Justice committee hears Scots child abuse payouts could top £200M

The cost of compensation for survivors of childhood abuse in Scotland could total at least £200m, MSPs at Holyrood’s justice committee have heard.

A bill has been tabled which would allow victims to claim compensation beyond the current three-year time bar and could permit claims dating back as far as 1964.

While groups giving evidence broadly voiced support for the bill, Alistair Gaw of Social Work Scotland told the committee the cost would be “highly significant”.

He cited an inquiry in Jersey, where the average cost of a payout was £40,000, expanding this to a possible 5,000 Scottish victims.

Mr Gaw said: “The Isle of Jersey went down a route which didn’t involve courts, and was actually an efficient and effective route of providing compensation.

“If you scale up even what happened there to the Scottish scene, you’ve got an average cost of around £40,000. And in Scotland that would involve around £200m, if we had the same kind of numbers, which would be around 5,000 in Scotland.

“So the scale of this, even at its potentially lowest level, is highly significant, and we have to take into account what potential impact that may have on voluntary organisations and on local authority funds, particularly in relation to issues of insurance.

“I think it’s absolutely essential that we right some of these historic wrongs, and we support the measures very much. But really serious consideration needs to be given to the best way of implementing support, including the potential impact on essential services.”

Police Scotland’s Det Ch Sup Lesley Boal later told the committee while Mr Gaw’s figure of 5,000 victims matched Police Scotland’s estimate that there could be 5,000 files, she warned that “5,000 is not (the number of) victims, that is files. There might be one person reporting in a file, or there might be a number.”

She added: “Even the recent football abuse investigations that are ongoing just now, there have been 140 referrals to Police Scotland, 36 investigations raised, well over a hundred victims.”

To view the full session visit: http://www.scottishparliament.tv/20170228__justice.