CICA Payouts in Scotland: What the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority Actually Pays

“How much will CICA actually give me?” is the question every assault victim asks, and the honest answer is that it is a smaller and more predictable number than most people expect. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority does not value your injury the way a court would. It looks it up. Every injury it compensates has a fixed price in a tariff set by Parliament, and that price is the same whether you were attacked in Glasgow, Aberdeen or Inverness. This post sets out the actual figures, how they are combined, what can be added on top, and the reasons awards are cut or refused — so you know where you stand before you apply.

CICA in Scotland — The Same Scheme, Run From Glasgow

People searching for “criminal injuries compensation Scotland” or “CICA Glasgow” sometimes assume there is a separate Scottish scheme. There is not. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 covers all of Great Britain, and the Authority that runs it is in fact headquartered in Glasgow. Reporting is to Police Scotland, appeals go to the First-tier Tribunal, and the tariff is identical north and south of the border. The one thing that is different in Scotland is the civil route that sits alongside CICA — more on that below.

How CICA Payouts Are Worked Out

A civil claim for a personal injury in Scotland is valued using the Judicial College Guidelines, which give a bracket and leave room for argument. CICA does not. Annex E of the 2012 Scheme is a list of several hundred injuries, each assigned to one of 25 levels running from Level 1 (£1,000) up to Level 20 (£250,000), and the claims officer pays the figure for the level your injury falls into. The lowest injuries that qualify at all are set at £1,000 — anything CICA considers less serious than that gets nothing. The most you can receive for a single incident, including every add-on, is £500,000.

CICA Payout Examples — Physical Injuries

These are the actual tariff figures for injuries that come up constantly in assault claims. Where the tariff distinguishes between a substantial recovery and a continuing significant disability, both amounts are shown.

Source: Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012, Annex E, Part A. Note that a broken nose with a good recovery is not in the 2012 tariff at all — only partial loss of the nose (£2,400) is compensated.

CICA Payouts for PTSD and Mental Injury

This is the part that catches most applicants out. CICA will not pay anything for shock, anxiety or distress on its own, however severe it felt. A mental injury only qualifies if it is disabling — a substantial adverse effect on day-to-day life — and it is confirmed by the diagnosis or prognosis of a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist. A GP letter is not enough. Once that hurdle is cleared, the amount depends entirely on how long the condition lasts:

Where the mental injury follows a sexual assault, CICA pays whichever is higher — the sexual offence tariff or the mental injury tariff — not both. For sexual offences the tariff runs from £1,000 for a minor non-penetrative assault to £11,000 for rape by one attacker, £13,500 by two or more, £22,000 for a pattern of repeated offences over three years or more, and up to £44,000 where there is serious internal injury together with a permanent, severe mental illness. Pregnancy, sexually transmitted infection and loss of a foetus attract separate additional payments that are not reduced by the multiple-injury formula.

More Than One Injury — The Formula That Shrinks Your Award

Assaults rarely cause one tidy injury, and this is where CICA payouts fall well short of what people add up in their heads. CICA does not pay the tariff for every injury. It pays 100% of the highest-valued injury, 30% of the second, and 15% of the third — and nothing for a fourth or fifth.

Take a typical pub assault in Scotland: a fractured jaw needing surgery with a good recovery (£1,800), two front teeth knocked out (£2,400) and a facial scar amounting to significant disfigurement (£2,400). Added together those come to £6,600. Under the formula the payout is £2,400 for the scar, 30% of £2,400 for the teeth (£720) and 15% of £1,800 for the jaw (£270) — £3,390. That is the whole injury award. The formula is the single biggest reason CICA offers come in lower than expected, and it is worth knowing before you open the decision letter.

What Can Be Added On Top

Loss of earnings. Available only if the injury has left you with no or very limited capacity for work for more than 28 weeks — and even then CICA pays nothing for the first 28 weeks. From week 29 it pays at the weekly rate of statutory sick pay, not your actual wage. A self-employed tradesman earning £800 a week who is off for a year receives loss of earnings for the last 24 weeks at the SSP rate. That is the Scheme, and it is the main reason a civil claim against a third party, where one exists, can be worth many times more.

Special expenses. Again only where the incapacity has lasted more than 28 weeks: care costs, special equipment, adaptations to your home, damaged physical aids such as glasses or a hearing aid, and the cost of a guardianship or intervention order under the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 where a brain injury has left someone unable to manage their affairs.

CICA Payouts in Fatal Cases

Where a crime of violence has caused a death, the family’s entitlement is also fixed. A bereavement payment of £11,000 is made where there is one qualifying relative, or £5,500 to each where there are two or more — a spouse or partner, a parent and a child all qualify. A child’s payment of £2,000 a year runs to the child’s 18th birthday where the deceased provided parental services. A dependency payment at the statutory sick pay rate is shared among financially dependent relatives. Funeral expenses are paid at £2,500, with up to a further £2,500 where the costs were reasonably higher. The total for a fatal claim is capped at £500,000. Under Scottish law, relatives may also have a civil claim under the Damages (Scotland) Act 2011 against anyone whose negligence contributed to the death — a security firm, a care provider, a landlord — and that route is not limited by the tariff.

Why CICA Awards Are Reduced or Refused

Roughly speaking, CICA refuses or cuts awards for four reasons, and all four come up constantly in Scottish applications.

The police were not told promptly. An award is withheld unless the incident was reported to Police Scotland as soon as reasonably practicable. CICA does allow for age, capacity and the effect of the incident, but “I did not want the hassle” is not a reason it accepts.

You did not cooperate. Refusing to give a statement, withdrawing a complaint or declining to attend court will normally mean no award, even where the attack is not in dispute.

Unspent convictions. This is the one people find hardest. Under Annex D of the Scheme, an applicant with an unspent conviction that resulted in a custodial sentence or a community payback order gets nothing, regardless of how serious their injury is or how unrelated the conviction. Other unspent convictions lead to a reduction unless there are exceptional reasons. Only fines and penalty points for road traffic offences are ignored. Whether a conviction is spent is worked out under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and it is the first thing a solicitor will check.

Your own conduct. An award can be reduced where the applicant’s behaviour before, during or after the incident makes a full award inappropriate — throwing the first punch being the obvious example. Having been drunk is not, on its own, a reason for reduction where the drink simply made you more vulnerable.

There is also a rule about households: no award is made where the applicant and the assailant were adults living together as a family at the time, unless they have since separated and are unlikely to live together again. For domestic abuse victims in Scotland that separation is usually the point at which a CICA application becomes possible.

The Time Limit — Two Years, Not Three

The civil time limit most people know about — three years under the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 — does not apply to CICA. An application must reach the Authority within two years of the incident. For someone who was under 18 at the time, the deadline is their 20th birthday if the incident was reported to the police before they turned 18, or two years from the first report if it was reported afterwards. CICA can extend the limit only where exceptional circumstances meant you could not apply earlier and the evidence lets the claim be decided without extensive further enquiries — a high bar. Once a decision arrives, you have 56 days to accept it or ask for a review, and a further right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal after that.

CICA or a Civil Claim — or Both?

CICA exists because most attackers cannot be sued to any purpose. But a surprising number of assaults in Scotland happen somewhere a third party had a duty to keep you safe: a pub or club whose door staff let a known troublemaker back in, an employer who sent a lone worker into a situation it knew was dangerous, a care home that failed to manage a violent resident, a landlord who ignored a broken close door. In those cases a civil claim runs alongside the CICA application, is valued under the Judicial College Guidelines rather than the tariff, and pays full lost earnings from day one rather than SSP from week 29. Any civil damages you receive are deducted from a CICA award for the same injury, so nothing is paid twice — but the civil figure is frequently the larger one.

One point of honesty about costs: CICA will not pay your legal fees, and the Scheme is designed so that people can apply themselves. Where an application is straightforward and the injury is minor, doing that is a reasonable choice. Where the injuries are serious, there are multiple injuries to argue over, a mental injury needs the right expert evidence, there is a conviction to explain, or a civil claim may exist alongside, a specialist Scottish solicitor working on a no win no fee basis will usually recover far more than the fee costs — and the eligibility check that decides which category you fall into is free.

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