Legal News
Government Cut Victim Compensation Fund Budget (23 September 2011)
Date: 23/09/2011
The government has reduced the amount of funding available to award compensation to victims of crime. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme has suffered a five per cent cut – a loss of £10 million. An unpublished report from Victim Support states that the compensation scheme is a “financial time-bomb”. The Ministry of Justice claimed that the budget “would provide sufficient funding.” The government is set to hold a consultation to discuss the future of the scheme.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which runs the scheme, can award between £1,000 and £500,000 to victims of crime. In 2010, more than 60,000 people applied to receive compensation through the scheme. David Hines, chairman of the National Victims Association, is said to be furious at the funding cut. Mr. Hines believes that the budget should be increased by £200 million. He claims that decent payouts need to be made to homicide victims and victims of serious crime.
Victim Support’s report concluded that thousands of victims of crime are forced to endure waits of more than two years to receive the compensation that they have been awarded yet stated that the victims need financial support in the first few months following a crime. It also slammed the scheme's rules for its considerable degree of unfairness in which the most vulnerable victims find the compensation system heavily weighed against them.
The team of personal injury solicitors at Duncan Lewis can help clients to receive both general and specialist damage compensation. The majority of claims can be dealt with in the absence of court action.