Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has employed in (a) managerial positions and (b) the complaints team in each of the last five years.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) publishes data about the reasons claims are rejected in its annual reports at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=criminal-injuries-compensation-authority&publication_type=corporate-reports

The figures published in the annual reports show the number of times each rejection reason was used. For some applications there may have been more than one reason for rejection. This means that the total number of reasons for rejection is higher than the actual number of claims refused. The accurate total of rejected claims for the years specified is as follows:

Information about the time CICA has taken to reach decisions on claims over the past few years can also be found in its annual reports (see link above).

The number of full time equivalent staff employed in CICA as at 31 March 2017 was 291.2. The table below shows the number of staff CICA has employed in managerial positions over the past 5 years:

Complaints in CICA are registered by two staff within the Corporate Services team and then allocated to the relevant team to deal with the complaint in line with CICA’s complaints process. CICA teams have staff members assigned to the role of complaints champion in addition to their day to day duties. The number of complaints champions fluctuates depending on demand and staff movement. Complaints champions are responsible for handling complaints and team managers oversee the complaints process in each of their respective areas. This group regularly meets to look at improvements to our complaints handling processes. CICA does not have a record of the number of complaint champions for the last five years due to the fluctuating nature of this work.