Corporate report

Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority: Review 2022 to 2023

Published 24 May 2023

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) completed a review of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). The review was part of the government’s Public Bodies Review Programme. It was started in October 2022 and concluded in February 2023.

1. Background to CICA

Under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995 (the 1995 Act), the Secretary of State is required to make arrangements for the payment of compensation to persons who have sustained criminal injuries.

Following the enactment of the 1995 Act, CICA was established as a Great Britain-wide Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) in 1996 to administer a tariff-based compensation scheme in England, Wales, and Scotland. Separate provisions exist for Northern Ireland administered by the devolved administration.

The Triennial Review, completed in 2013, recommended that CICA be reclassified as an Executive Agency as this represented the most suitable and effective delivery model. CICA became an agency of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) on 1 April 2014.

2. Purpose of the review

The review, conducted in line with Cabinet Office Public Bodies Review Guidance aimed to provide assurance that:

• CICA’s functions remain useful and necessary
• to assess whether the public body is effective, efficient and aligned to government priorities
• to ensure the organisation is well governed and properly accountable for what it does

3. Recommendations and conclusions

A stage 1 review concluded that CICA is in good health. It operates as an outcome delivery system, delivering efficient and effective public outcomes that Parliament and the public expect. Particular areas of strong compliance with good practice indicators include financial management and accountability to Parliament. No major areas of non-compliance have been identified. The very few areas of minor non-compliance are already being addressed by CICA and the MOJ.

This review did not indicate the need for a full, independent review of CICA at this stage. The following proportionate recommendations have been made:

Recommendation 1: Further review

The MOJ should consider a further review of CICA in three to four years’ time once there is greater clarity with regards to reform in the policy environment.

Recommendation 2: Performance monitoring

The reporting of performance information from the department to the Senior Sponsor, Departmental Board and Committees is not entirely clear or consistent. The MOJ should conduct a more detailed review of the current arrangements and measures to establish a more streamlined process for the reporting of performance, finance, risk and compliance should be implemented. This should be linked to the implementation of more consistent and compliant sponsorship arrangements (Recommendation 4).

Recommendation 3: Service Agreements

There is a requirement for MOJ’s functions to define the services and level of standards they provide. Work is ongoing within MOJ to establish how roles and responsibilities in the function-agency relationship will work in practice. Once agreed, the department should work to embed this within CICA - this is likely to be later in 2023-24. The MOJ should provide quarterly progress updates to CICA and the Review Team.

Recommendation 4: Effective Sponsorship

More formal sponsorship arrangements between MOJ and CICA would improve compliance with the Sponsorship Code of Good Practice and strengthen oversight and assurance. The MOJ’s Public Bodies Centre of Expertise is exploring opportunities to establish more consistent and compliant sponsorship arrangements across the department’s Executive Agencies, and these should be implemented where possible.

Recommendation 5: Benchmarking against comparators

The MOJ recently supported a Cabinet Office initiative to benchmark back-office costs across government by sharing corporate and workforce data in relation to a number of its public bodies. To make comparison more meaningful, MOJ, with the support of CICA where required, should continue to work with cross-government exercises to explore reasonable and proportionate opportunities to promote routine benchmarking and improve the quality of the data that is routinely collected and reported.

The Review Team will work with the relevant teams within MOJ and CICA to monitor the implementation of these recommendations.