A Government Green Paper 'Rebuilding Lives - Supporting Victims of Crime', released today (7/12/5), proposes removing all cases where someone is injured whilst at work from the criminal injuries scheme and transferring the responsibility for compensating such cases to the employer.

This change could result in substantial and unpredictable increase to costs if individual police authorities are required to compensate officers who receive criminal injuries whilst at work.  By the very nature of their work, police officers face an increased risk of being injured whilst on duty.

Bob Jones, APA chairman said: "We welcome many of the proposals to improve services for victims and witnesses, but we are asking the Government to exempt police from any changes to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Although these proposals are only at consultation stage, if the duty to compensate injured police officers were to shift from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority to individual police authorities, this would mean a substantially increased burden on local finances. It is very unfair that once again, long-suffering council tax payers could be asked to pick up the bill locally for a scheme that is currently funded centrally".