Cathy Keeler, Brake’s Head of Campaigns, met Victims Minister Maria Eagle MP on 17 January 2008.
Issues discussed included:
The BrakeCare guide for bereaved families and friends following death on the road in England and Wales - Brake had to lobby hard for funding to be made available for a guide to be funded by the Government in 2008. It then had to go through a time-consuming tendering process in order to receive the funding.
Cathy asked for reassurance that this process would not need to be repeated every year and that the Government was already earmarking funds to support production and distribution of the guide in 2009 and beyond.
The minister said she could not guarantee that funding would be available but confirmed that the Victims’ Unit were looking for a sustainable funding stream for the guide.
Funding for other services for people bereaved and seriously injured in road crashes - Cathy pointed out that the BrakeCare bereavement guide provided only a basic source of support for people bereaved in road crashes and that funding was desperately needed for other services, including services for people seriously injured in road crashes. In 2001, when the Victims’ Fund was launched, the then Home Secretary promised that it would be made available to fund these types of services.
The minister said that that the Government still planned to open up the Victims’ Fund to fund services for road crash victims, but that it was not yet able to do so because the arrangements for collecting the victims surcharge, to feed into the fund, had not been finalised. She hoped that this might be possible in 2009-10.
Cathy raised the need for police Family Liaison Officers to be available for families following every road death, which does not happen at present. In some forces, Family Liaison Officers are only assigned when a certain type of prosecution is likely following a death on the road. In others, all families are supported following a death on the road and some families are supported following a serious injury in a road crash as well. The minister said this was a matter for the Home Office and not the Ministry of Justice.
