Official Statistics

MOD common law compensation claims statistics 2020/21

Published 4 November 2021

This bulletin relates to claims brought against the Ministry of Defence for compensation at common law (other than those arising out of contract disputes). These are dealt with by the Claims Unit within the Department’s Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy (DJEP), by contractors operating in accordance with instructions provided by the Claims Unit, or by delegated authorities. These statistics do not include compensation awarded under the MOD’s no fault schemes - the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and its predecessor the War Pension Scheme

1. Key Points

• Total payments by MOD for compensation claims and associated costs in Financial Year 2020/21 (not including those arising out of contract disputes) were around £124M, including claimants’ legal costs. This is exclusive of MOD legal costs and staff costs. Over the same period recoveries of close to £1M were achieved.
• The highest value claim that was settled in 2020/21 was for a personal injury as a result of a parachuting accident. The total paid out on this claim (in both damages and claimants’ costs) was around £3.4M.
• The total number of new claims brought against MOD was 3,431. This represents an overall decrease of around a third on claims brought in 2019/20.
• 921 Service Personnel Employer’s liability claims were settled in 2020/21. In-year expenditure on Service Personnel Employer’s liability claims was £73.2M.
• 206 Civilian Employer’s Liability claims were settled in 2020/21. In-year expenditure on Civilian Employer’s liability claims was £20.8M.
• 989 Public Liability claims were settled in 2020/21, of which 373 were third party motor claims. In-year expenditure on Public Liability claims was £20.5M, of which £2.8M was accounted for by third party motor claims.
• 26 Clinical Negligence claims were settled in 2020/21. In-year expenditure on Clinical Negligence claims was £5M.
• The in-year expenditure on structured settlements/periodic payments was around £3.7M.
• 407 claims were settled by delegated authorities in 2020/21. The in/year expenditure for delegated authorities was £1.2M with recoveries in excess of £150,000.

Point of contact: Deputy Head of Common Law Claims and Policy
Telephone: 0207 218 1538
Further information: SPODJEP-ClaimsGeneral@mod.gov.uk

Background Quality Report: Background Quality Report

2. Introduction

When compensation claims are received they are considered on the basis of whether or not the Ministry of Defence has a legal liability to pay compensation. A payment of compensation in circumstances where the Department does not consider that a court would find it liable would count as an ex gratia payment; the Department is not empowered to make such payments without Treasury authorisation with the exception of claims arising from low flying. Treasury approval is not frequently sought or given.

The amount of compensation paid is determined by common law principles which broadly take account, as appropriate, of such factors as an individual’s pain and suffering, degree of injury, property losses, past and future financial losses and level of care required. Advice is sought where necessary from the Government Legal Department, and a range of specialist Personal Injury Law firms for cases brought in England and Wales; the Crown Solicitor in Northern Ireland; and Morton Fraser Solicitors, the Department’s legal adviser in Scotland. Counsel are also consulted on high profile or complex cases or where a point of law needs to be explored. The majority of cases are settled through negotiation, saving the parties the additional costs of a court appearance. This bulletin does not distinguish between compensation ordered by a court and compensation paid pursuant to a negotiated settlement.

3. Section 1 Common law compensation claims made against the MOD

The total number of new claims brought against MOD in 2020/21 was 3,431. This represents an overall decrease of around a third on claims brought in 2019/20. The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to have impacted the numbers of claims brought. The largest reductions seen are for motor claims and Employer’s liability Service claims. Service-related noise-induced hearing loss claims remain the most commonly claimed for condition in the Employer’s liability claims category.

3.1 Table 1: New claims, by category

	FY16/17	FY17/18	FY18/19	FY19/20	FY20/21
Total new claims brought	4,369r	3,688r	4,826r	5,184r	3,431
Public Liability	1,754	1,544	1,633	1,317	923
Motor	1,494	1,092	1,181	1,099	656
Personal injury	184	91	107	86	42
Property/vehicle damage	1,287	986	1,064	1,005	609
Vehicle overseas	23	15	10	8	5
Other Public Liability	260	452	452	218	267
Personal Injury	92	93	91	91	77
Low flying	101	61	55	49	88
Maritime	9	10	6	1	10
Iraq Private Law	1	-	1	-	-
Afghanistan Private Law	1r	-	-	-	-
NI Legacy	2	228	263	37	50
Other	54r	60	36	40	42
Employer’s Liability	1,743r	1,532r	2,566r	3,089r	1,977
Service	1,362r	1,238r	2,227r	2,789r	1,739
Noise-induced hearing loss	901r	856r	1,850r	2,513r	1,523
Non-freezing cold injury	104r	121r	160r	97r	63
Other	357	261	217	179	153
Civilian	381r	294r	339r	300r	238
Noise-induced hearing loss	111r	64r	73r	47r	38
Asbestos related	94	112	127	91	102
Other	176	118	139	162	98
Clinical negligence	255	163	69	46	26
Delegated Authorities	617	449	558	732	505
Area Claims Offices	608	443	545	726	454
Defence Infrastructure Organisation	9e	6e	13e	6e	51e

Source: Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy Common Law Claims & Policy

r: This figure has been revised since the 2019/20 report. Please see the Background Quality Report for more information.

The majority of motor claims will be third party motor liability claims.

The Other category within Other Public Liability will include for example, property damage claims which usually come from personnel working and living in service accommodation who have had their belongings damaged by poor maintenance of their accommodation or infrastructure.

4. Section 2 Settled Common law compensation claims notified

In this Section, the term settled relates to claims where damages have been awarded to the claimant and damages and associated legal costs have been paid. In total 2,549 claims were settled on all costs in 2020/21 either out of Court or by Court verdict. The financial year in which settlement is recorded is not necessarily the year in which the damages were paid. This category does not include any claims which were discontinued, struck out by the Courts, or repudiated by the Claims Unit.

4.1 Table 2: Settled claims, by category

	FY16/17	FY17/18	FY18/19	FY19/20	FY20/21
Total claims settled	3,391r	2,879r	2,728r	2,783r	2,549
Public Liability	1,095	964r	755r	781r	989
Motor	913r	819	647r	665	423
Personal injury	185	144	141r	91	61
Property/ vehicle damage	720r	666	500	569	357
Vehicle overseas	8	9	6	5	5
Other Public Liability	182r	145r	108r	116r	566
Personal Injury	80r	58r	48r	50r	55
Low flying	49r	36r	33r	35	46
Maritime	6	5	6	2	8
Iraq Private Law	-	2r	2r	1	417
Afghanistan Private Law	1r	-	1r	-	13
NI Legacy	15	6	2	4	7
Other	31	38	16	24r	20
Employer’s Liability	1,524r	1,416r	1,410r	1,457r	1,127
Service	1,294r	1,170r	1,149r	1,245r	921
Noise-induced hearing loss	915r	796r	828r	1,001r	686
Non-freezing cold injury	150r	166r	127r	69r	115
Other	229	208	194	175r	120
Civilian	230r	246r	261r	212r	206
Noise-induced hearing loss	60r	57r	34r	42r	17
Asbestos related	87	101	102	89	88
Other	83	88	125	81	101
Clinical negligence	27	20r	24	18r	26
Delegated Authorities	745	479	539	527	407
Area Claims Offices	736	473	526	521	357
Defence Infrastructure Organisation	9	6	13	6	50

Source: Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy Common Law Claims & Policy

Caveat: It is possible that the same claim may be shown as settled in more than one financial year within the published figures, refer to Background Quality Report for more information.

r: This figure has been revised since the 2019/20 report. Please see the Background Quality Report for more information.

The majority of motor claims will be third party motor liability claims.

The Other category within Other Public Liability will include for example, property damage claims which usually come from personnel working and living in service accommodation who have had their belongings damaged by poor maintenance of their accommodation or infrastructure.

5. Cost of compensation claims notified

This table includes damages and other costs, such as claimants’ legal costs. It does not include MOD’s own legal costs which will comprise of fees to MOD instructed lawyers and disbursements such as Counsel fees and expert fees as well as some own costs for MOD’s current contractor for non-litigated cases. Expenditure may include interim payments for active claims as well as final payments for settled claims. The Personal Injury Discount Rate is currently minus 0.25%.

5.1 Table 3: In-year expenditure on claims, by category

	FY16/17	FY17/18	FY18/19	FY19/20	FY20/21
Total in-year expenditure £/million	101.294	129.859	130.974	147.378	124.442
In-year expenditure by MOD Claims Unit and claims contractors	99.762	128.193	129.699	145.425	123.245
Public Liability	12.479	11.182	17.582	31.672	20.529
Employer’s Liability	76.621	100.373	102.488	88.633	93.996
Service	60.012	83.253	86.277	83.083	73.174
Civilian	16.609	17.119	16.211	5.550	20.822
Clinical negligence	7.683	13.654	6.436	21.483	5.006
In-year structured settlement or periodic payments	2.978	2.985	3.193	3.682	3.713
In-year expenditure by Delegated Authorities	1.533	1.666	1.276	1.953	1.197
Area Claims Offices	1.519	1.653	1.248	1.945	1.107
ACO Afghanistan	~	~	~	0.001	0.001
ACO North West Europe	0.776	1.063	0.502	1.145	0.427
ACO Cyprus	0.743	0.587	0.742	0.793	0.674
ACO South Atlantic Islands	-	0.002	0.003	0.007	0.006
Defence Infrastructure Organisation	0.013	0.013	0.028	0.008	0.090

Source: Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy Common Law Claims & Policy

Public liability claims include motor third party claims at a cost of £2.8M.

6. Glossary

• Civilian refers to all MOD civilian employees including members of the Ministry of Defence Guard Service (MGS) and Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) as well as cadets.
• Delegated authorities include the overseas Area Claims Offices (ACOs) and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO).
• In-year expenditure inclusive of damages and other costs such as claimant’s legal costs. It does not include MOD legal costs which will comprise of fees to MOD instructed lawyers and disbursements such as Counsel fees and expert fees as well as some own costs for MOD’s current contractor for non-litigated cases. Expenditure may include interim payments for active claims as well as final payments for settled claims.
• Recoveries comprise of all recoveries including recovery claims. Numbers of recovery claims such as Uninsured loss recovery in respect of damage to MOD vehicles caused by third party vehicles are not included in this report.
• Settled claim relates to a claim where damages have been awarded to the claimant and damages and all associated legal costs have been paid.

7. Further Information

7.1 Revisions

There are no regular planned revisions of this Bulletin. Any substantial changes which are discovered to be necessary will be made to the on-line version of the Bulletin. Corrections to the published statistics will be made if errors are found, or if figures change as a result of improvements to methodology or changes to definitions. When making corrections, we will follow the Ministry of Defence Statistics, revisions and corrections policy All corrected figures will be identified by the symbol “r”. Corrections which would have a significant impact on the utility of the statistics will be corrected as soon as possible, by reissuing the publication.

Symbols

• e estimated figure based on the number of settled cases
• r revised figure
• • zero
• ~ £500 or less

7.2 Contact us

Claims Point of Contact – Deputy Head of Common Law Claims and Policy, Telephone: 0207 218 1538

E-mail: SPODJEP-ClaimsGeneral@mod.gov.uk

Statistical Point of Contact – Head of Defence Statistics (Tri-Service),
Telephone: 0207 807 8896

Email: Analysis-Publications@mod.gov.uk

If you require information which is not available within this or other available publications, you may wish to submit a Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to the Ministry of Defence. If you wish to correspond by email, our postal address is:

Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy – Common Law Claims and Policy Ministry of Defence, Main Building
Floor 3 Zone I
Whitehall
London
SW1A 2HB

For general MOD enquiries, please call: 020 7218 9000