The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has published a five-step guide to using the Official Injury Claim (OIC) service, and Association of Consumer Support Organisations (ACSO) executive director Matthew Maxwell Scott has a thing or two to say about it.
Eleven pages long, the newly released document comes less than a year since the unveiling of a much lengthier version back in April 2021. Last year’s comprehensive “Guide to Making a Claim” included, among other things, the corresponding tariff per injury.
This time around, the “Five steps to using the online Official Injury Claim service” guide focussed on the stages – information, investigation, medical evidence, negotiation, and settlement – of the claims process.
“The MoJ’s attempt to make the OIC portal process user-friendly is welcome,” commented Maxwell Scott. “I described the original 64-page users guide, published in April last year, as legal treacle, and so it proved to be, as according to the latest data only 9% of claimants accessing the portal are unrepresented. This is a poor return on what was meant to be an improvement on the pre-reforms claims journey, so any attempt to give consumers better information is good news.
“It would be useful to know whether the MoJ has tested the new guide with consumers and gathered their feedback on ease of use. Were stakeholder groups with a consumer focus asked for their input? Fairer Finance, the Consumers Association, CAB, ACSO, and other bodies that champion consumers would have been a useful reference point for officials.”
Run by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau on behalf of the MoJ, the free-to-use OIC service is aimed at helping avoid or reduce the need to go to court, if possible and appropriate.
Meanwhile the ACSO leader went on to assert: “Notwithstanding the new guide, public awareness of the reforms is still very low, so we urge the MoJ to devote resources to a public education programme as a first step. Most people are clueless about these significant changes in their rights of access to justice.
“Furthermore, as a specific point, it is odd that officials have chosen to leave out the tariff tables in the updated guide, requiring users to refer separately to the Judicial College Guidelines and the tariff tables in the Statutory Instrument. It would be helpful to understand why it has not been possible to add the tables to the guide.”
Setting out the base level compensation for various injuries, the tariff can be found on legislation.gov.uk.
