JUST 60 people have received compensation under the Windrush Compensation Scheme so far, government figures show.

A total of £360,000 has been paid out in compensation via the fund during its first year. It has been predicted that the scheme, which is uncapped, has the potential to pay out hundreds of millions.

One payment exceeding £100,000 has been made to one claimant.

The Home Office has also made offers of approximately £280,000. It added that many of the payments made to date are interim payments, meaning recipients are likely to receive higher amounts of compensation in future.

Home secretary Priti Patel said: “By listening to feedback from community leaders and those affected, we have begun to put right the wrongs caused to a generation who have contributed so much to our country.

“The Windrush Compensation Scheme has been developed to ease the burden from the unacceptable mistreatment some have faced, which is why it is so important that people continue to come forward.”

While just 1,275 people have made claims to date, more than 12,000 people have been issued documentation confirming their immigration status.

As part of the Home Office’s efforts to encourage more people to come forward and claim, the Commonwealth Citizens’ Taskforce and the Windrush Compensation Scheme are running a series of online engagement events.

The Home Office’s Windrush Compensation Scheme update has been met with condemnation from opposition MPs, despite the department’s claims it is “making good progress”.

Labour MP David Lammy, whose speeches about the UK government’s treatment of the Windrush generation have gone viral in the past, tweeted that the revelation was “a gross insult” to the thousands of black Britons that “had their lives ruined by their own government in the Windrush scandal”.

Former shadow home secretary Dianne Abbott tweeted: “Government ministers shed crocodile tears about #Windrush scandal. But the pathetically small number of people who have got any compensation, tells you how much they really cared.”

The Windrush scandal saw British citizens born in the Caribbean deported, detained, lose recourse to public funds and the right to work in the UK because they could not prove their immigration status, despite those arriving before 1973 being granted indefinite leave to remain.

Media coverage highlighted the issue did not just affect those born in the Caribbean but elsewhere in the Commonwealth. The compensation scheme is open to almost anyone born in a Commonwealth country who arrived and settled in the UK before 1973, and their close family members, who has been wrongly classed as not having the legal right to work and remain in the UK.

The scheme, which was launched in April 2019, was initially due to close next year. However, the closing date has been extended to April 2023.