Financial redress for historical child abuse: consultation summary

Section 5:  Applications from next-of-kin

(Please see Questions 31 to 34 in the Respondent Information Form)

We think that surviving spouses and children of survivors who have died and who met all the eligibility criteria should be able to apply to the redress scheme.  This next-of-kin payment would acknowledge the fact that the survivor passed away before the financial redress scheme was in place.  It would be a flat-rate payment.  We want to know what you think about this approach.

Surviving spouses or children would need to provide supporting documents which show that their family member met all the eligibility criteria.  We want to know what you think about the kinds of evidence needed for a next-of-kin application, particularly in relation to abuse.

A cut-off date

Other schemes which have next-of-kin applications have set a “cut-off” date for people eligible to apply.  This would be the date after which a survivor must have died.  We want to know what you think about the following choices:

• 17 December 2014 - the date of the announcement of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry;
• 23 October 2018 - the date that the Deputy First Minister confirmed there would be a redress scheme in Scotland and that there would be some form of provision for next-of-kin;
• 17 November 2016 - the date that the Deputy First Minister announced that he wanted to hear wider views on the potential provision of financial redress. This is our preferred date. 

Next-of-kin payment

We ask what portion of the Stage One payment the next-of-kin payment should be. We give choices of 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of the Stage One payment.