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.

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.