Download or read book The compensation scheme for former Icelandic water trawlermen written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-02-26 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report from the Committee of Public Accounts, follows two other reports into the subject of the compensation for former Icelandic water trawlermen (an NAO report, HCP 530, session 2006-07, ISBN 9780102945621 and HCP 313, session 2006-07, entitled Put together in haste: "Cod Wars", ISBN 9780102944471). The Committee took evidence from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform on administration of the compensation scheme. The Scheme was set up to compensate former trawlermen who had lost their jobs when the distant water fishing industry collapsed in the 1970s. At the time of the collapse most trawlermen did not receive compensation. The Scheme itself ran between October 2000 and October 2002, with some 7,000 claimants and a sum of £42 million having been paid to 4,400 former trawlermen. Findings in the two earlier reports indicated the then Department of Trade and Industry had problems in verifying claims for the scheme and further that it lacked an understanding of the working practices of the 1970s fishing industry. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found maladministration of the Scheme especially in delivering it in an effective manner. The Committee of Public Accounts has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that the Department should learn lessons from this and the previous reports when administering future schemes; that it is important for the Department to test the availability of evidence on real cases before launching new compensation schemes; that a clear understanding of the industry needs to be in place before setting the terms of any grant schemes; that the Department failed to test the impact of the scheme's rules on different types of applicant before the scheme's launch; in 25 of 100 cases, there was insufficient evidence to say whether payments made by the Department accorded with the scheme's rules; the Department did not employ proper project planning and risk management.