We hope Whitehall has learnt some lessons

Mar 4 2008 Western Mail

Western Mail Comment

THE miners’ compensation scheme continues to be a curious thing, a symbol both of the State’s ability to recognise the sacrifices made on its behalf, and of its simultaneous failure to administer that recognition effectively.

The scheme is the largest of its kind in the world, and when it finally winds up next year – if the latest timetable is met – it will have paid out more than £4.1bn. That, of course, is the admirable part. Those who have received the funds struggled for years working in difficult and dangerous conditions. Their only reward, or so it had seemed, was a legacy of crippling industrial disease; no-one should claim that they do not deserve every penny of the money they and their families have received.

Yet it has cost the taxpayer £2.3bn in administration to ensure that the £4.1bn has ended up in the right hands. That is not government at its best, not by a long way, and no wonder the National Audit Office and, in a report published today, the Public Accounts Committee, have had plenty to say.

The then-Department for Trade and Industry seems to have slipped up from the moment the scheme landed on its desk. It did no assessment of its own of the likely costs of the pay-outs, relying instead of the figures passed to it by the British Coal Corporation – the body whose liabilities passed to the Government in 1998, the same year the courts decided miners deserved reparation.

That would have been a minor error had it not been compounded by others; only a handful of civil servants were assigned to the scheme – they were quickly overwhelmed. Expectations that little more than £600m would be paid out and all claims would be dealt with by 2001 soon proved wildly optimistic.

And then, as the Public Accounts Committee puts it, negotiations with the solicitors who would handle the claim were “weak” – in other words, taxpayers got a bad deal. It seems extraordinary that basic calculations, such as the savings that could be made by solicitors handling multiple claims (as most did), were not factored in.

The fact that one miner received 50p while a solicitor received a four-figure sum was indicative of the tragic, farcical flaws in the system.

Things have improved, and most have now received their money. But many ex-miners and their families suffered unnecessarily waiting for their compensation – an unacceptable and entirely avoidable delay.

Other issues remain to be resolved, not least the “claims farmers” who wrongly deducted money from miners for costs already paid by the Government. The cash should be returned; those fighting for justice for the miners should be commended.

Pay-outs for sick ex-miners are no less than those who worked in that industry deserved. The Government should have handled the claims more sensibly, and has, we hope, learnt some lessons.

Sick miners’ payout scheme costs spiral to £2.3bn