The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (CICS) is a GB Scheme that provides payment to innocent victims of crimes of violence, and those injured in trying to apprehend criminals or prevent crime. It is the most generous of its kind in Europe. The scheme operates as a cross-border scheme and is administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel (CICAP). The majority of the Authority's staff are Scottish Executive staff, and are located in Glasgow.
The CICS was placed on a statutory footing by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995, which also introduced a new tariff-based scheme, enabling single payments or a scale of awards which group together injuries of comparable severity and allocate a financial value to them.
Scottish Ministers and the Home Secretary have joint responsibility for the general oversight of the Scheme but the decisions on individual applications rest exclusively with the CICA. Ministers cannot intervene in decisions taken by the Authority or the Appeals Panel. The Home Office is the sole sponsor Department. The function of amending the scheme is only exercisable by the Home Secretary, who is obliged to consult Scottish Ministers before he exercises that function. By way of a Service Level Agreement agreed with the Home Office, the Scottish Executive bears a proportion of the costs in respect of Scottish cases. This is based on the total expenditure on Scottish cases over the previous 3 years expressed as a percentage of the total GB expenditure for the same period.