Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Deferred
Urge Wendy Williams to review Windrush Compensation Scheme as part of Home Office progress.
Recommendation
Many people who have applied for compensation have yet to receive a penny and we have heard too many stories of people struggling with impossible demands for evidence, poor communication from the Home Office and a lack of understanding of the issues they faced. For some, the experience of applying for compensation from the Home Office has become a source of further trauma rather than redress. Many of the concerns raised with us about the Windrush Compensation Scheme as part of this inquiry have echoes of the same criticisms made of the Home Office by Wendy Williams in her report into how the Windrush scandal occurred. It is a damning indictment of the Home Office that the design and operation of this scheme contained the same bureaucratic insensitivities that led to the Windrush scandal in the first place, and suggests that the culture change promised in the wake of the scandal has not yet occurred. We are deeply concerned that delays and difficulties in the compensation scheme have compounded the injustices faced by members of the Windrush generation. As a result, we urge Wendy Williams to look at the compensation scheme as part of her review of the Home Office’s progress on her recommendations. (Paragraph 23) An unknown number of applicants
Government response summary AI-generated
The government's response focuses on its revised planning assumption for the number of eligible claims, stating it now estimates between 4,000 and 6,000, without directly addressing the committee's concerns about the difficulties of the application process.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
Since April 2019, the Compensation Scheme has paid out or offered over £38 million in compensation. Our December 2020 overhaul of the Scheme has had an immediate beneficial impact on the amount paid out—within six weeks we had offered more than we had in the previous 19 months of the Scheme. As of the end of October, the Home Office has paid more than ten times the total amount paid prior to the changes being announced and offered an average of £3.1 million per month. Wendy Williams is currently reviewing the Home Office’s progress in implementing the 30 recommendations set out in the Windrush Lessons Learned Review (WLLR) report, which includes the Windrush Compensation Scheme. We expect the design and operational decision making within the Compensation Scheme to be considered within this review and we will consider any further recommendations once received.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗