Last October, I made a statement in Parliament in which I committed to providing financial redress for victims and survivors of historical child abuse in care. On behalf of the Scottish Government, I made it clear that we whole-heartedly accept the need to provide acknowledgement and tangible recognition of the harm done to children who were abused in care in Scotland. In doing so, we openly acknowledge that such recognition cannot in any way take away the pain that individuals have suffered.
Since October, we have continued to hear harrowing evidence of the abuse of children in care settings across Scotland. We have listened to the testimonies that have been given to the Scottish child abuse inquiry. Victims and survivors continue to tell us of their experiences of being failed by the establishments and people who had been entrusted with looking after them. We must continue to listen to that testimony, and the Scottish Government will consider with great care the findings and recommendations that will be made in due course by Lady Smith.
Since my statement in October, work has been progressing on designing the statutory redress scheme. The Scottish Government remains committed to introducing a bill that could pass its final stages before the end of this parliamentary session in March 2021. I welcome the views and the encouragement of members in helping us to do all that we can to accelerate that timetable.
My officials are working at pace to establish a statutory scheme as quickly as we can. I am conscious, however, that a significant amount of detailed design is required to ensure that we get the scheme right. We will have a full pre-legislative consultation later this year, in order to hear a wide range of views in that process. We must be confident that we get all the details of such a scheme correct.
We are all too aware that, because of age or health, some survivors might not live long enough to apply to the statutory scheme. Today, I am pleased to confirm the launch of an advance payment scheme for those who were abused as a child in care in Scotland and who have a terminal illness or are aged 70 or over. The scheme is now open for applications, and full details will be published online this afternoon. On Monday morning, a telephone support line will open, which will be dedicated to helping survivors who wish to request an application pack or find out more about the scheme. We realise that the application process itself may be distressing for some survivors, and we will signpost applicants to sources of support should it be required.
The advance payment scheme will be administered within the Scottish Government by specially trained caseworkers, who will support applicants through the process in order that they access the acknowledgment that they rightly deserve.
The advance payment will be an equal payment to all applicants who meet the eligibility criteria. It will be made using the Scottish Government’s common-law powers. The payments will be discretionary and made on an ex gratia basis. The payment level has been set at £10,000. That sum is broadly in line with interim payments made by redress schemes in other parts of the world. The costs of the advance payment scheme are being met in whole by the Scottish Government, and we intend it to remain open for applications until the statutory redress scheme is established.
Given the time-sensitive nature of advance payments, we have kept the application process as straightforward as possible. To be eligible, applicants must either have a terminal illness or be aged 70 or over, and must have been abused while in care in Scotland before December 2004.
We are guided by the terms of reference that the Government has set for the Scottish child abuse inquiry, but that is not the sole influence in relation to eligibility. Given the differing purposes of redress and the inquiry, we have also looked to other sources if those provide a better fit, or have added interpretation to the inquiry’s terms of reference where that is needed.
The systems that we now have in place to regulate different aspects of childcare and to safeguard children from systemic abuse are radically different from the regimes of yesteryear. The Scottish Parliament introduced fundamental regulatory change in that respect by establishing Disclosure Scotland, setting up the Care Inspectorate, requiring the registration of care staff across children’s services and more.
It is the prior, historical failings that have led the Government to establish a scheme of redress. December 2004 marked the public apology that was made by the then First Minister, Jack McConnell and endorsed by the Scottish Parliament as a whole. It also marked the broad mid-point of a period of rapid and significant change in child protection legislation and policy and practice in relation to children in care. We have defined that date of December 2004 as the date prior to which abuse would have to have taken place to demonstrate eligibility.
For the purposes of advance payments, residential pupils at boarding schools will not be eligible if their parents chose that place for their child’s education. We know from criminal cases that abuse took place at some boarding schools and the impacts of that will have been as horrendous as those of abuse elsewhere. However, the advance payment scheme seeks to respond where institutions and bodies had responsibility for the long-term care of children in the place of the parent.
Long-term healthcare eligibility will exclude establishments whose primary purpose was medical or surgical treatment. Patient stays in those hospitals—primarily general or local hospitals—will normally have been short to medium term and, importantly, it will have been possible for parental contact to be maintained, albeit constrained by visiting arrangements. Children who stayed in all other establishments where the function was primarily care and not treatment, and the stays were often long term—indeed sometimes lifelong—will be included.
Survivors asked us to develop an application process that was as straightforward as possible for survivors, while making the scheme robust and credible. That is what we have designed and are delivering today. Applicants will not be required to submit evidence of having been abused, but will require documentary evidence that shows that they were in care. Terminal illness will need to be certified by a registered healthcare professional, through a process that we believe is as sensitive as possible to the circumstances of the applicant.
We know that some eligible applicants will not yet have the written documentation that they need to support their application. Our caseworkers will be on hand to help and advise applicants and to refer them to organisations that can help them to obtain a supporting document. Recognising the impact that applying for and receiving an advance payment may have on survivors, we will also make applicants aware of organisations that offer emotional and other types of support.
There are no reliable estimates of how many survivors may be eligible for advance payments. We will prioritise applications from those who are terminally ill. We will keep our arrangements under review so that our processes and procedures adjust in the face of experience, reflecting feedback from applicants.
I take this opportunity to thank the interaction review group for continuing to work closely with us towards today’s launch. Its input into the design of the advance payment scheme and the application materials has been invaluable. We will work in a sensitive way, taking into account the trauma that applicants will have experienced. I express my gratitude to all those survivors and organisations who have given us their advice and suggestions. I also thank colleagues who have designed and delivered redress schemes in other parts of the United Kingdom and across the world, and who are giving so generously of their time to help us to understand what lessons can be learned.
Our next key step is to develop proposals for the statutory redress scheme. No decisions have yet been taken. In developing our proposals, we will take into consideration the views that were expressed in the survivor consultation last year, the responses that will come from the more detailed pre-legislative consultation later this year and our experience of delivering advance payments.
The advance payment scheme is a significant milestone in our endeavours to do what we can to address the wrongs of the past. I hope that it will provide some degree of recognition and acknowledgement for survivors who have waited the longest for acknowledgment and redress, and for those who have a terminal illness.
I reassure other survivors of historical abuse in care that our commitment to design the statutory scheme with a strong survivor voice is unrelenting, and I commit to updating Parliament on a regular basis on the progress that we make.