Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Victims’ Payments Board, HC 308
Monday 4 December 2023
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 4 November 2023.
Members present: Sir Robert Buckland (Chair); Stephen Farry; Tony Lloyd; Carla Lockhart.
Questions 25 - 37
Witnesses
II: The Hon Mr Justice McAlinden, President, Victims’ Payments Board; Paul Bullick, Secretary, Victims’ Payments Board; Patrick Gallagher, Director of Victims and Survivors, The Executive Office, Northern Ireland.
Examination of witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Justice McAlinden, Paul Bullick and Patrick Gallagher.
Q25 Chair: We move on now to panel 2. I am very pleased to be able to welcome the next three witnesses. We have the honourable Mr Justice McAlinden, who is president of the Victims’ Payments Board, Paul Bullick, the secretary to that board, and Patrick Gallagher, who is the director of victims and survivors at the Executive Office. A warm welcome to all three of you for joining us remotely. I wanted to start by asking each of you your view as to the progress and challenges thus far of implementing the scheme.
Mr Justice McAlinden: Good evening. I am very glad to have this opportunity to address the Committee and I am very grateful to the Committee for taking the interest in this scheme that they have shown. I must say that I had great benefit from the first session, from hearing the exchanges between the members of the Committee and the witnesses that you have called. I will certainly take away a lot of information from that first session, which will be of great benefit to the to the board going forward.
In terms of the issues that we face, one theme that really comes to the fore in relation to difficulties with the scheme is the complexity of the scheme. We are tasked with assessing disability as a result of an injury sustained as a Troubles-related incident. There are three hurdles for an applicant to cross. There must be a Troubles-related incident, an injury resulting from that Troubles-related incident and a level of disability flowing from that injury. That requires, in essence, a detailed investigative approach in relation to those three aspects. The scheme itself is set up on the basis that the applicant has to provide and adduce the evidence to the board to satisfy the board, on the balance of probabilities, that those three issues have been met or those three hurdles have been overcome.
We have found that, in essence, to ensure that everyone gets a fair opportunity to put their case before the board, the board has to do a lot of investigation. In terms of Troubles-related incidents, the board has to make quite intensive inquiries from PSNI, MoD, public records, et cetera, in relation to the issue of the Troubles-related incident and whether the applicant has actually sustained an injury as a result of that Troubles‑related incident. A lot of the records are either lost or, in cases of psychological injury, the records never existed in the first place.
The Committee must be aware of the fact that, in a lot of these applications, we have applicants alleging that they have suffered injury as a result of multiple Troubles-related incidents, and each one of those has to be looked into. Of the 5,847 applications that we had by the end of November, about a third of those relate to multiple incidents, so all those various incidents have to be looked at and investigated.
There is the issue of the injury. We found that the scheme was initially designed to deal with physical injury and then, before the legislation was finalised, it was considered appropriate, and rightly so, to extend the scheme to deal with psychological injury. That is where we have found it most difficult, in terms of dealing with the issue of psychological injury. A lot of the records are lost or no entries were made in the records in relation to psychiatric issues.
As Professor Mulholland has explained in the first session, the board has had to design a workaround to that by basically ensuring that whatever records exist are considered by an appropriate panel of experts. If the psychologist or psychiatrist who has been retained by the board to look at the records can make a diagnosis of a psychiatric or psychological injury, that is all well and good. The victim does not need to be interviewed. The risk of re-traumatisation is reduced.
If we cannot, or if the expert cannot, ascertain from the documentation that exists whether an injury has been suffered, it is necessary for this face-to-face examination to take place. Hopefully, a diagnosis can be made, and it can then be passed on to Capita to deal with the disability assessment aspect of the scheme.
Again, it is very important to emphasise that the vast majority of the applications we have been faced with have a psychological component. Over 95% of the 5,847 applications that are for assessment contain a psychological component. Only 258 are for physical injury only.
When one sees the complexity of the issues here, one can readily appreciate that, in order to give every applicant a fair crack of the whip, time must be taken to investigate those various issues. If the material is not supplied by the applicant, that does not mean the application fails. It means the board will leave no stone unturned to ensure that every investigation is carried out to garner that information to enable an application to be fairly assessed.
When victims’ groups and victims raise the issue of delay in the processing of applications—from one perspective, I can fully appreciate that there are frustrations with the time taken in the processing of applications—the answer I meet them with is simply this. The time taken is evidence of the care taken by the board to ensure that every application is dealt with fairly and properly and that every piece of information that can be retrieved is retrieved and carefully scrutinised to ensure that no one falls through the net and is left without an appropriate recognition of a harm they have suffered.
That would be the main issue I would like to emphasise to the Committee. Yes, there are bottlenecks. Yes, there are difficulties in dealing with these applications in a speedy manner. The care that has been taken to ensure that these applications are dealt with properly does necessarily involve the elapse of time. That would be the key message I would like to start with this evening.
Paul Bullick: Good evening. To add to that, I would fully agree with and echo what the judge has detailed. At the same time, from an operational point of view, in my role as secretary I work very closely with the panel members and the administration team.
We have been doing a number of things. We have engaged an independent review of our end-to-end processes to look at the bottlenecks that are within our own gift, which we can make changes to, and the areas where we can streamline our activities. We are hoping that this independent review will provide us with some quick wins that we can implement relatively quickly and other ones that will take a bit of time to implement.
We have also established three sub-committees within the board structure. They have representation from right across the board, from the legal members, the medical members and the lay experienced members. One of these committees is the rework committee, which looks at the disablement assessment process and tries to make improvements there. That is working very effectively. We also have an operational committee and a business assurance committee.
These three committees are also working across purposes, with a multidisciplinary approach, where appropriate, to look at particular blockages. For instance, we are doing a deep dive into our priority cases to make sure we are doing everything that is within our gift and working with our information-sharing partners to deal with any blockages as efficiently as we can. We are also looking into a number of other areas.
In early 2024, we are also setting up a number of workshops involving representatives from the sector and the support groups that provide assistance and support to applicants throughout the process. Again, these workshops will be focused on particular areas. One will be looking at communications. We are hoping to improve our communications. One will maybe look at the appeal and adjournment processes. One will look at the disablement assessment. We are hoping to get real and true feedback from our victims and our applicant base so we can take that on board and make some improvements.
The other thing, which I know has been brought up in the first panel, is around communications. We have updated our communications and engagement plan. Starting off very early in 2024, we will be issuing a leaflet to all households within Northern Ireland. We will also be teaming up or working with our partners in the churches and the healthcare sector to get as much awareness out there as possible.
Coupled with that, we will be doing some media right across the UK and outside Northern Ireland. Just this week I have been making contact with some of the commissioners for veterans. We know there are a number of other groups out there working throughout the UK that we can tap into and offer either face-to-face or online awareness sessions and question-and-answer sessions so we can get the information about the scheme out there as wide as we can.
Patrick Gallagher: My board colleagues have covered the complexity of the evidence gathering and the time taken, but I can say a little around the wider context that feeds into this from the perspective of victims and survivors.
The TEO’s aim is to meet the needs of victims and survivors where we can and to deal with the uncertainty around the scheme and the wider sector. In particular, the previous panel mentioned the issues around the eligibility for someone to apply to this scheme and the level of permanent disablement, which is different to the victims and survivors order.
We are working with the victims sector. There are numerous victims and survivors who may not be eligible for a payment under the scheme but are eligible for services through the Victims and Survivors Service and do engage with the commissioner’s office.
There is also the matter of the bereaved, which has come up in the previous panel. That is something that the previous junior Ministers were keen to see considered in a new draft strategy for victims and survivors. We hope that will go out for public consultation soon. We are very sympathetic to the suffering suffered by those who are bereaved. We will work on that in the development of a future strategy for ministerial consideration.
The matter of support for victims and survivors came up an awful lot in the previous panel. To date, we have assigned approximately £5 million to victims and survivors groups in relation to support around the scheme. That is for the people who will sit and take someone through their application, wider health and wellbeing support and the wider caseworkers who will help them with the other elements.
Aside from that, there is the different level of support provided by the Victims and Survivors Service to all victims, not just those eligible to apply for this scheme. Those are some of the wider contexts and challenges from an Executive Office perspective.
Q26 Carla Lockhart: Thank you to the panel for coming before us and giving evidence. My first question is around the communication with victims on the timeframe. There is no doubt that this is one of the biggest bugbears on the ground with regards to applicants and the length of time it is taking. Certainly, I am getting the feedback that it is taking eight to 10 months for a fairly standard and easily dealt with one, if there is one of those, and it is taking about 26 months for the more complex cases.
Is there something more we can do? I was quite keen on what Professor Mulholland said in relation to trying to streamline applications. Is there something more that we can do to try to get this done quicker?
Mr Justice McAlinden: One of the main issues in relation to the time taken to process applications is the information retrieval in relation to, first, the incidents themselves and, secondly, the issue of the injury flowing from the incident or incidents.
Professor Mulholland did raise this issue. In terms of the relationships that the board has with the various agencies that the board seeks to obtain information from, there are arrangements in place, but we need to keep a good working relationship with each of those various agencies.
The board’s position has been to date that, rather than cajole and harry agencies for information, it is a case of encouraging co-operation and, in essence, adopting a softly-softly approach to ensure that good working relationships persist between the board and the various agencies involved. That is the appropriate way.
The board has to be keenly aware of the limitations that the various other agencies have at present placed upon them. In terms of healthcare providers, we are just in a post-pandemic era. The health service is still recovering from that. The health service is entirely stretched, underfunded, et cetera. I and the board cannot place too many demands upon the health service as such for the production of records going back so far, where there is a paucity of records, as Professor Mulholland has said, and where the records are not computerised.
Another instance of this is the working relationships we have with the PSNI and indeed the MoD. Again, reference has been made to the fact that the PSNI team that is dealing with this has been able to provide most information within a relatively short timeframe. However, we have had difficulties with the MoD. I have had to write to the MoD in relation to those matters. I have recently directed a letter to the Secretary of State in relation to that particular issue. I am keenly aware that the rationale or the difficulty faced by the MoD is the rush to get a number of legacy inquests over the line before the deadline, which has been set out in the Legacy Act.
In essence, as far as I am aware, there are great constraints upon the MoD in dealing with the requests from the board and at the same time dealing with the plethora of issues, such as disclosure, et cetera, arising out of the legacy inquest process.
What can be done? The systems are in place to ensure that information retrieval is done in a timely manner, but, because of the external difficulties that these agencies have, it is very difficult to see how there can be significant improvements in terms of timeframes for information retrieval unless there are significant investments in those other agencies to deal with the requests from the board. I am not sure the demands upon the public budget are such that additional funding can be provided to those specific agencies to deal with the requests from the board in a more timely manner.
Yes, we would all like to do better, but we have to recognise the constraints that are placed upon the public sector in terms of dealing with aspects of this scheme. This is a complex scheme. It requires a lot of time and attention. There are other priorities in the public agencies that are feeding information to the board, which means that unfortunately it takes time to get the information from them.
The key issue I am aware of is meeting victims’ expectations in respect of dealing with their applications in a timely manner, but at the same time preserving good, effective and harmonious working relationships with the various agencies that the board is requesting information and co-operation from.
Q27 Carla Lockhart: Justice McAlinden, that is very helpful. It helps us with the context, the difficulties and the complexities. In relation to the MoD, it would probably be helpful if your correspondence with the Secretary of State were shared so that we, as a Committee, could nudge that along.
I want to make two very quick points. In relation to the last panel, we spoke a lot about being present at or in the immediate aftermath of a Troubles-related incident and the fact that that is causing some difficulty particularly for former members of the security forces, who had to attend and witness some very horrendous scenes whilst on duty and yet are deemed ineligible because they were on duty. Is there anything we can be doing to look at that issue? That is causing a lot of concern out on the ground, particularly with the security forces.
The second thing was around the date of August 2024. You made reference to it there a short time ago. How important is it for that date to be extended or for there not to be a date? Would it be important that the Secretary of State acts in that regard?
Mr Justice McAlinden: First of all, in terms of the correspondence to the MoD, I would be delighted to share that with the Committee. I will ensure that is done immediately after this meeting.
In relation to the other issues raised, when I was assigned by the former Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan to deal with this scheme, to become interim president and then president of the scheme, on familiarising myself with the legislative framework, it immediately struck me that there were two issues that could lead to significant unfairness in terms of the operation of the scheme, the first one being the necessity to be present at the immediate aftermath of a Troubles-related incident in which a loved one died or suffered an injury, and the second one being in relation to the exclusion of any form of recognition for those who were bereaved.
When I had my initial range of meetings with the various victims groups, those were the areas that were of most concern to victims groups and those were the areas where I had to say to them, “I have to operate within the legislative framework, and the legislative framework is quite clear”.
The issue of immediate aftermath is one that basically comes from a series of common law decisions. You may be familiar with the Hillsborough disaster. There was a case that went to the highest court in the UK in respect of who was and who was not entitled to claim damages for injuries suffered as a result of that disaster. The whole idea of primary and secondary victimhood was explained by the House of Lords in that decision. In essence, what the legislation does is codify the common law position in relation to primary and secondary victimhood. In doing so, it excludes a lot of deserving people.
In terms of members of the security forces, they are also hit by the restriction in regulation 7(1)(c). For a person to be entitled to a payment, they had to be “responding, in the course of employment, to a Troubles-related incident, in which the person reasonably believed a loved one had died or suffered a significant injury.” In essence, in order for a member of the security forces or a member of the ambulance service, et cetera, to get a payment in this case, they have to be responding in the course of their employment to an incident where they reasonably believed that someone who they loved was involved.
It is all about limiting the making of awards to persons who were injured or persons who suffered a psychological injury as a result of witnessing someone else being maimed or hurt. That is really the intent of the legislation. I explained to the victims groups that what I would do and what I would direct the various panels of the board to do was simply that.
I know there has been some issue about whether we could issue very specific bright-line guidance in relation to what does not constitute being at the immediate aftermath or present in the immediate aftermath. What I have done is I have told the victims groups and the board that the board must operate on a case-by-case basis, operating a victim-centred approach, in order to see whether it is possible that in each particular case, each particular factual scenario that comes before a panel, there is a way and means to try to bring that individual within the statutory definition.
The board, as a judicial body, has to interpret and properly apply the legislation, but in doing so the board has an opportunity, on a case-by-case basis, to develop the definition of “being present in the immediate aftermath” to ensure that that definition is as victim-centred as possible without doing an injustice to the clear legislative provisions and without straying beyond the clear legislative provisions. We are trying to operate the scheme in as victim-centred a manner as is possible. That means trying to develop a body of decisions relating to the issue of immediate aftermath that is victim-centred.
I have to say that I agree with you when you say that this is a potential area of unfairness. If the scheme were to be changed in this particular regard, I would have no difficulties with that. To my mind, it would remove the possibility of such unfairness. If there were a scheme for the bereaved, whatever that type of scheme would be, again, to my mind that would remove a clear potential for unfairness in terms of the way in which we treat victims of the Troubles.
I would endorse your view. If you feel it is appropriate to make representations to the Secretary of State in relation to those key issues, certainly I would not object to that at all. I see the issues that are being raised. I see the potential for unfairness. The quicker and more direct fix is to amend or change the scheme to set up some form of other scheme in terms of bereavement.
Otherwise, we are left with the board having to look at each case on an individual basis and trying to adopt as sympathetic approach as is consistent with the regulations to ensure that what on one interpretation is quite a narrow and constrictive provision is interpreted in a manner that is victim-centred.
Q28 Tony Lloyd: If I may, I would like to ask you a series of questions about capacity. The first relates to the recruitment challenges that you acknowledged in the annual report of 2021-22. First of all, what action has the TEO taken to assist the board in that regard? Secondly, is the board now operating at optimum capacity, or do you still have some way to go? I will follow those up, if I may, with some other questions.
Patrick Gallagher: My colleague Paul might come in on the specifics around what the board is doing to get over the recruitment challenges.
From the TEO’s perspective, the Executive Office has designated the Department of Justice as the body responsible for exercising the administrative functions of the Act. Recruitment would fall under the remit of the Department of Justice, but we have a very close working relationship with both the DoJ and the VPB, with regular accountability meetings and updated meetings to review staffing.
Staffing comes up at each one as a standing item. We are constantly keeping the administrative costs of the whole scheme under review. There is a wide degree of uncertainty, both in relation to the cost of payments and the cost of administration, given the changes to the process that Paul referred to earlier with the report from the business consultancy service.
That is something that we work very closely on a trilateral basis. We have partnership agreements and memoranda of understanding in place to make sure the three bodies can work together to get over the challenges. Paul will be able to provide more specifics.
Paul Bullick: As of today, we are not fully up to our optimal level of staffing. At the minute, we have about 114 staff employed within the board’s structures. We forecast that we will need more staff.
We are taking a breather on actively recruiting any more staff at the moment. We still have demands in place for staff and we are also making use of agency staff where appropriate, but we are meeting with the independent reviewers, who are looking at our end-to-end processes, including our staff operating model. We are due to meet again this week.
We are hoping that we can use some of the staff we have in a smarter or more efficient way, if we are able to introduce some of these short-term quick-win changes. Those may help us to streamline a few areas.
We still work with Northern Ireland Civil Service personnel and HR department, but we are one of many bodies across the whole public sector that are dealing with recruitment challenges. The added difficulty we have within the board, because of the sensitivity of the applications and the information we manage and have to handle, is that we require all our staff to be security cleared to CTC level. That adds a little bit of time into the process for getting staff and getting feet on the ground.
I have a member of my senior management team who is dedicated to this particular piece of work as one of his main areas. We are taking every step we can, and we hope to see some quick wins from this independent review as well.
Q29 Tony Lloyd: I quoted a figure in the first session that there could be up to 30,000 potential applicants to the board through the scheme. At the moment, you have had—this is the figure we have in front of us—6,000 to date. That is a small fraction of that 30,000. Of that, you have made decisions on some 10%. The question is bound to arise: is the pace of activity sufficiently rapid for you to be able to undertake the role you want to perform and to achieve what we want you to?
Mr Justice McAlinden: There was an over-optimistic assessment as to the duration of the scheme. The scheme is time-limited. We are probably going to deal with the back-dating issue as well.
In essence, I would hope that all those who are eligible under the scheme will have their applications in before the scheme closes. In terms of when those applications will be processed and how long it will take to process all the applications, my estimate is that we will still have some form of residual board performing the process of making determinations on the 10th anniversary of the set-up of the scheme and probably beyond that.
In terms of the monthly payment arrangements that are made in respect of applicants and issues of that nature, there will have to be a long-term plan put in place to ensure the continuity of payments, et cetera. The transfer of payments to the relatives of victims and issues such as that will require long-term funding and planning.
In relation to the core issue that you have addressed, the key point is to get all those who are entitled to a payment to recognition, to get them to make their applications within the statutory timeframe, and then for us to keep working away at those for as long as it takes to ensure that those applications are properly dealt with, that no one has left with harm unrecognised and that no one is allowed to slip through the net.
Unfortunately, that will take time. I foresee that this board will have a lot of work to do for many years after the closing date of this scheme, but that is the very nature of the task that we are faced with, which is a complex task.
Q30 Tony Lloyd: Following on from that, two groups stand out: those who are over 80 and those who have declared themselves to have a terminal illness. Clearly, they cannot wait for the 10 years. What comfort can you give us that they are given sufficient prioritisation? Do you have any capacity to tell us at this stage whether we are losing applicants? Are applicants dying before their cases can be resolved?
Mr Justice McAlinden: Paul will probably be better in terms of the statistical breakdown, but, in relation to what we do, we prioritise those applications. Normally, applications are dealt with on the basis that you start working on an application when you get it, but there is a preliminary sift to identify the cases of the elderly and those who are terminally ill. Those are worked on as part of separate workstream to ensure those are processed as quickly as possible.
In the case of the elderly, we usually have applications in relation to quite historic events. We may well have applications in relation to multiple historic events. In essence, even though they are given priority, the same information retrieval exercises have to be conducted. That is where the delay affect all applicants, not just priority applicants. We do tell the other agencies from which we need information that these are priority cases, but we do not know whether, in those particular agencies, priority is given to those particular applications.
This is one thing I am very keenly aware of. I do not want to see people dying without their application being dealt with. I know it has happened. It is happened in three or four cases that I am aware of. Those cases are automatically transferred to what is called the posthumous stream. Rather than a fresh application being needed by the next of kin in respect of those cases, they are automatically transferred to a nominated applicant so that no further delay is engendered by the death of the primary victim.
I stress that I bitterly regret that this happens in any case, but, because of the complexity of the scheme and the information retrieval that is needed, it has happened and I anticipate it will happen in the future.
Q31 Tony Lloyd: Mr Bullick, do you have any figures on those who have passed?
Paul Bullick: The judge has referred to a couple of cases where it has happened. Not all of those necessarily were terminally ill applicants. Some of those might be applicants who were not terminally ill or over 80 so they were not in the priority workstream to begin with but unfortunately have passed away. As the judge has said, we do have procedures in place to transfer those cases.
To date, from the recent statistics, we have about 360 applications from those who are over 80 and just over 100 from those who are terminally ill. That would be the breakdown as of last week.
Just to add to what Justice McAlinden has said, we have a number of information-sharing agreements in place with the agencies and partners that provide us with the information. As part of the target times, we have agreed quicker turnaround times where possible, but we are still experiencing some delays in information retrieval, just due to the availability of it or the sheer fact that we are going back 50 or more years for that. We do meet regularly with those information providers. A key focus of those review meetings would be the priority cases to make sure we are doing everything we can on both sides to get those done.
As part of the contract with Capita, which carries out the healthcare assessments, those applications also have priority. We have SLAs in place to deal with over-80s and permanently ill applications.
Q32 Stephen Farry: Good evening to our witnesses. I wanted to follow up a little bit on the issue around timescales. The first issue to raise is just about applicants at the outset of the process. Are they made aware of the likely timescales involved in processing their case? Is that broken down into timeframes for the various assessments within that? Finally, in this particular regard, are applicants then given updates on whether those timeframes are changing due to other circumstances?
Paul Bullick: On the first question, yes. Now we are over two years into the operation of the scheme, we are starting to see whether we can provide timescales for the quickest case and the slowest case. That is not only to inform applicants but to identify bottlenecks and areas where are problems that might be within our control or that we might need to take up with our information providers to see what we can do.
We are currently having a review of all our correspondence, our letters and our templates, et cetera. I hope we can provide applicants with a bit more of an idea of the timescale and manage their expectations around the key stages of the process.
We have to be very careful about doing that because there are some applications with up to 50 incidents. When those go even for evidence gathering, you can imagine the complexities and the issues there. There are also issues where applicants throughout the process have realised that they are bringing in—[Interruption.]
Chair: It is all right. Carry on.
Stephen Farry: We have lost Justice McAlinden, but we can carry on with you regardless, Paul. You are doing well.
Paul Bullick: There are certain complexities that mean we have to be careful, but we are trying to manage people’s expectations and give them some type of timeframe. We try to say, “We will be corresponding with you again in so many weeks or so many days”, or whatever. We are actively looking at this at the moment.
We hope to do that as part of this review of our correspondence and, where we can, put more detail on the website. That is part of our comms and engagement plan, which we are trying to take forward at the minute.
Q33 Stephen Farry: I expect that this next question is one for you, Patrick, as you are the policy lead. Justice McAlinden referred to potentially still reviewing cases in 10 years’ time from now, which probably addresses one of the things I wanted to ask.
You will be conscious that victims groups are advocating that the current scheme deadlines should be extended beyond August 2024 for eligibility for backdated payments and beyond August 2026 in relation to applications. Is this something that is being given active consideration? What sorts of discussions have you had with victims groups on those types of changes to the deadlines as they currently stand?
Mr Justice McAlinden: We have had a bit of a technical difficulty here. We were disconnected for a short while. Could you repeat that question please—I know it is probably for someone else—just in case I need to pick up on anything?
Q34 Stephen Farry: That is no problem whatsoever. You are very welcome to come in on it, but Patrick is going to take the lead on this from a policy point of view. The question is in relation to victims groups, which have been seeking potential extensions to the two deadlines: August 2024 for eligibility for backdated payments and August 2026 for applications themselves. Is this something that is under active consideration? What discussions have taken place with victims groups in this regard?
Patrick Gallagher: The decision itself, as Ian referred to in the previous panel, is a matter for the Secretary of State and the NIO to take.
You are right that we have been engaging very closely with the victims groups. It is an issue of concern for them for a number of reasons, particularly because there is already a backlog and waiting list of cases. In terms of getting the support of the groups, they would envisage that, if the backdating deadline is not moved back, there could be a huge influx of further cases to add to that deadline.
There is also the risk that Justice McAlinden referred to earlier around people putting their name in just to have it in the system. That will take longer for the board and add to the timeframes. That is something we have raised with the NIO at official level to understand where they are in terms of the process to undertake a review. We understand that this decision will be enabled by the data and information coming out of the review. That is the intention so far.
We have raised with them that this is something the sectoral groups are keen to know, and it is also something that, from the point of view of resources, we want to know so we can put the appropriate resources in place. If there is going to be a significant influx before August 2024, we want to ensure people are able to get that support when they go to the groups and are not told to wait on the list and miss the deadline.
Q35 Stephen Farry: At the risk of putting words into your mouth, Patrick, I suspect that you are essentially saying that it may well be in everyone’s interests to have some review of these deadlines.
Patrick Gallagher: We have asked for a quick decision. As I said, the decision is a matter for the Secretary of State and the NIO, but we have asked for clarity because the groups keep pushing us and we want to know both for the groups’ benefit and also for our own benefit.
Q36 Stephen Farry: That may be something that we as a Committee wish to pick up with the Secretary of State. Justice McAlinden, do you want to add anything to that, or are you happy with Patrick’s response?
Mr Justice McAlinden: I would just add one practical example of the outworkings of the absence of any decision in relation to the extension of the time limit, especially the backdating time limit.
The board has planned a house-to-house leaflet drop in relation to providing information to potential applicants about the scheme. That is due to take place in January next year. We want to ensure that that information is as current and comprehensive as possible.
One issue that will have to be covered in the information is the issue of the backdating deadline. It would be a bit unfortunate if a leaflet drop went out in January and then, shortly after that, the backdating deadline was changed. It would be vastly better if we had a definitive decision before the leaflet drop went out. We would not wish to delay the leaflet drop by too great a timeframe.
We would like it out early in the new year, but we would like it to be accurate and comprehensive. You can take from that that it would be very helpful if a decision were made before the leaflet drop was due to go out.
Stephen Farry: On the back of that, Chair, with your consent and the consent of the Committee, that may be something we could usefully write to the Secretary of State around to ask for clarity in that regard.
Chair: Yes.
Q37 Tony Lloyd: I wonder whether, when you can, you could let us have details of your communication strategy. I would be interested in what is going out in Northern Ireland and what is going out in the rest of the UK.
Mr Justice McAlinden: We will provide you with a comprehensive bundle of documentation in relation to the communication strategy, including the engagement that we have had with external communications experts, with a view to ensuring that the scheme is brought to the attention of everyone who is a potential applicant.
You raised with the first panel the issues that may arise that would put some people off applying. I want to try to reassure you about a couple of things in respect of that. First of all, Paul did indicate that one of the issues in relation to recruiting is the need for security clearance. That is to give reassurance to those who are applying to the scheme that their information will be used properly and will never be used improperly.
The second issue is that we are faced with a conflicting set of priorities. One is to ensure that victims groups are provided with as much information as possible in respect of how the board is making determinations in each individual case while at the same time assuring applicants at the outset of the process that their applications are, in a sense, confidential, that the information that the board receives from an applicant and the determination that the board makes is confidential to that particular applicant.
Applicants who have concerns about their information being disseminated by the board should not have those concerns. In how these applications are determined, only generic information will be provided to victims groups. They will certainly not be given information in relation to individual cases.
Thirdly, there is an issue in relation to making applicants from GB feel as if they are welcome to make applications. At the very outset of this process, I made it clear to victims groups that, if any applicant from GB who was injured in Northern Ireland has concerns about returning to Northern Ireland to appear before a panel or has concerns about making an application to this board, this board will move heaven and earth to ensure that those applicants are not left behind. That will include panels being constituted and travelling to GB to hear applicants in familiar environments so as to make them feel secure when they are giving their evidence.
It is not a case of anyone being left behind. It is not a case of this scheme operating unfairly against people residing outside Northern Ireland. That is not the case. At the very outset, it was stressed that in appropriate cases, where there were concerns about re-traumatisation or security issues, those issues would be sensitively and carefully addressed by the board.
Again, in terms of the communication strategy, you will be provided with the appropriate documentation, but the last point I would make is that, as Paul indicated earlier, we are going to engage directly with the various veterans groups. We are going to invite them to meetings. If necessary, we will travel to the various veterans groups to engage in discussions with them and their membership to ensure they are fully aware of the operation of the scheme and that they are fully confident that their applications will be fairly, properly and sympathetically dealt with.
Chair: Thank you very much indeed. I am very grateful to the VPB for bringing the latest figures, correct as of 27 November. There are some questions that we would like to raise about those, but the best thing to do is to do that in writing. I am conscious of the passage of time.
I am really grateful to the witnesses for having given us comprehensive answers. We will follow up with further questions. In due course we will produce a report as a result of this most helpful session this afternoon. My thanks to the witnesses and my thanks to the Committee.