Support for survivors of historic in-care and institutional abuse
Statement to the Scottish Parliament
Children and Early Years Minister Adam Ingram
February 7, 2008
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The determination of the Scottish Government to improve the life chances for children who are looked after is well documented. We all acknowledge that there are no easy fixes and achieving fundamental change will take years. But in many areas there is tangible progress.
However, we cannot forget the physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children which took place within Scotland's residential establishments. This has been a running sore within Scotland's history of taking care of children who could not live at home.
The pain and trauma of these experiences were eloquently and bravely set out by survivors in their Petitions to the Scottish Parliament. The cross-Party parliamentary Group for survivors of childhood sexual abuse plays a crucial role by reminding us of survivors' concerns.
My statement today sets out the progress we are making to improve the support available for survivors of in-care and institutional abuse. Before continuing, I want to make clear that this statement is made on behalf of the whole Scottish Government.
My Ministerial colleagues and I cover the range of interests of survivors and, collectively, we are determined to work closely with our partners, to achieve real change.
Survivors' commitment and action led in 2004 to the then-First Minister's apology, for the abuse committed. He put in place a raft of work to get to the heart of how this abuse happened and helping us understand how we could prevent abuse on such a scale recurring.
One important area of work is the Historical Abuse Systemic Review of Residential Schools and Children's Homes in Scotland between 1950 and 1995, led by independent expert Tom Shaw and published in November 2007.
The Scottish Government is pleased to accept the recommendations of the Shaw review in full. There are a few differences in the detail of some of our proposals for taking forward the recommendations but nothing that will affect their substance or intent.
In relation to his recommendation on the introduction of support services for in-care abuse survivors, I am pleased to inform Parliament of recent developments.
Within the context of Survivor Scotland, the National Strategy for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, being led by the Minister for Public Health, we intend to improve the wellbeing of, and services for, all survivors, and to raise public awareness of the existence and impact of all forms of abuse.
The Reference Group taking forward Survivor Scotland has recognised the specific needs of in-care abuse survivors by establishing a sub-group, chaired by Gary Westwater and made up of survivors and other stakeholders.
This group concluded its work this week with proposals for a national service framework. It wishes to see a national hub providing advice and information and able to link up with the local services which in-care survivors need. This should include advocacy, mediation and counselling services.
I am persuaded in principle that this is the way forward. I have made available central funding for the next three years. And subject to the comments of the Survivor Scotland Reference Group, I expect to be able to move ahead quickly with procurement for this national service.
More widely, the Scottish Government has listened to survivors and their explanations of the importance of society acknowledging the suffering they have experienced.
At the moment, the only avenue for survivors to receive such public acknowledgement is the courts. Of course, it is essential that abusers are brought to justice. But often this route alone will not meet the needs of survivors.
I am pleased to inform Parliament that we have been actively scoping the adaptation of the principles of a truth and reconciliation model. We are committed to this principle. We are considering good practice examples for taking forward a forum to give survivors the chance to speak about their experiences to help come to terms with the past.
This will provide an invaluable opportunity to establish the facts, learn from the suffering and use the experience to help us to protect and provide for children in the future.
I can assure Parliament that there will be further consultation as this process develops, with survivors of abuse, organisations providing them with support and information, together with other providers of care which share with Government responsibility for acknowledging and supporting survivors.
In this context, I turn now to the Scottish Law Commission Report on Personal Injury Actions: Limitation and Prescribed Claims published on 5th December.
Time bar is an issue in cases involving survivors of in-care and institutional abuse. Members have recently had this brought directly to their attention through a letter from a survivor.
My Ministerial colleagues and I have every sympathy for survivors of abuse.
However, the Scottish Government accepts the Law Commission's recommendations that prescribed claims should not be revived. The events in question took place before September 1964. Any attempt to legislate to revive these very old cases would run into very serious difficulties in relation to retrospection and ECHR considerations.
The SLC report does not make specific recommendations for survivors of abuse in relation to the limitation period for raising a claim, which is currently three years. It recommends the continuation of non-time limited judicial discretion for cases, outwith this period.
We genuinely do not believe a change in the law to give abuse survivors a right to take any case to court would actually right the wrong in question and provide positive outcomes for survivors.
Changing the law is not the way to tackle this issue. The Government's focus is the development of the Forum I have just described.
Another aspect of support for survivors identified by the Shaw Review was the importance of ensuring that survivors and past residents could access their records.
It is a tragedy that so little value was placed on keeping the records of children. The stories of adults discovering from their records that they had siblings or details of their families' circumstances, which they never knew are deeply moving. Even more heart-breaking are those stories of survivors who can find no record of themselves or their family.
We have learnt the importance of looked after children having a diary and memory book and records maintained for them from birth. But we still have a responsibility to support adults to access their records and to make sure records for children in care now are properly stored.
The Shaw report rightly makes important recommendations about records and record keeping.
The first is the need for a review of public records legislation. We see clear advantages in a review of the Public records legislation, as the existing law is over 60 years old. We have therefore asked the Keeper of the Records of Scotland, in consultation, to review the legislation on public records in the light of the shortcomings exposed by Shaw.
Shaw also stresses the importance of using the existing law to improve management and access to children's records. It recommends that Children's organisations use the S. 61 Code of Practice on records management from the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. We agree. We will seek to include this code as a model for best practice within the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations, that are currently out to public consultation.
The Shaw Review highlights the overriding concern of the survivors he spoke to that all those responsible for children in residential care now and in the future must learn the lessons of the past.
Shaw calls for the need to develop a culture in residential childcare founded on children's rights and to raise respect for those children. I wholeheartedly agree.
I want to work with partners to make residential care the first and best placement of choice for those children whose needs it serves.
I believe the starting point must be improving the status, morale and skills of residential care staff. These staff have among the toughest of jobs caring for our most vulnerable children. We all depend on their dedication and commitment. They deserve improvements.
I am pleased to announce that the Scottish Government intends to take the necessary steps to require residential child care workers to register with the Scottish Social Services Council. Many such staff have, of course, already registered, but progress is not good enough. We must now ensure that all staff register, to secure a well-qualified and highly professional workforce.
We will be engaging with a range of key stakeholders, including employers and the Scottish Social Services Council to ensure that all these parties are well-placed to take forward this vital agenda.
More widely, the Scottish Government is committed to the long term, sustainable development of the social services workforce in Scotland.
We have been working with the social services sector to build capacity and skills, through the development of a Continuous Learning Framework, which will help everyone in the sector to manage their own career development and learning more effectively, and through a programme of action to improve leadership capacity.
Further improvements in residential care are also required. I will be inviting a range of partners to work with us to help achieve residential care of the best possible quality. I will be looking for recommendations for:
Firstly, how we achieve a supply of residential childcare, which matches the full range of needs of children and young people. We must also strengthen care planning through, during and out of placements, using the GIRFEC framework
Secondly, we must develop a more consistent approach to commissioning based on the desired outcomes for all children, together with agreed roles and responsibilities between commissioning authorities and providers. We need to achieve agreement among providers, local authorities as corporate parents, the inspectorates and others, on the respective responsibilities for ensuring safety and good quality care for children.
I expect to receive early proposals on how these challenges can be addressed by June this year.I want partners to ensure that we demonstrate we have learnt the lessons set out in the Shaw review and other inquiries. But of course, we need to be continually alert to the potential for abuse of children and ensure our systems for listening to children are continually refreshed.
In October, I announced that the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council had jointly Commissioned an Independent Inquiry into Abuse at Kerelaw and that further details would follow.
Today, I have placed on the Scottish Government website, the jointly agreed terms of reference for the Inquiry.
The Inquiry team will engage thoroughly with survivors and ensure that their voice is central to this Inquiry. Ex-members of staff will also be invited to provide insight into how abuse occurred over a long period of time, without prevention. The Inquiry team will produce further details on its engagement with all relevant parties as its work continues.
Once this Joint Inquiry concludes, we will have a comprehensive picture of the strengths of the systems we have in place to protect and keep children safe; its shortcomings and further improvements which may be necessary.
Knowing what we know now, the Scottish Government considers no further inquiries into historic abuse are necessary. Our efforts will focus on prevention of abuse in residential care and providing support for survivors now.
I am sure all Members will agree that the programme I have set out this morning will, over time, transform support for survivors.
The time of saying we need to learn the lessons of historic abuse is over. Survivors deserve visible signs of progress. Their campaigning; their willingness to share the horror of what they suffered will result in important changes, which will help protect children in the future.