PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Criminal Injuries Compensation (23 February 2016)

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.

Asked by:
Graham Stuart (Conservative)

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.

2010-11	7.2 months
2011-12	7.8 months
2012-13	8.8 months
2013-14	10.4 months
2014-15	10.9 months

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.

2013-14	14 months
2014-15	16 months

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.

Answered by:
Sir Mike Penning (Conservative)
3 March 2016