Website reviews

Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority

www.cica.gov.uk

Where else to start but at the website of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA)? The site is very, very good indeed (if I skip swiftly over the fact that you have to use Internet Explorer, rather than any other browser, to access even the front page). In fact, the whole thing is not only very well laid out and easy to navigate, it contains just about everything you need to understand the scheme and make an informed and effective claim for compensation. It also has some rather neat interactive bells and whistles.

The downloads area has all the documents which a solicitor might wish to refer to, including the guide and compensation schemes in both the 1996 and updated 2001 versions. There are also leaflets for the use of applicants and these are available in 12 community languages (including Welsh, but not Gaelic).

And yet, the best bits are still to come. There is an interactive tariff calculator, in which you can enter the injury or injuries sustained and get a forecast of the amount of compensation to which any given client may be entitled. The interface for this includes the dark blue outline of a human body, which then invites you to click on the part of the body injured! There is also an eligibility questionnaire, which assesses whether your client is eligible to make a claim in the first place and, if so, then leads on to the application itself – which can be made online! Brilliant. You can even start an application online, submit what you have, then amend it later once you have further information. Or, if you insist, type out the form online to print and post or, if you really must, print out a form to complete by hand.

Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel

www.cicap.gov.uk

If you thought that the CICA website was good (and it is), well this one is even better. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeal Panel (or CICAP), as the name suggests, handles appeals in cases where the CICA has rejected an application. Its site is immensely useful for the practitioner and appellant alike. For example, on a practical note, you can get directions to the venue of your appeal hearing and, if your appeal is in London, look at photographs of the hearing rooms (why not elsewhere?). You can also check who will be hearing any given appeal as soon as you know the date and venue for the hearing – although the hearings calendar didn’t seem to be working very well when I tried it.

You’ll find the same schemes and guides (in both versions) as on the CICA website and some limited information (although only in English and sometimes Welsh). However, there is also a fantastic case law section, which enables you to browse (under the categories of eligibility, compensation and procedure) or search a fairly extensive case law database. Each case has summary details and a link to a PDF document of the whole judgment. Supplementing this “black letter law” is a chairman’s direction on financial loss and how this should be evidenced by employed and self-employed people respectively.

Again, an appeal can be made online and in a matter of minutes this time, given the less complex nature of the appeal form. All in all, a nice, neat and very useful site.

Legal Services Agency

www.lsa.org.uk/lsa11.htm

Further information on criminal injuries compensation is available in brief from the website of the Legal Services Agency, a law centre based in Glasgow. Their two free leaflets on the subject are available to order from the website or to read online (but not in PDF, sadly). Choose from “Victims of Violent Crime: How to Claim Compensation” and “Victims of Violence and Abuse: Compensation for Children and Young Adults”. Both are filled with helpful examples for clients which aim to simplify the process of applying for compensation and are well written in simple language, with headings such as: “What’s It Worth?” and “When Do I Get The Money?”

LSA’s site also has an online criminal injuries calculator, which can give you an idea of the value of any given claim for a single personal injury.

At one point, this was cutting edge stuff, and it still works well enough, but the version on the CICA site eclipses this one on every front – and looks much prettier, too.