Asked by: Dave Doogan (Scottish National Party - Angus and Perthshire Glens)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to help reduce the time taken to process compensation claims by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority; and if she will introduce measures to help ensure timely decisions for people awaiting compensation.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 (the 2012 Scheme) does not prescribe a time limit for applications to be decided.
The majority of applications are decided within 12 months. Each application must be considered on its own facts and assessed based on the information available. In almost all cases, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) needs to get information from third parties such as the police and medical authorities to assess applications.
Some applications will by necessity take longer to decide. This could be where information is not available due to ongoing criminal proceedings, where CICA needs time to assess the long-term impacts of complex injuries (e.g. brain injuries), or where there is an application for loss of earnings which requires at least 28 weeks of loss. CICA has continued to uplift staff numbers in line with funding and identify operational efficiencies to ensure applications are decided as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Dave Doogan (Scottish National Party - Angus and Perthshire Glens)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many veterans are (a) in prison and (b) in the criminal justice system, as a result of violent crimes.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The Ministry of Justice publishes a yearly snapshot which estimates the number of former service personnel in the prison population. The second of these was published in October 2019, with the next estimate due in October 2020. Further details can be found at the following link -https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/842613/Ex-service_personnel_in_the_prison_population_Q2_2019.pdf’
Our analysis of the prison population showed that as at 30 June 2019, 2,105 prisoners had declared as ‘ex-service personnel’ when they were first received into custody between January 2015 and June 2019. Of these, 448 have an offence of violence against a person. We do not hold the information requested in the criminal justice system for former service personnel.
We remain committed to ensuring that those who have served in the Armed Forces and who find themselves in the criminal justice system are able to access support, whether they are serving their sentence in custody or in the community. Through the Armed Forces Covenant Trust Fund, we have committed to support programmes worth £4.6 million targeted at former service personnel in the criminal justice system, and recently awarded an additional £1.1 million to continue supporting this cohort.