Recent reforms to road traffic accident/whiplash injury law in England and Wales do not affect Scotland.
We are seeing lots of articles online which say that they are explaining, for example, “the impact of the UK’s whiplash reforms”.
These articles explain how fixed compensation tariffs have been introduced for whiplash injuries resulting from road traffic accidents.
These reforms have significantly reduced the amount of compensation that particular types of whiplash injury receive according to the tariff system.
The main point to note is that these changes in procedure and valuation do not apply in Scotland.
Following sustained lobbying by UK insurers – based on there being approaching one million claims per year for whiplash injuries – the UK Government passed legislation to reduce damages/compensation for road traffic accident-related whiplash injures across the board – but affecting England and Wales only.
What have come to be referred to as the ‘Whiplash Reforms’ introduced a new concept for damages/compensation in civil cases – the idea of FIXED compensation.
The result of these changes in England and Wales has been a significant reduction in the level of compensation recoverable for whiplash injuries arising from road traffic accidents and, following on from that, a reduction in the level of legal costs payable.
As explained on the Ministry of Justice website, the whiplash tariff came into force from 31 May 2021.
It is a fixed tariff of compensation for road traffic accident-related whiplash injuries which last up to 2 years from the date of injury.
The tariff consists of an ascending scale of fixed sum payments, with the appropriate tariff figure for any given claim being determined by the prognosis (i.e. duration) of the whiplash injury.
The tariff bands are mostly in 3 month ‘slices’ (i.e. 0 to 3 months, 3 to 6 months … and up to 18 to 24 months).
More serious whiplash injuries exceeding 24 months in duration are not subject to the tariff and are still calculated in England and Wales in the same way as they were before the reforms took effect.
In other words, claims for whiplash injuries which last longer than 2 years fall outside the scope of the fixed tariff scheme in England and Wales.
To give you an idea of the difference in valuation between tariff scheme and the pre-existing scheme (and remember that the ‘pre-existing scheme’ still applies in Scotland), see the following examples.
Duration of whiplash injury not exceeding 3 months:
- tariff in England and Wales: £240;
- pre-existing England and Wales scheme and still the case in Scotland: up to £2,990, depending on the exact duration of the symptoms within the period less than 3 months.
Duration of whiplash injury more than 18 months but not more than 24 months:
- tariff in England and Wales: £4,215;
- pre-existing England and Wales scheme and still the case in Scotland: up to £9,630.
The pre-existing scheme in England and Wales and the scheme which has applied at all times in Scotland – and continues to apply in Scotland – for valuation of personal injury compensation is based upon the Judicial College Guidelines for the assessment of general damages in personal injury cases.
From the Introduction to the latest edition of the JCG Guidelines (17th edition), the way that the guidelines are meant to be used in cases to which they apply is as follows:
.
Their purpose is to reflect the awards of general damages currently being made by judges and to do so in an accessible form designed to make the work of those practising in the field, and judges, easier. The expert editorial team does not devise the range of awards set out in the Guidelines: the Guidelines are merely a distillation of the awards being made by the courts for other similar injuries. For the purpose of each edition, the editorial team painstakingly seek out and comb through reasoned decisions of the courts dealing with the quantification of general damages awards.
from Introduction to the Judicial College Guidelines—Seventeenth Edition (p. xiii)
The Whiplash Reforms apply only to whiplash injuries sustained as a result of road traffic accidents in England and Wales.
The whiplash reforms do not apply to Scotland.
Given the huge difference in populations between England and Wales, on the one hand, and Scotland, on the other hand, it is almost inevitable that there is a risk that Scottish claimants can get sucked into the system which applies to England and Wales only.
As you can see from the above, in those circumstances, the risk is that you, as a Scottish claimant, will receive far less compensation for your injuries and other losses than you are correctly entitled to because the wrong scheme for calculation of personal injury compensation will be applied.
If you are in a situation where you have a potential claim for personal injury compensation, please do not be fooled into accepting compensation at the lower level and according to the wrong scale.
If you have any doubts, get advice from a Scottish solicitor – who will almost certainly be willing to give you preliminary advice free of charge.
This is not a complicated matter from the point of view of a solicitor and it could make all the difference to you in terms of the way in which your claim is dealt with and the level of compensation you receive at the end of the day.
How we can help
If you have any questions arising from the above, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We are happy to help you free of charge with any question you might have regarding whether your potential claim arising from a road traffic accident for whiplash injuries should proceed according to the Scottish system or according to procedure which applies in England and Wales only.
We are also happy to answer any questions you may have regarding our wider personal injury claims services generally.
You can contact us by phoning on 01343 544077 or by sending us a Free Online Enquiry using the contact form on this website. One of our accredited personal injury claims solicitors will speak to you – or get back to you usually within a few hours at most.
We have already expressed concerns elsewhere on this website that insurers – the bulk of whom are English- or Welsh-based – are already showing signs of trying to shoehorn Scottish personal injury cases into the law and procedures which should apply to England and Wales only.
Please do your bit to maintain the independence of Scots Law as well as making sure that you get justice and fair compensation for injuries you may have received as the result of a road traffic accident.
