The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has published “Spotlight on the Windrush Compensation Scheme: your stories, your rights” and said that the scheme has been “wrongly denying compensation to people who should have received it”. The Windrush compensation scheme was set up in 2019 and it seems complaints quickly followed, as the Ombudsman reports that they started receiving these the same year, resulting in the setting up of a Windrush working group in September 2020. The Ombudman’s investigation for this report has resulted in a further £432,592 being paid to people under the scheme.

The report looks at some of the 46 complaints that have been made in the past three years and breaks these down into different areas:

• guidance and facts not properly considered
• eligibility for compensation incorrectly advised for years
• not all evidence considered for a claim
• unfairness in rules for close family member eligibility
• wrong decision made even with supporting evidence

In each of the case studies, the intervention of the Ombudsman resulted in an improved outcome for the person who had complained. The report concludes by usefully setting out the complaints process for anyone who is unhappy with the handling of their application to the scheme.