HC Deb 13 July 1999 vol 335 cc105-6W
Lorna Fitzsimons

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what monitoring he undertakes of decisions on criminal injuries compensation to ensure consistency and comparability. [90313]

Mr. Boateng

The introduction of a tariff-based compensation scheme in 1996, under which compensation is assessed on the basis of a fixed tariff of awards for injuries of comparable severity, ensures that a considerable degree of consistency, comparability and transparency is built into the system.

Ministers' general oversight of the scheme does not extend to monitoring directly decisions taken in particular cases. However, the bodies administering the new scheme, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel (CICAP), themselves take a range of measures to maximise consistency in decision making, including training events and seminars. The CICA is about to embark on a pilot exercise on the comparative assessment of decisions. The outcome of this pilot, and any ensuing procedure, will be considered by the National Audit Office as part of its current review of the scheme.

Lorna Fitzsimons

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to change the rules relating to criminal injuries compensation and the effect of awards on means-tested benefits: and what consideration has been given to staggering awards to ensure recipients are not disadvantaged by the savings rule. [90312]

Mr. Boateng

The Government invited views on ways in which the criminal injuries compensation scheme might be changed for the benefit of victims of crime in a public consultation exercise which ran from March to June 1999. Preliminary analysis of responses has shown that a number of respondents felt that compensation derived from personal injury should be disregarded for the purposes of assessing entitlement to means-tested social security benefits. The responses are now being analysed more fully, and we hope to be able to say what changes might be made to the scheme in consequence later this year.