Thread by @WindrushLives

🚨🧵About @CommonsHomeAffs's report on the Windrush Compensation Scheme:

I'm posting as I go, so pardon typos etc. This is the report (opens as PDF): committees.parliament.uk/publications/7… [1/]

The headlines are: (i) the Select Committee believes the Scheme should be administered independently, and isn't sure why it was ever run in-house, so to speak; (ii) total number eligible STILL UNKNOWN, low uptake of those known to be eligible; [2/]

(iii) applications *require* legal assistance, i.e. this is not a DIY job as @sajidjavid, @pritipatel and others have variously claimed. The SC recommends extending LASPO 2012 to cover this + says We Are Digital, which also has other @ukhomeoffice contracts, is insufficient; [3/]

(iv) the SC wants to know how victims stuck overseas (in many cases still) are to be compensated - important, as this is currently completely ignored by @ukhomeoffice, which, to be fair, isn't even competent to deal with the easier task; [4/]

(v) while @ukhomeoffice claims to have amended its approach on mitigation of loss - caseworkers are allegedly taking a less unreasonable view on how claimants should have prevented loss - its still not clear how the policy is working, and it should never have existed; [5/]

the SC wants the mitigation of loss policy to be scrapped altogether. I did enjoy this snippet, which lol, b/c (a) as if they keep these numbers and (b) if they do keep them by some miracle, they sure as hell won't hand them over; [6/]

(vi) in a disappointing piece, the SC asks for an independent review into the application of the criminality provision, which as a reminder calls for a whopping 50% discount where there is a sentence of 4+ years. It should really say this should be scrapped altogether. [7/]

There is no logical nexus between someone's criminality, dealt with and discharged in the criminal justice system, and their entitlement to compensation under an ex-gratia scheme, designed by govt to put right ITS errors. The one has no relation to the other... [8/]

...and to imply otherwise is really just a means of giving themselves a tidy half-off coupon, on amounts that might be described as piddling in the first instance. [9/]

(vii) The, er, 'urgent and exceptional' payments scheme has been a failure and caseworkers "should be directed to take a broader, more sympathetic approach". When I have a minute I will add to this thread a clip of one of our members on @mrjamesob's show today on this. [10/]

Of the very many injustices and traumas perpetuated by the Scheme, this is one of the worst, because it has an immediate effect on people undergoing some of the worst parts of their lives. @LeighDay_Law has a JR going on this theme - theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/s… @JohnCrowley4 [11/]

Any urgent and exceptional payments are also treated as advances, and the SC finds quite definitively that @ukhomeoffice is not clear about this. (IMO they shldn't be treating them as advances at all, especially given the types of situations in which they typically arise.) [12/]

(viii) the obscure, unaccountable Vulnerable Persons Team - which was at one point said to be disbanded but has apparently be reformed - gets its own section. The SC wants more scrutiny, via regular stats. [13/]

(ix) My view is simple: any recommendation asking @ukhomeoffice for more or better stats is fundamentally pointless. For an org headed by an Oxford Maths grad, the HO is utterly pathetic when it comes to numbers. We've ranted about this before: [14/]

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1288454662782418950?s=20

In fact, we went as far as spelling it out for them, for example in this letter last year on which Mr Rycroft was most definitely cc-ed. (Numbers matter. Numbers themselves do not lie, though they require interpretation and context.) [15/] scribd.com/document/54204…

The uselessness/deliberate vagueness of the stats serves an end:

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1454108915478765571?s=20

[16/]

(x) One of the things the SC is definitive about is the lack of independence of the review scheme. These are among the strongest pars IMO: [17/]

Continued (though this comes before the previous bit) [18/]

It's clear that the Select Committee gets the wrongness of the thing in principle - having done the damage, not only does the HO run the scheme, it then also controls the review process. It's utter madness. [19/]