We are a specialist national company dealing with both personal injury and loss of earnings for applicants, who have made, or who intend making, a claim for compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA).

1.2 ACICA's 29/3/04 Response to the Home Office consultation paper
      Compensation and Support for Victims of Crime

1. Assault & Criminal Injury Compensation Associates Ltd. is a specialist company assisting the victims of crime in Great Britain to obtain compensation, principally under the current Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (CICS). "ACICA" was founded in 2000 (by Richard Dobson, a chartered insurer, and Chris Smith, chartered accountant) and has advised and assisted thousands of potential/actual applicants with their claims, including advocacy and representation at hearings when appropriate.

2. We are not attempting to address all the ideas, proposals and recommendations raised or made in the consultation paper, but concentrate on those that directly impact on the financial elements of support (i.e. compensation).

• Our interpretation of the recommended option - 4 (page 36 onwards) is that it intimates, in addition to the other recommended proposals within the consultation paper, the elimination of tariff bands e.g. 1 to 5 from the current Scheme. In 2001/02 this could have eliminated 24,939 awards, amounting to £34.8m. That represents 63% of the total awards and 26% of the compensation payments.
• If this interpretation is correct, perhaps the most significant and fundamental question arising from the consultation paper has not been posed, nor has consultation been requested thereon. Consequently there could appear to be a breach of the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on consultation papers.
• The concept of an increased onus on the offender for reparations is laudable. However in the absence of significantly strengthened and successful payment enforcement legislation, it would only marginally benefit sporadic victims and/or have a limited impact on the funding of the Scheme.
• Proposals to eliminate compensation from the Scheme for injuries that occur in the course of duty or employment should be implemented, but only when equivalent arrangements are provided for all employees.
• In the absence of readily available and affordable alternatives, the failure of law enforcement or security, resulting in injury, should be realistically compensated by public funding, at monetary levels etc similar to those that apply in accidental injury situations.

4. The Scheme and tariff bands

4.1 The current Scheme
The tariff Scheme compensation payments and number of awards in recent years is shown in the following table. The information has been extracted from the published annual reports and accounts of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) until 2001/02 and thereafter from the consultation paper plus information provided by the CICA, with the exception of the number of awards being estimated (E) as 45,000 in 2003/04.

No restatement has been made to reflect changes in the CICA's accounting policies over the years.

The Home Office News Release in connection with the last changes to the Scheme (045/2001 19th February 2001) forecasted expenditure under the statutory tariff Scheme in both 2002/03 and 2003/04 of £182m.

No payments or awards are included relating to the 1990 common law damages scheme which operated until 31st March 1996.

4.2 The Consultation paper

a. In Annex A Section 4 the recommended option 4 on page 36 states "To make the Scheme more focused and release ………… resources to provide additional and alternative support to victims of crime" and goes on to say "In this model the tariff scheme continues. The victims of the most serious, sexual and violent crimes are compensated in a timely manner." (our italics)

b. In Annex A Section 3 the risk assessment on page 32 states "At present the Scheme is paying out many relatively small amounts of compensation (over 60% of awards are in the range £1,000 - £2,000) with disproportionately high administrative costs ……."

4.3 The ACICA response

We are totally opposed to any elimination of tariff bands, e.g. 1-5 (£1,000 to £2,000) which consist of over 90 injuries including facial scarring for life, mental anxiety lasting for years, sexual abuse of children and many other serious and enduring lifetime injuries.

In terms of the current rules of the Scheme if bands, e.g.1-5 were eliminated:

a. If an offender is not caught but police confirm that a victim has suffered from a crime of violence or terrorism, then compensation is payable. Taking away bands would leave most such victims with no source of injury/loss of earnings compensation since there would be no-one to have a court order against, as the majority of violent crimes do not result in a prosecution.

b. The only separate award for basic mental anxiety/trauma is in band 1. There would be no award in the scheme for this.

c. Many tariff awards, (which were derived from analysis of civil awards, albeit not as generous nor index linked), would no longer exist such that accidental injury victims would get compensation but the majority of crime/terrorist victims would not. We would suggest that a breakdown in law enforcement or security is as much in need of redress as, if not more than, accidents.

d. In a multiple injury situation the first injury attracts an award at a level of 100% of the tariff, the second 30% and the third 15%. If all the injuries were in band 5, the applicant would currently receive £2,900 whereas no award would apply in future.

e. In 2001/02 under the Scheme less than 50% of applicants were unsuccessful. This could rise to over 80% (more than 60,000 per year) if bands 1 to 5 were eliminated, generating increasing disbelief in the fairness of the U.K.'s Criminal Justice System.

N.B. If our interpretation of the consultation paper is totally incorrect regarding the elimination of any bands then this section of our response (excluding the total payments and awards elements of the above table) can be ignored.

5 Offender reparations

In concept we fully concur with the recommended proposals on compensation but in practical terms obtaining realistic compensation from the offender, and getting it actually paid to the victim, would need both aggressive utilisation of the powers within the Courts Act 2003 as well as significant additional enforcement legislation in such areas as dissipation of assets, rehabilitation of offenders and sentencing relating to remission. Prioritisation in all future legislation should also be given (e.g. current plea bargaining proposals).

a) Under the proposals the offender would be likely to be:
Fined, ordered to pay costs, ordered to pay perhaps four types of compensation to the victim, ordered to pay a surcharge and sued in the civil courts by the CICS (or an agent thereof) for personal injury, loss of earnings, and costs.

• An offender is likely to be eligible for legal aid in defending many of the above actions
  
  
• Per Annex B of the consultation paper (page 58) less than 30% of the total sentenced for violence against the person offences had a compensation order imposed
  
  
• Per the Benefits section (para 84 on page 43) the expectation is that the success rate on enforcement on financial penalties would rise from 55% to 60%.
  
  
• Per the Benefits section (para 86 on page 43) " … in practice recovery of compensation from offenders … to successful CICS claimants …. secured through civil action by the victim or through compensation orders imposed by criminal courts, amounts to no more than a few hundred thousand pounds per year."

b) Nevertheless we favour the CICA (or its agent) being empowered to take action for compensation recovery, but that this should only apply when the offender has acquired a criminal record for the offence.

c) Indeed if compensation orders can be made more frequent and substantial, as well as being enforced, then the general funding of the scheme will benefit through the receipt of monies received by victims, via the courts, as these are offset against any compensation from the CICS.

d) Ability to pay and differential compensation levels could follow existing guidelines, or a variation of "Financial Penalties - a guide to the assessment of a fine" used in Magistrates Courts. (Differences between Wealthy, Average Means and Subsistence Levels are taken into account which can give differential fine guidelines e.g. on a fine of £180 varying from £40 to £360).

e) Existing compensation guidelines to the (Magistrates) Courts are less detailed than the tariff of injuries used in the CICS and the latter could be provided to the courts (Magistrates and Crown) as a set of appropriate guidelines.

6 Criminal injuries that occur in the course of duty or employment

Compensation should continue to be available to all employees, including those employed within the emergency services and other high risk public services.

We see merit in the CICA administering this "insurance" and charging the cost back to both the public and private sector participants pending (and possibly after) the insurance industry has developed product(s), if they are prepared to do so. The provision of this mandatory "cover" requires appropriate legislation covering all employers.

We would be happy to discuss directly with the authority (CICA) how we might co-operate in assisting to roll out this service to the private sector if this recommended proposal is adopted.