Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average length of time between application to initial decision was for awards issued by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority in (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15.

The average time taken for CICA to reach an initial decision in the years 2013-14 and 2014-15 were as follows. Note that this time includes cases where no compensation was payable within the terms of the Scheme. Comparable data going back to financial year 2010-11 is included.

The average time taken for CICA to reach an initial decision where compensation was offered, during the years 2013-14 and 2014-15 were as follows. Comparable data for the average time taken to make a decision where a monetary award was offered is not held.

In the last year, CICA have focused on clearing the older cases from its caseload, which has allowed CICA to reduce the proportion of cases which are more than two years old. However, this has contributed to longer average clearance times.