Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority: Complaints
(asked on 29th June 2017) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many complaints the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has received in each of the last five years; and how many of those cases were (a) escalated to stage 2 and (b) progressed to stage 3.
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) received 533 complaints about their service in the financial year 2015-16. This represents 1.3% of CICA’s live caseload. 49% of complaints were closed within 10 days.
Where complaints took longer to close this was due to the number of enquiries required to fully investigate the complaint. In other cases, CICA were asked by the complainer not to close the complaint until a final decision was issued on the claim. The average time CICA took to deal with those complaints was 23.75 days.
The most common complaint received by CICA related to delays in finalising claims. CICA aims to make compensation payments as quickly as possible, however, they have a duty to the taxpayer to fully investigate claims to make sure that the applicant gets the level of compensation they deserve.
The 10 most common reasons for complaining about CICA’s service in 2015/16 were:
Reason given for complaint | Percentage of overall complaints |
Delays | 68.95% |
Lack of updates on case progression | 11.33% |
Claim handling | 9.77% |
Failure to respond to letters | 4.10% |
Applicant provided with conflicting information | 2.93% |
Failure to provide timescales | 1.76% |
Failure to return phone calls | 0.59% |
Errors when recording telephone application information | 0.20% |
Impolite staff member | 0.20% |
Poor customer service | 0.20% |
The total number of complaints the CICA received in each of the last five years, including those cases (a) escalated to stage 2 and (b) progressed to stage 3, are as follows:
Year | Complaints received | Escalated to Stage 2 | Escalated to Stage 3 |
2016-17 | 1122 | 120 | 7 |
2015-16 | 533 | 39 | 6 |
2014-15 | 491 | 26 | 9 |
2013-14 | 204 | 8 | 1 |
2012-13 | 284 | 10 | 5 |
Over half of complaints received in 2016/17 were from paid representatives. A significant portion of these were from firms of solicitors who lodged block complaints for their CICA caseload with a view to influencing the speed of the decision making process.
During the course of 2016/17 the CICA revised their operating model and increased staff numbers following an extensive recruitment exercise. They have also recently introduced measures that develop and streamline digital processes, which have reduced the claim processing time by 30 days. The new online service, which will be introduced later this financial year, will allow applicants and their representatives to view the progress of their case online. It is expected that these measures will reduce the time taken to finalise claims and lead to a reduction in complaints.