House of Commons - Public Accounts

Select Committee on Public Accounts Fifty-Fourth Report

1 The service provided to victims of violent crime

1. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme provides financial compensation to victims injured as a result of violent crime in England, Wales or Scotland. It is administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, a Non-Departmental Public Body of the Ministry of Justice. In order to be eligible:

victims must have sustained an injury as a result of crime of violence;
the injury must have been severe enough to qualify for an award of at least £1,000 under a series of tariff bands set out in the scheme;
the crime must have occurred in England, Scotland or Wales; and
the crime must have taken place after August 1964.

Awards may be reduced or withheld if the applicant did not apply within two years of the incident; did not cooperate fully with the police; contributed to the incident; or is of unsuitable character, as indicated by their criminal record.

2. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme is the most generous state scheme in the European Union. Of the 27 member states that have schemes, the scheme in England, Wales and Scotland is one of only six that provides awards for injury or bereavement in addition to expenses and cost of living payments. Although Belgium, Spain and Portugal make larger average payouts, it is to a smaller percentage of the population. The scheme in England, Wales and Scotland paid out more per population member at £3.07 than the next most generous scheme, in Finland, which paid out £1.34 per population member. (Figure 1) compares the scheme with those in the rest of the European Union.[2]

3. The scheme is undersubscribed. The proportion of victims of violent crime who apply has remained constant at around 5% since 2000. Not all victims of violent crime would have been eligible for the scheme and some eligible victims could have chosen not to apply because, for example, they would rather not be reminded of the incident. However, the low application rate is not helped by poor public awareness of the scheme. A Ministry of Justice survey of victims and witnesses for April to December 2006 showed that only 36% of victims of violent crime were aware of the scheme. The Authority has not made literature sufficiently available in public places, such as General Practitioners' surgeries and Citizens Advice Bureaux.[3]
Figure 1: The scheme in England, Wales and Scotland is the most generous in the EU in terms of award per population member

Source: National Audit Office

4. Application rates have varied between geographical areas, employment status, gender, age and ethnicity. Particularly high proportions of applicants are male, over 55, not in active employment, non-white or living in the North East, North West and Yorkshire and Humber regions (Figure 2). Improved awareness of its customer base would help the Authority to target its marketing at those who would have wished to apply to the scheme, but were unaware of it. The Ministry has now approved research into the variations in application rates and intends to use the results to inform future marketing of the scheme.[4]

5. Victims who were aware of the scheme and chose to apply did not find the application process easy or simple. Some 95% of applicants used the paper based application form but considered that it was long and complicated to complete, consisting of 13 pages of questions. Almost a fifth of applicants found it difficult to apply and around half of all applicants who used a representative did so because they found the form complicated. Although the Authority needs to collect a large amount of information in order to decide cases, a simpler form that set out the eligibility criteria more clearly could reduce the half of all applications that are incomplete. The Authority had discussed methods to simplify forms with a number of stakeholders and other private and public bodies, for example, the Motor Insurance Bureau and the Passport Agency. It had not, however, consulted Jobcentre Plus, which has simplified its application forms over a number of years. The Authority had an on-line application form but this was only used by 5% of applicants. The Authority currently did not offer a telephone service to help applicants complete their application, but planned to introduce one in April 2008, when it brings its call centre in-house (see paragraph 9).[5]Figure 2: There are demographic variations in application rates to the scheme

APPLICANT CHARACTERISTIC, LOOKING PARTICULARLY FOR ECONOMIES OF SCALE	PROPORTION OF VICTIMS WITH INJURIES SERIOUS ENOUGH TO BE ELIGIBLE (%)	PROPORTION OF APPLICANTS (%)	OVER REPRESENTATION IN APPLICATIONS¹
MALES FEMALES	52 48	74 26	42% (46%)
AGED UNDER 55 AGED 55 AND OVER	96 3.7	93 7.2	(3%) 95%
EMPLOYED UNEMPLOYED ECONOMICALLY INACTIVE	53 5.6 40	46 27 28	(13%) 382% (30%)
WHITE ETHNICITY NON-WHITE ETHNICITY	95 5.1	88 12	(7%) 140%

Source: Characteristics of victims of violent crime applying for compensation: A report to the National Audit Office

1. Calculated as the proportion of applicants (%) (column 3) as a percentage of the proportion of victims with injuries serious enough to be eligible (%) (column 2); figures in brackets indicate under-representation.

6. Over half of applicants used a representative to help with their application and subsequent dealings with the Authority. Applicants did not need to be represented but this had not been made sufficiently clear to them. Of those who had used a representative, 28% thought that it was required. The Authority believed that the most effective way to inform applicants that they did not need to be represented would be through the introduction of its telephone application process beginning with advice by phone in April 2008.[6]

7. Where applicants wish to be represented, Victim Support provides a service free of charge. Alternatively, Victim Support can pay solicitors to represent applicants, usually on a 'no win, no fee' basis. In 2006-07, 30% of applicants were represented by solicitors, 21% by Victim Support and 7% by other representatives. There was little variation in success rates by representative type; 51% of solicitor represented applications were successful; 58% of Victim Support represented applications and 55% of unrepresented applications.[7]

8. It is important that victims can find information about the scheme easily. Until recently, a victim using an internet search engine to find information on 'criminal injuries compensation' or 'CICA' would have found that some solicitors' websites appeared above the Authority's in the unsponsored results. This had now been rectified for some search engines.[8]

9. The Authority had an outsourced call centre, which cost some £200,000 in 2006-07, but was not providing an adequate service to applicants. It did not answer 15% of calls and was unable to provide a response to half of those that were answered, referring the query to the Authority instead. The Authority would have been better able to manage the call centre if there had been a formal contract in place, but the call centre was set up as a six month pilot in 2001 and continued without evaluations or a formal contract. The Authority planned to bring the call centre in-house and use it to offer an expanded applicant support service from April 2008.[9]

10. In November 2003, the Authority decided to request medical reports only where the police reports indicated that a crime of violence had occurred. This measure was designed to save money as the Authority pays for medical reports, but not for police reports. It did not, however, change the standard letter template that it used for rejected claims. The letter continued to state that, after careful consideration of police and medical reports, the applicant was not eligible for an award. The letter would though have gone on to spell out reasons why the application had been rejected. As a result, up to 47,604 applicants might have been incorrectly informed that their case had been rejected and that their medical reports had been considered as part of this process. Some of these applicants may have decided not to request a review or appeal of the decision because they believed that their medical records had been examined. Most will now fall outside the 90-day time limit for requesting a review or appeal. The Authority and Panel are able to apply discretion and grant reviews and appeals if there is a clear case of justice denied.[10] There is discretion to waive the time limit in "exceptional circumstances" and where it would be in the interests of justice to do so.



© Parliamentary copyright 2008	Prepared 20 November 2008