Redress Scheme: information for organisations

Redress payments composition

Redress payments are designed to be a reflection of the cumulative childhood abusive experience of survivors, and contributions from scheme participants should reflect this. Any form of detailed attribution of responsibility to organisations would require there to be decision making akin to a determination as to whether liability for abuse rests with one organisation more than another, as would be found in litigation. The Act provides that the scheme is not about establishing liability. Drawing fine distinctions between organisations responsible for the care of an applicant to the scheme would also undermine the national collective endeavour which the scheme represents, which proceeds on the understanding that all applicants were failed by someone, often many people, at various levels of the care system at that time.

In cases where an application has named various care settings which were operated by different organisations, then the value of the contribution that is drawn from participating organisations, once the Scottish Government contribution has been made, will be shared equally amongst all of the participating organisations depending on the number of settings that were operated by each organisation.

Abuse is a deeply personal experience, and in the context of a trauma informed non-adversarial and collective approach to redress, it would not be appropriate or even possible for Redress Scotland, the Scottish Government or participating organisations to accurately determine how the experiences in one abusive environment compared with or contributed to experiences elsewhere. For organisations where the information given in applications which name them would result in offers of lower redress payments, they may avoid being allocated contributions and ultimately end up contributing a sum which does not reflect the value of redress payments made in relation to them. Equally, for organisations where the information given in applications which name them would result in offers of higher redress payments, they may be consistently allocated the majority of a redress payment and their contribution could be distributed to smaller number of survivors in a way which does not reflect their participation in the scheme as a whole.

Allocating contributions equally amongst organisations named in applications represents a holistic approach to abuse and is consistent with the ethos of the scheme being a national collective endeavour and not seeking to attribute blame or liability.