Their purpose is to make it easier to calculate future losses in personal injury and fatal accident cases.
The tables take into account life expectancy and provide a range of discount rates from -2.0% to 3.0% in steps of 0.5%.
[3] The full and official name of the tables is Actuarial Tables with explanatory notes for use in Personal Injury and Fatal Accident Cases, but the unofficial name became common parlance following the Civil Evidence Act 1995, where this shorthand name was used as a subheading – Sir Michael Ogden QC having been the chairman of the Working Party for the first four editions.
[3] Section 10 of the Civil Evidence Act 1995 authorised their use in evidence in the UK "for the purpose of assessing, in an action for personal injury, the sum to be awarded as general damages for future pecuniary loss".
The 7th edition of the tables made changes to the discount rate range (previously 0.0% to 5.0% revised to -2.0% to 3.0%) to allow for a revision of the rate by the Lord Chancellor (currently under consideration as at 24 October 2011) and to provide for the implications of the case of Helmot v.