Scotland's Redress Scheme: combined annual report 2023

3. Actions to help victims and survivors of historical child abuse in care

Since 2014 the Scottish Government has continued to work with survivors and others to take steps to address a number of issues, some of which began to be advanced before 2014 and are covered in part by this report. The steps that have been taken since 2014 have included:

• establishing the National Confidential Forum and the independent Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in 2015;
• SurvivorScotland’s strategic outcomes and priorities were updated in 2015;
• launching the In Care Survivor Support Fund in 2015, which was renamed Future Pathways in 2017, to better enable survivors of abuse in care to choose services tailored to their individual needs and offer access to a discretionary fund;
• supporting the passage of the Apologies (Scotland) Act 2016
• introducing the Bill that became the Limitation (Childhood Abuse) (Scotland) Act 2017, removing the three year limitation period;
• launching a new Survivor Support Innovation and Development Fund for survivor services in 2017, which from April 2020, was replaced by a new four year funded initiative, the Survivors of Childhood Abuse Support Fund;
• announcing the National Trauma Training Programme in 2018;
• giving an apology “on behalf of the Scottish Government” to survivors of abuse in care in Scotland, by the Deputy First Minister before Parliament in 2018;
• launching an Advance Payment Scheme in 2019 to enable certain survivors to begin receiving financial redress. The Advance Payment Scheme is now closed and is replaced by Scotland’s Redress Scheme;
• establishing the ‘Redress Support Service’ in 2021 to support applicants throughout the application process – delivering emotional support, practical support and support to access relevant records;
• initiating the individual apology process in 2021 – to provide applicants the opportunity to request an apology from any of the organisations named in their application – including the option to request an individual apology from the Scottish Government; and
• establishing the Survivor Forum in 2021 as set out in section 102 of the Redress for Survivors (Historical Child Abuse in Care) (Scotland) Act 2021 (legislation.gov.uk).