Claims for Redress Scotland scheme: FOI release

Information requested

1 How Many Successful Claims Have Been Paid Since The Start Of The Scheme in December 2021?

2 What was the ages of the people claiming from 20 to 80 years of age and was these people male or female?

3 What was the amounts paid out to the last 3 claims paid out?

4  If no claims for redress scotland has been paid out- why not ?

5 What is the average wait for straight forward claims for individually assessed, and average wait for complicated claims?

6 Do you have enough staff to faccilitate the claims coming through at the government and redress scotland?

Response

In response to question (1), as of 7 April 2022, 23 payments have been made since scheme opening.

In response to question (2), providing information with regard to an individual's age could lead to identification of those who have received a payment.As such, an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section  34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

In response to question (3), we have interpreted this as a request for information on the total amount of each of the last three payments made. As of 7 April 2022, this is as follows:
1. £90000 (award of £100000 with previous relevant payment of £10000 subtracted)
2. £10000
3. £10000

In response to question (4), you will see from the information above that payments have been made since scheme opening.

In response to question (5), we have interpreted this as a request for information around the elapsed time between an application being passed to Redress Scotland and payment being made in circumstances where the  Redress Scotland Panel determine a payment should be made. We do not identify claims as “straightforward” or “complex”.

The two forms of application for Survivor Redress are Fixed Rate and Individually Assessed. From the time an application is passed to Redress Scotland for determination, the timescale to have a decision returned to Scottish Government is generally around six weeks. However timescales may be affected by the volumes of completed applications and other circumstances, such as whether further information is required.

Upon the determination being received from Redress Scotland, Scottish Government communicate this to the applicant who will consider whether to accept the redress payment offered.

There is a requirement that an applicant who wishes to accept a redress payment offer which has been made to them must sign and return a waiver agreeing to:

a) abandon any existing relevant civil proceedings, and
b) waive any right to raise any new relevant civil proceedings.

Any payments are made by Scottish Government within ten working days of a signed waiver being received.

In response to your question (6), the number of applications received in the first quarter of the schemeexceeded  forecasts. Within twelve weeks of the scheme opening, 9% of the expected five year total of survivor applications had been received. In response to the high number of applications already received, a further ten redress caseworkers are being recruited, almost doubling the number ofcaseworkers available. Recruitment will take time  but the process is now underway.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.