22 June 2020
Department For Communities Compensation Recovery Unit
Members
have been in contact with the Society during lockdown to raise concerns about
inability to have requests for Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU) Certificates
processed.
The
President raised those concerns directly with the Minister for Communities at
the start of April. The Society were informed that staff from the CRU had
been redeployed to assist with urgent benefit administration in light of the
pandemic, but that from the 20th April 2020 additional resources
would be put in place to support the Scheme although all staff would not be
returning to their normal duties. At this point CRU staff continue to support
urgent benefit administration but there is still a small number of staff
working within the CRU to meet the urgent needs of the scheme.
An
update on the position was recently requested from the Department as members
were still experiencing difficulties in obtaining certificates. The Department
have indicated that if certificates are urgently required this may be done by
emailing the Unit and marking the email ‘Urgent – Case Settlement’ and
it will be prioritised. This is the message being generated by the Unit’s
mailbox.
The
Department suggest that all applications received and marked ‘Urgent – Case
Settlement’ and where the settlement is imminent, will have a
certificate issued within the statutory 28 days. Should members make
contact with the Unit in this manner, and do not receive a certificate within
the statutory time limit then please let us know and we can feed this
information back to the Department. Details should be sent to this email
address – ann.mcmahon@lawsoc-ni.org
.
Currently
it is not possible to contact the unit by telephone due to staffing
levels. However CRU encourage Society members to use the mailbox crsteam.belfast@nissa.gsi.gov.uk
as a way of corresponding with them.