Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority

6. Mr U complains that the CICA told him in August 2022 that he should not send it his college supporting documents, payslips and working documents. He also complains that the CICA spoke to him rudely a few times between August 2022 and February 2023. He says this caused an almost four-month delay in processing his claim, as well as anxiety, distress and panic attacks. He would like a financial payment of £2,500.

7. Mr U spoke to the CICA by phone on 23 August 2022 about his claim. He also spoke to it a few times between August 2022 and February 2023.

8. Mr U was unhappy with the service and information the CICA provided on these calls, so complained to it on 19 December 2022 and to his MP on 20 March 2023.

Supporting documents

11. Before we decide if we should do a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation got something wrong. We have tried to do this and have found there is not enough evidence available for us to make a fair, evidence-based decision about what happened.

12. The CICA said, ‘all telephone calls received within the CICA’s Customer Support Team are recorded, and these calls are held for 100 days, in line with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and CICA’s data retention policy. This means that, at the time your complaint was received on 19 December 2022, CICA no longer held the recording of the call that occurred on 23 August 2022. Therefore, I have been unable to investigate your concerns as thoroughly as I would like.’

13. The CICA’s Records Management Policy says call recordings are kept for 120 days and then deleted.

14. We have seen that Mr U complained to the CICA on 19 December about a call that was made on 23 August. This shows that Mr U’s complaint was received by the CICA 118 days after the call was made. The CICA acknowledged receipt of Mr U’s complaint the next day, 119 days after the call, but investigation did not begin until 6 January 2023, 136 days after the call.

15. Due to the call being deleted after 120 days, there is not enough evidence for us to investigate this. We understand Mr U may find this frustrating. This does not mean we do not believe what he says about the call, only that we cannot reach a decision supported by evidence about what happened.

Customer service

16. Before we decide if we should do a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the events complained about had a negative effect which the organisation has not put right. Having done so we have found the CICA has already done enough to put right the impact of what happened.

17. Mr U said the CICA spoke to him rudely during several phone calls between August 2022 and February 2023.

18. The CICA said, ‘I have listened to all available telephone call recordings between yourself and the CICA, which includes 5 calls from 8 December 2022 onwards. I have found the standard of service you received during 3 of these calls to fall below what I would consider to be acceptable from the CICA. I am sorry that you have not received the standard of service that I would expect our applicants to receive.’ The CICA said it, ‘provided feedback to the relevant manager’ and, ‘advised that the call handler was to be provided with feedback and training’ to make sure this does not happen again. It also said it would not pay him any compensation.

19. Our ‘Principles of Good Administration’ say:

• ‘Public bodies should always deal with people fairly and with respect.

• Public bodies should take responsibility for the actions of their staff.

• When mistakes happen, public bodies should acknowledge them, apologise, explain what went wrong and put things right quickly and effectively.’

20. Our ‘Principles of Remedy’ say:

‘Where maladministration [fault] or poor service has led to injustice or hardship, public bodies should try to offer a remedy that returns the complainant to the position they would have been in otherwise.

An appropriate range of remedies will include:

• an apology, explanation, and acknowledgement of responsibility

• remedial action, which may include reviewing or changing a decision on the service given to an individual complainant; revising published material; revising procedures to prevent the same thing happening again; training or supervising staff; or any combination of these

• financial compensation for direct or indirect financial loss, loss of opportunity, inconvenience, distress, or any combination of these.’

21. Our guidance on financial payments says:

‘A case will generally be level one if we consider the person affected has experienced a low impact injustice such as annoyance, frustration, worry or inconvenience. This would typically arise from a single (one-off) incidence of maladministration or service failure, where the effect on the person complaining is of short duration, and where there are no other adverse effects or ongoing wider impact.

We will usually consider an apology to be an appropriate remedy for these cases.’

22. We have seen that the CICA did give Mr U a level of service that was lower than expected. We have also seen that the CICA has apologised, given an explanation, accepted responsibility and given training to the staff involved. We think the CICA has acted in line with our principles and guidance and done enough to put things right.

23. We understand Mr U may find our decision disappointing after all he has been through. We hope he can take some comfort in knowing his complaint has been independently investigated.

1. We have carefully considered Mr U’s complaint about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA).

2. For Mr U’s complaint that the CICA told him that he could not send in his supporting documents, we have decided there is not enough available evidence for us to make a fair, evidence-based decision.

3. For Mr U’s complaint that the CICA spoke to him rudely, we have decided that it has already done enough to put right the impact of what happened.

4. We understand Mr U may find our decisions frustrating after all he has been through.

5. We have provided a detailed explanation of our decisions below.