Recommendation 33

HM Government · verbatim extract Accepted

The changes that we made in December 2020 have been instrumental in ensuring that people received more compensation more quickly: • We raised the minimum award under the Impact on Life category to £10,000, 40 times the previous minimum award under this category. • This is now paid as a new early preliminary payment as soon as someone applying on their own behalf, or on behalf of someone who has sadly passed away, can show any impact on their life under the terms of the Scheme. They don’t have to wait for their whole application to be assessed. • We increased the value of compensation under the Impact on Life category at every level, with the maximum award increasing from £10,000 to £100,000 (with options for even higher awards in exceptional circumstances). • We overhauled the Loss of Access to Employment category, including removing the 12-month cap on payments in all circumstances. These changes have had an immediate and significant impact on the speed and amount of compensation being offered. Within six weeks of making these changes we had offered more for Impact on Life than we had in the first 19 months of the Scheme. Since the end of December 2020, we have offered more in compensation than in the first 19 months of the Scheme rising £6.17 million to more than £12 million at the end of January 2021. We have also paid more than ten times the total amount paid before the December 2020 changes were made. We continue to make improvements to the Scheme, including simplifying the application process, hiring more caseworkers and removing the Scheme’s end date to ensure no one is prevented from making a claim if they are eligible. We have published refreshed caseworker guidance which sets out clearly how caseworkers should apply the balance of probabilities and go about gathering evidence, with the aim of reducing the time taken to process claims and improving peoples’ experiences of applying to the Scheme. We have also brought in new support measures for those claiming on behalf of relatives who have passed away. And for those who need more support in applying, we have funded an organisation (We Are Digital) to provide free, independent claimant assistance to individuals.