1.  By November 2007, the Department had paid over £42 million in compensation to 4,400 former Icelandic trawlermen and their dependents. The scheme was complex to administer, and the Department made many of the same mistakes that it made in managing its Coal Health Compensation Scheme. The Department should set out the lessons in this Committee's reports on these schemes and secure a marked improvement in future schemes of this kind.

2.  The Department did not properly consider how it would obtain and assess the evidence needed to support claims more than 20 years after the end of the 'Cod Wars'. The Department should test the availability of evidence on real cases before launching new compensation schemes.

3.  The Department did not understand the working practices of the fishing industry when designing the scheme. So it set complex rules that were difficult to implement. The Department should establish whether it has the appropriate industry knowledge before setting the terms of grant schemes, and seek relevant external advice if it does not.

4.  The Department did not test the impact of the scheme's rules on different types of applicant before launching the scheme. The Department should pilot the proposed rules using a cross section of different types of applicant. It should use the results of this pilot to determine what changes are needed to enable delivery of the scheme's objectives.

5.  In 25 of 100 cases, there was insufficient evidence to say whether payments made by the Department accorded with the scheme's rules. The Department needs to put explicit criteria and procedures in place to help officials to exercise discretion on cases where the evidence may be incomplete. Decisions and their justification should be fully recorded.

6.  The Department did not employ proper project planning and risk management arrangements at the start of the scheme. It needs to improve the project delivery skills and experience of its managers and policy staff by, for example, giving officials practical operational experience; participating in the Professional Skills for Government programme; and seconding staff into operational posts in the commercial sector.