§ Mr. William RossTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he has taken in each of the last five years to recover DSS payments made to support persons who were injured in road accidents from the compensation received by the injured party from insurance companies; and what sums were received by his Department in each of those years.
§ Mr. HanleyResponsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Social Security Agency under its chief executive, Mr. Alec Wylie. My noble Friend Lord Arran has asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
603WLetter from M. A. Wylie to Mr. William Ross, dated 26 October 1992:
Your recent Parliamentary Question on the recovery of compensation payments has been passed to me for reply as I am responsible for social security operational matters.
I should explain that prior to September 1990 compensation payments were reduced by the amounts of social security benefits received and this was a matter between the compensator and the benefit claimant. No records of such payments are therefore available.
In July 1989 a Compensation Recovery Scheme was introduced in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland following which a Compensation Recovery Unit was established. Under the Scheme compensation payments made on or after 3 September 1990, where an injury occurred on or after 1 January 1989, are reduced by an amount equal to the whole value of benefits received for the injury in question, but only up to the date of settlement or for a maximum period of five years.
I regret that information relating to amounts recovered in respect of persons injured solely as a result of road accidents is not available. The total amounts recovered in respect of all accidents since the introduction of the Scheme for each year are as follows:
£ September 1990—March 1991 581,505 April 1991—March 1992 2,830,102 April 1992—September 1992 2,036,921 I hope this is helpful to you and I will be pleased to provide any further information you may require.