CICA: Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority
The authority is a government body that administers the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme in England and Wales on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and in Scotland for the devolved Scottish Government. A separate scheme operates in Northern Ireland. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) has 450 staff in its Glasgow office and processes around 65,000 applications a year that result in almost £200 million in compensation payments. CICA was preceded by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and the two bodies have paid over £3 billion in compensation between them since the scheme was established in 1964. This makes it the largest and most generous compensation scheme of its type in the world. CICA provides a free service that aims to compensate victims of violent crime. In order to qualify, victims must have suffered a physical or mental injury that resulted from such a crime. The injury must have necessitated at least two visits to a doctor and recovery from the injury must have taken at least six weeks. Compensation will only be awarded if the crime was reported to the police and the claimant has co-operated fully with the police and other authorities. Additionally, the victim must not have provoked the assault, must behave properly subsequently and has to submit an application for compensation within two years of the crime taking place. It is not necessary for there to have been a conviction and the attacker may not even have been traced. Until 1996, the level of compensation payable under the scheme was on the same basis as personal injury claims in civil actions, with each amount being assessed depending on the victim's injuries and financial loss. Since 1996, a fixed tariff was put in place, which was revised in 2001. The tariff has 400 separate injuries that are attached to 25 levels of compensation. The lowest award is £1000, which covers something like a broken rib, while the top payment is £250,000. An applicant can claim for injuries across a maximum of three separate tariffs, being allowed 100% of the amount for the first tariff, 30% of the second and 15% of the third. Compensation may also be paid for loss of earnings if the victim is still unable to work after 28 weeks and for the cost of treatment and care if incapacitated for more than 28 weeks. The maximum payment the CICA will make for all compensation, losses and expenses is £500,000.  |
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