The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) allocates around £96m from within its Victim and Witness Budget to fund crucial support services for victims of crime. The majority of this funding has been devolved to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) as they are best placed to respond to local demands and priorities, and commission services supporting victims in their communities. This area of spend is allocated using a population based funding formula, as it is a simple and transparent method for assigning funds. This funding is provided to PCCs via grants from the MoJ, which carry the condition that the funding provided is only to be used to fund support for victims of crime and that PCCs report to the MoJ on spend within that funding.

Where the MoJ directly funds and commissions support services from within its Victim and Witness budget, the money is allocated via grant funding and decisions on such funding are guided HM Treasury’s Managing Public Money publication, and overseen by the MoJs financial and accounting structures. Grant recipients need to comply with the terms of the grant and must only use their allocation for the delivery of services supporting victims of crime. Compliance with the terms of the grant is measured through bi-annual monitoring reports and annual financial accounts.

Revenue from the Victim Surcharge forms a part of the Ministry of Justice’s Victim and Witness budget which is used to fund services that enable victims to cope and recover and support witnesses to give their best evidence in court. The Victim and Witness budget funds national support services such as: the National Homicide Service, Rape Support Centres, and the Court Based Witness Service. It also funds Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) who commission local support services for victims. Consequently, it is not possible to identify which services receive funding from the Victim Surcharge revenue specifically.

However, information on how much revenue is generated from the Surcharge and subsequently contributes to the Victim and Witness budget is available in the HMCTS Trust Statement, which are published every year. Below is a table with information taken from the Trust Statements detailing how much revenue has been generated from the Victim Surcharge since 2013.

Revenue from the Victim Surcharge forms a part of the Ministry of Justice’s Victim and Witness budget which is used to fund services that enable victims to cope and recover and support witnesses to give their best evidence in court. The Victim and Witness budget funds national support services such as: the National Homicide Service, Rape Support Centres, and the Court Based Witness Service. It also funds Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) who commission local support services for victims. Consequently, it is not possible to identify which services receive funding from the Victim Surcharge revenue specifically.

However, information on how much revenue is generated from the Surcharge and subsequently contributes to the Victim and Witness budget is available in the HMCTS Trust Statement, which are published every year. Below is a table with information taken from the Trust Statements detailing how much revenue has been generated from the Victim Surcharge since 2013.

The value of Victim Surcharge collected in England and Wales in 2016 is £29,913,310.

It is not possible to identify how much of that was from motoring offences in any specific year without incurring disproportionate costs as the data could only be collated by a manual search of all accounts.

The Government is committed to help victims cope with, and, as far as possible, recover from crime. This year, the Ministry of Justice is allocating c.£97m (including all revenue from the Victim Surcharge) to fund support services for victims of crime. The majority of the Department’s Victims’ Services budget goes to Police and Crime Commissioners (c.£68m) to deliver support services for victims of crime in their local areas. Victims of road crime are entitled to support from these services based on need in the same way as victims of other crime, and the Ministry of Justice does not ringfence its funding to PCCs for support in this area. PCCs can fund specific support services for road crime victims, and the Ministry of Justice funds BRAKE nationally for support to families bereaved by road crime (c.£110k in 2017/18).

All funding derived from the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) will be spent on the National Health Service, with the exception around £7 million per annum which will be used to fund some costs that fall to the Home Office associated with collecting and handling the surcharge.

The Home Office transfers funds to the Department for Health and, consistent with the Barnett Formula, the devolved administrations through the Estimates process. In the event that IHS in-come exceeds the amount transferred, the balance will be surrendered to the Consolidated Fund for Extra Receipts and made available for spending on the NHS in the following financial year.

The Home Office committed to provide information about its administration of the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) within 12 months of the surcharge going live. The Immigration Minister wrote to the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee to provide an update on 23 March, including details of the number of migrants who have paid the Surcharge and the total amount of Surcharge funding directed to the National Health Service (NHS).

A copy of the letter has been placed in the House library to ensure the commitment to Parliament is met. The Home Office will also report on total IHS income received in its Annual Report and Accounts.