By Martin Cole-
Over £41 million has been paid or offered to the Windrush generation through the Compensation Scheme, the Home Secretary has announced today, with over £35m paid to 940 people.
The Uk government today confirmed a number of payments have been made to 187 people who have been offered or paid between £50,000 and £100,000, 61 people have been offered or paid between £100,000 and £200,000, and 11 people have been offered or paid between £200,000 and £300,000. The statistics also show that about 45% of applications have been concluded and over 25% of applicants have had a payment.
It is good news for the recipients of the compensation scheme. who can now use the money to advance their lives and move on from any felt injustices of the past.
The broad payments published today follows a conclusion in 2021 by the Uk Parliament Committee that instead of providing a remedy, for many people the Windrush Compensation Scheme has actually compounded the injustices faced as a result of the Windrush Scandal.
At the end of September last year, only 20% of the initially estimated 15,000 eligible claimants had applied to the scheme and only 5% had received compensation. Twenty three individuals have died before they received any compensation for the hardship they endured at the hands of the Home Office.
The Committee found a litany of flaws in the design and operation of the scheme including an excessive burden on claimants to provide documentary evidence of losses, long delays in processing, poor communication and inadequate staffing.
The report concluded it a damning indictment of the Home Office that the design and operation of the Compensation Scheme contain many of the same bureaucratic insensitivities that led to the Windrush Scandal in the first place.
The report welcomes the changes made to the Scheme by the Home Office in December 2020 to accelerate payments and make improvements to the Scheme but says that these changes do not go far enough.
The Committee urged immediate action to increase the number of people applying for the Scheme and to ensure that every individual affected is granted some compensation quickly, including immediate, preliminary payments of £10,000 within two months for all those who the Home Office have acknowledged were wrongly subject to immigration enforcement measures or wrongly denied proof of their lawful status.
The Committee found that by keeping the Compensation Scheme within the very Department that caused the scandal in the first place, the Government has undermined confidence in the Scheme. In order to increase trust and encourage more applicants, the Committee calls for the Scheme to be transferred from the Home Office to an independent organization.
This week, four Windrush generation descendants lost their high court battle for the scheme for victims to be widened to include them.
Yvonne Williams, Yvonne Smith, Jennifer Ulett-Hall and Damian Gabrielle argued in the high court that the Windrush scheme should be extended beyond its current parameters to include descendants of the Windrush generation such as them.
The current rules state that children who arrived as adults over the age of 18 after 1988 are excluded from the scheme. This group do not have a path to citizenship through the Windrush scheme even if they have been resident in the UK for many years.
All four made applications to the Windrush scheme, which were rejected. Reviews of the rejection decisions were also unsuccessful. All are at risk of removal from the UK as they are not eligible to remain here under the Windrush scheme. They plan to submit ordinary (non-Windrush) applications for leave to remain under the immigration rules.
All four have Windrush families who they came to the UK to join. The three women in the case are all grandmothers.
Lawyers for Gabrielle, 39, who arrived in the UK two months after his 18th birthday to join his father, argued it was because of the problems his father experienced due to Windrush generation discrimination that he was unable to bring Gabrielle to the UK to join him until after his 18th birthday. His father came to the UK in 1961 and has lived here continuously since then.
Home Secretary, Priti Patel said:
Since I overhauled the Windrush Compensation Scheme, the Home Office has been able to secure compensation for more people more quickly. £41 million has now been offered to Windrush victims, with more claims being finalised as quickly as possible.
In addition, 13 further organisations across the UK will receive funding through the Windrush Community Fund. The £500,000 fund allows community and grassroot organisations to bid for up to £25,000 to deliver projects to help raise awareness of the Windrush Scheme documentation and Windrush Compensation Scheme.
There were high numbers of Windrush Community Fund applications. The independent grant administrator, Voice4Change-England, and the Windrush Working Group have been working closely with the department on the Community Fund.
Croydon BME Forum have secured funding to create a Windrush digital hub, which will include a website and community app, bringing together a host of different materials including videos, images and maps, with information on the Windrush schemes. They will also hold a series of events to increase distribution of the information and materials.
Rising Stars North West, based in Manchester, will use their funding to raise awareness of the schemes amongst children and grandchildren of the Windrush generation, equipping them with accurate information to give to their family members.
Citizens’ Rights Project in Edinburgh will be raising awareness of the Windrush schemes with organisations working with migrants and vulnerable adults in Scotland. It will aim to reach 20,000 people through regional publicity and will also be hosting a series of seminars about Windrush and inviting around 200 potentially affected people to attend.
Dorota Peszkowska, a Director of the Citizens’ Rights Project, said:
We are delighted to have secured funding from the Windrush Community Fund.
We are keen to play our part to help those in our communities in Scotland to get the help they need.
It’s so important that everyone eligible for compensation is able to get it, as it could make a big difference to their lives.
We will be delivering this project across Scotland, with the help of our dedicated staff and 56 multilingual volunteers. Online and offline, we will aim to reach all those who may benefit from the Windrush documentation and compensation schemes, in order to restore justice and a sense of belonging to the community. The Citizens’ Rights Project will work with local migrant-led organisations and volunteers for six months to raise awareness about the schemes and communities involved.
The first round of funding was allocated in April 2021 and 14 organisations received funding. One of the organisations, Collage Arts in Haringey, received over £23,000 to produce animations and videos which have been promoted on radio and social channels. It was specifically looking to engage a younger audience, empowering them to support older members of the community.
Steve Medlin, Artistic Director from Collage Arts said:
”With the Community Fund we have been able to reach and empower Windrush applicants to come forward and apply to the schemes.
Minister Foster recently came to visit and we were able to show him how the money has been used to benefit our community.
We will keep working to make sure we reach as many people affected by the Windrush scandal as possible”