Seeking a Review of the CICA's decision in your case.
CICA Criminal Injuries Compensation claims review.
If you have received a decsion in your application and you are unhappy with the decision, you can ask the CICA Criminal Injuries Compensation Authoity to review the decision. Or, you can ask us to do this for you. Just telephone for a chat about what we can do for you.
Paragraph 58 of the CICA Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2008 provides that an applicant may seek a review of any decision under the scheme for:
not waiving the time limit for compensation for for an application for a review
not re-opening a case under paras 56-57
withholding an award, including decisions made on re-consideration of an award under paras 53-54
making an award, including a decision to make a reduced award whether or not on reconsideration of an award under paras 53-54
seeking re-payment of an award under paras 49
The review is undertaken by a completely different claims officer. The review must be considered by a claims officer who is more senior than the original claims officer who made the decision being challenged. In simple terms, the applicant has a chance to ask a senior CICA claims officer to re-examine the case afresh. The review can be more or less favourable.
For example, an applicant may ask the CICA to re-evaluate the level of the award. The review may increase the compensation, it may lower the compensation, it may keep the compensation the same or it may withdraw the compensation. The senior case officer may request additional information form the police, hospital, GP, dentist, physiotherapist etc to identify the correct situation which may have been missed at the first decision.
An applicant who is dissatisfied with the first decision has 90 days to make a request for a review. In special circumstances, the CICA may allow an extension of this time as long as it is in the interests of justice to do so.
Clearly, the CICA need to know why the applicant thinks the decsion is wrong. It is not sufficient just to say that you believe the decision is wrong just because you think you should be compensated. There has to be some good reasons and perhaps some additional information that was not presented to the CICA at the time of the first decision.
The senior claims officer can take a completely different view of the application compared to the first officer's decision. In our view, it is pointless trying to covercome the CICA officer's decision if the reason why the application was not settled was because of criminal convictions, provided the criminal convictions are correct. There have been cases where the police have provided a criminal convictions check on an applicant and they have mistakenly provided the wrong details.
A common reason for requesting a review is when the CICA refuse an application due to insufficient injuries. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2008 does not make awards for minor injuries, except where an applicant has at least three minor injuries, has received medical attention of two occasions and one of the injuries has persisted or more that six weeks. Of you only have a few bruises and have only sought medical advice once (or not at all) or only suffered with your injury for a few weeks, then it is highly unlikely that a senior decsions officer will find in your favour.
Please telephone for free advice on how to deal with a request for a review. Call us on FREEPHONE 0800 169 3683.
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