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Chairperson's Report 1999-2000 5. Victims Support and Rehabilitation Act 1996 The Victims Services website has moved. Please select this link to access the new site, or wait to be re-directed in 5 seconds. 5.1 Applications under Victims Support and Rehabilitation Act 1996.
The number of applications pending is a matter of concern. It should be noted that each year the Budget is fully expended and the number of claims determined is linked to available monies. A priority policy fixed by the Director is in place and an additional position of assessor has been approved. Even so it will take some time to clear the backlog. It will be noted however, that the number of applications lodged in the year under review fell compared with the previous year. It may be that as a result of amendments to the Act in May 2000 fewer claims will be lodged. Those May 2000 amendments have provided a very quick method of appraisal of an applicant’s eligibility for statutory compensation. If the claimed injury does not reach the threshold of $7,500 in respect of applications lodged after 14 July 2000 or if a category 1 psychological injury is claimed for an offence other than kidnapping, abduction or armed robbery then an applicant has no entitlement to compensation. 5.2 Priority policy. The Director’s Priority Policy aims to have applications for 2 hours of initial counselling processed and determined within 48 hours of lodgement and applications for further counselling determined within a reasonable time. The average time for processing compensation claims for family members of homicide victims is 3-6 months and for victims of sexual assault 6-12 months. Other claims are processed in chronological order. The average time for all claims from lodgement to determination is 12-18 months although these times are affected by outside factors.
5.3 Approved Counselling Scheme. The Approved Counselling Scheme was established under the 1996 Act to provide eligible victims with access to counselling funded by the Victims Compensation Fund. The Scheme is not designed as an ongoing treatment scheme - a factor tended to be ignored by some counsellors. Applications for initial 2 hours counselling sessions are processed by a dedicated assessor within 48 hours of receipt. Further counselling may be provided and if refused the decision of the assessor maybe reviewed by the Director. In the year under review the cost of provision of this service totalled $1.55 million compared with $1.53 million the previous year. Following amendments to the Act passed in May this year counselling may be sought by a family victim, a primary or secondary victim or a person who is a victim of an act of violence but who merely because the person did not receive a compensable injury, is not a primary victim or secondary victim within the meaning of the Act, or a relevant family member. A relevant family member means a person who is a relative of a primary victim who has died as a result of an act of violence, but who is not a family victim within the meaning of the Act. 5.4 Authorised Report Writers - Quality management project. Victims claiming the compensable injury of chronic psychological or psychiatric disorder in respect of applications lodged on and after 7 April 1999 must provide a written assessment from an Authorised Report Writer (ARW). To ensure that reports meet the highest professional standards, a project was established to advise on managing quality issues in medico-legal reports, develop a comprehensive report writing template and provide feedback to individual ARW’s about their reports. The template was developed in consultation with the Professional Advisory Panel which includes nominees from the following organisations:
The template provides a framework of section headings for the ARW report with suggestions about the type of information and evidence to be included in each section. These sections are: Referral details Sources of information Background Description of the incident Medical History Reported symptoms and treatment status Current symptoms Current functional status and disability Observations at interview Psychometric test findings Brief interviews with informants Opinion These section headings are not proscriptive. The purpose of the template is to formalise the expectations of Victims Services regarding the information required in the ARW report. A copy of the template was mailed to all ARW’s in May 2000 and positive feedback has resulted. 5.5 Appeals to the Tribunal against the determination of assessors. Under the 1996 Act, an aggrieved applicant can appeal the determination of a compensation assessor to the Tribunal in the first instance. In 1999/2000 814 appeals were lodged compared with 490 for the previous year.
Of 814 appeals lodged, 275 were against the refusal of the Director to give leave to the filing of the application out of time. Of the 775 appeals determined, 558 were dismissed. Appeals to the Tribunal have been dealt with by Tribunal Member Magistrate Gabb until late 1999 and since that time appeals have been determined by all members of the Tribunal. There are no delays in the hearing of appeals from assessors’ decisions. Appeals are generally listed for call over and hearing with 2-3 months of the assessor’s determination. 5.6 Oral hearings/Country sittings. The Tribunal has conducted oral hearings of appeals in Sydney and Tweed Heads and sittings have been arranged for Queanbeyan and Wagga Wagga. Where possible restitution hearings are listed at these Courts from surrounding centres. 5.7 Appeals from the Tribunal to the District Court. Unlike the 1987 Act, appeals from decisions of the Tribunal lie to the District Court on a question of law only. Section 39 sets out certain excluded questions of law. For the year ended 30 June 2000, 51 appeals to the District Court on a question of law had been lodged compared with 57 the previous year. The court disposed of 72 appeals compared with 18 for the year 1998/1999. Of those 72 appeals heard the following is the result -
One of the principal grounds of appealing the Tribunal’s decision to the District Court has been on the reception of fresh material pursuant to section 38(3). That issue went to the Court of Appeal in Victims Compensation Fund Corporation v Sarah Jane Hill 5 April 2000 on an appeal by the Fund from the decision of Garling DCJ. In quashing the orders made by Garling DCJ the Court set out the appropriate considerations to be taken into account when fresh material is sought to be filed pursuant to section 38(3). One would hope that as a result of the Court of Appeal judgment there would now be fewer (if any) appeals on section 38(3). Another appeal to the Court of Appeal initiated by the Fund in which it was successful was in the matter of Crowley dealing with an excluded question of law. There were two appeals initiated by aggrieved applicants - one action was dismissed by the Registrar as incompetent and the other, relating to the issue of leave, is awaiting a hearing date. |
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