putting in a claim once every six months then started putting
in a claim once every 28 days instead. That is a significant factor
in the recent claims.
Q36 Mr Bailey: That is very interesting.
It implies that somebody was putting in claims more or less on
a rota basis.
Ms McCleary: There certainly have
been claims which come in on a very frequent basis.
Q37 Mr Bailey: Can you explain the changes
which the Agency has introduced as a result of a review of the
procedures for handling the claims and what impact this has had?
Ms McCleary: The changes which
we brought in were in a strategy and the strategy included a number
of different strands. One was that we changed the claim form itself
and a far more robust claim now has to be completed. The second
was that we changed the requirements on our loss adjustors. We
required them to do a few more things which they had not been
doing before that. The other changes which were brought in, were
brought in not by us but by the military. After I visited Bessbrook
and spoke to the senior officers down there, there was a change
in the nature of the information they were able to give us which
then enabled us to take better decisions. The impact of those
changes has been that we now see on average about 67 claims per
month, whereas before we brought in these changes the average
number of claims per month was 633. If it is of any interest,
the figure for December, which is traditionally a slow month in
terms of this kind of claim, was 32. In terms of money, we estimate
that there has been a saving to the public purse for this financial
year of about £2.8 million.
Q38 Mr Bailey: Very interesting. It would
seem that with the initial changes in procedure claims rocketed
and then with the tightening up of procedures they plummeted.
Ms McCleary: Yes.
Q39 Mr Bailey: What has been the impact
on the average compensation payment?
Ms McCleary: The average compensation
payment has gone down very slightly because of the extra work
being done by the loss adjustors.
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