BackAlmost half a million pounds in compensation has been secured following investigations by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) for people wrongly denied payment by the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
The Ombudsman found that the Scheme, set up by the Home Office in response to the Windrush scandal, is making wrong decisions and refusing payment to those who are entitled to it.
By publishing its findings in a new report, ‘Spotlight on the Windrush Compensation Scheme’, PHSO is hopeful that this will present an opportunity for the Home Office to review and make improvements to the current mechanisms in place for compensating people affected by Windrush.
The report reveals why the Scheme is making wrong decisions.
These are:
- telling people they were not eligible for compensation by wrongly applying their own rules
- not always looking at all the evidence provided
- applying the rules even when they led to unfair outcomes for some people. It is likely that the unfairness of some of the rules may have affected more people than the cases we have seen.
- Since 2021 the Ombudsman has received 46 complaints about the Compensation Scheme and has asked it to look again at nine of those. Some of those are still under review, but so far PHSO has helped individuals who complained about their treatment to secure a total of £432,592.
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Source: Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, UK
