Kirsty Darwent – Chair of Redress Scotland
As the Chair of Redress Scotland, I am delighted to present our Annual Report and Accounts for 2023-24.
Redress Scotland deeply understands the responsibility entrusted to us by survivors daily having been established with survivors at its heart, and we are committed to ensuring we serve them effectively.
Our latest Annual Report describes the efforts we’ve made towards fulfilling our mission over the last year. It details our organisational performance and the initiatives we’ve implemented to enhance our decision-making processes for redress applications.
We recognise that we are just one component of the broader efforts to recognize past mistakes, learn from them, and ensure they are not repeated.
What have we done this year?
• The decisions made by the Redress Scotland Panel have led to almost £45 million being paid out by the Scottish Government to survivors during 2023 – 2024.
• Redress Scotland received 1, 292 applications for redress in 2023/24, almost double the number of the previous year
• 246 initial panel sitting days were completed
• 946 decisions were completed, almost double the number of the previous year
• 908 survivors received redress and 39.4% of decisions on applications for individually assessed payment were level five awards
As part of our commitment to transparency, and to keeping the survivor community up to date with our work we have also regularly published data in our Fact and Figures reports. This year we also provided information on how long it takes for panel members to make a decision on applications.
In 2023-24 Redress Scotland substantially increased the number of decisions. However, waiting times increased as we also received higher numbers of applications and did not have enough capacity to manage these higher numbers. More panel members were recruited at the end of 2023 to increase our capacity for decision making.