Coalclaims
Encyclopedia
Coalclaims or Coal Health Claims is the collective name for two compensation schemes run by the UK Government. Responsibility for the claims lies with the Department of Energy and Climate Change
Department of Energy and Climate Change
The Department of Energy and Climate Change is a British government department created on 3 October 2008 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to take over some of the functions of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs...

 which split off from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform was a United Kingdom government department. The department was created on 28 June 2007 on the disbanding of the Department of Trade and Industry , and was itself disbanded on 6 June 2009 on the creation of the Department for Business,...

 (BERR) in October 2008. BERR itself was a rename of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

These schemes exist to compensate UK coal miners and their families in relation to respiratory disease
Respiratory disease
Respiratory disease is a medical term that encompasses pathological conditions affecting the organs and tissues that make gas exchange possible in higher organisms, and includes conditions of the upper respiratory tract, trachea, bronchi, bronchioles, alveoli, pleura and pleural cavity, and the...

 and Vibration white finger
Vibration white finger
Vibration white finger is a secondary form of Raynaud's syndrome, an industrial injury triggered by continuous use of vibrating hand-held machinery. Use of the term Vibration White Finger has generally been superseded by Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome or HAVS...

 (VWF). These are the biggest personal injury schemes in British legal history and possibly the world. The claims are processed for the government by Capita (formerly IRISC who were acquired by Aon Corporation who sold the IRISC part of their operation to Capita in 2004).

Claims are processed using a system known as ICMS (IRISC Claims Management System) which is as custom application written in FoxPro). This system integrates with the BCRDL (British Coal Respiratory Disease Litigation) Pension Loss Calculator that was developed by Workflow Consulting Limited under joint instruction from the British Government and the CSG (Claimant Solicitors Group).

Claimant solicitors can also track their cases using a government sponsored website http://www.coalclaims.com the current version of this was built and is operated by WTG. Prior to 2003 it was operated by Integrated Solutions Consultants Ltd of Hemel Hempstead who used to have the domain www.isc.co.uk though this has now been resold.

For the BCRDL scheme calculators to calculate the portion of quantum attributable to the miner's exposure to coal dust and their pension loss can be downloaded from the BCRDL maintained by Workflow Consulting Limited.

Controversy

As of November 2008, two solicitors who won personal injury claims for thousands of miners have appeared before a tribunal accused of taking cuts from compensation pay-outs.Jim Beresford, 58, and Douglas Smith, 51, from Beresfords Solicitors in Doncaster, denied 11 allegations of misconduct at the hearing in London.Jim Beresford was notably the highest paid solicitor in the UK for the year of 2006 as a consequence of Coalclaims work.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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