Select committee: Home Affairs Committee
Conclusion 43
Fifth Report - The Windrush Compensation Scheme
Published 24 Nov 2021
Paragraph 140
Addressed to Home Office
Home Affairs Committee The Windrush Compensation Scheme All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We do not believe that the limited service provided by We Are Digital is sufficient to obviate the need for specialist legal advice. We therefore urge the Home Office to introduce new arrangements to ensure that everyone who wishes to access legal assistance with their claim is able to do so. The Home Office should consider the following options as part of its review: • Extending the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 to include work done under the Windrush Compensation Scheme and waiving means testing for this work; • Establishing an approved panel of legal firms and professionals, with a funding scheme to provide payment for their services to claimants; 94 The Windrush Compensation Scheme • Agreeing a tariff payment for legal costs to be reimbursed to claimants. The payment should reflect the level of support the claimant required, for example whether they requested a review; • Establishing and maintaining a dedicated fund for organisations to provide free legal assistance to claimants.
From: Home Affairs Committee, Fifth Report - The Windrush Compensation Scheme (HC 204), paragraph 140, 24 November 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 7 February 2022 (deadline 24 January 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response to the Committee's Windrush Compensation Scheme report sets out mixed positions, declining a transfer to an independent body while describing changes already made to the scheme and some further work it is taking forward.
- On moving the scheme to an independent organisation, it says this would bring "more delays in issuing payments", and points instead to the Adjudicator's Office review process and an Independent Person advising on the scheme.
- It does not widen the historical cases review, calling that approach "costly, inefficient" and unlikely to locate affected people, and says it has focused on outreach and engagement instead.
- On the £10,000 preliminary award, it says it will process and offer it where "it is clear that the Home Office has wrongly enacted an immigration enforcement action", and that it cannot identify those who have not made contact with it.
- On caseworker capacity, it says the team has 80 caseworkers, with 24 more due to join over January and external recruitment under way to reach 120.