Hansard

The determination of the Scottish Government to improve the life chances of children who are looked after is well documented. We all acknowledge that there are no easy fixes and that achieving fundamental change will take years. However, in many areas, there is tangible progress.

That said, we cannot forget the physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children that took place in Scotland's residential establishments. The issue has been a running sore in Scotland's history of taking care of children who could not live at home. The pain and trauma of those experiences were eloquently and bravely set out by survivors in their petitions to the Scottish Parliament. The cross-party group on survivors of childhood sexual abuse plays a crucial role by reminding us of survivors' concerns.

My statement today sets out the progress that we are making to improve the support that is available for survivors of in-care and institutional abuse. I make it clear that this statement is made on behalf of the whole Scottish Government. My ministerial colleagues and I cover the range of survivors' interests 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 that abuse happened and to help us understand how we could prevent abuse on such a scale from recurring. One important area of work is the review that was led by independent expert Tom Shaw and which published, in November 2007, the document "Historical Abuse Systemic Review: Residential Schools and Children's Homes in Scotland 1950 to 1995".

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 there is nothing that will affect their substance or intent.

In relation to Shaw's 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 survivorScotland, the national strategy for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, which is being led by the Minister for Public Health, we intend to improve the well-being of, and services for, all survivors and to raise public awareness of the existence and impact of all forms of abuse.

The reference group that is taking forward survivorScotland has recognised the specific needs of in-care abuse survivors by establishing a sub-group, which is chaired by Gary Westwater and is made up of survivors and other stakeholders. That group concluded its work this week with proposals for a national service framework. It wants a national hub that provides advice and information and is able to link up with the local services that in-care survivors need, which should include advocacy, mediation and counselling services.

I am persuaded in principle that that is the way forward. I have made available central funding for the next three years and, subject to the comments of the survivorScotland reference group, I expect to be able to move ahead quickly with the procurement of this national service.

More widely, the Scottish Government has listened to survivors and their explanations of the importance of society acknowledging the suffering that they have experienced. At the moment, the courts are the only avenue by which survivors can receive such public acknowledgement. Of course, it is essential that abusers are brought to justice, but often that route alone will not meet survivors' needs.

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 that. We are considering good practice examples for establishing a forum to give survivors the chance to speak about their experiences and to help them come to terms with the past. That will provide an invaluable opportunity to establish the facts, learn from the suffering and use the experience to help us protect and provide for children in the future.

I assure Parliament that, as the process develops, there will be further consultation with survivors of abuse, organisations that provide them with support and information and other providers of care that share with Government responsibility for acknowledging and supporting survivors.

In that context, I turn now to the Scottish Law Commission report "Personal Injury Actions: Limitation and Prescribed Claims", which was published on 5 December. The time bar is an issue in cases involving survivors of in-care and institutional abuse. That has recently been brought directly to members' 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, and any attempt to legislate to revive those very old cases would run into very serious difficulties in relation to retrospection and European convention on human rights considerations.

The Law Commission's 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 that period.

We genuinely do not believe that 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 that I have just described.

Another aspect of support for survivors that was 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 children's records. The stories of adults discovering from their records that they had siblings or finding out details of their families' circumstances that they never knew before are deeply moving. Even more heart-breaking are the stories of survivors who can find no record of themselves or their family.

We have learned the importance of looked-after children having a diary and memory book and records maintained for them from birth. However, 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. There are clear advantages in such a review, as the existing law is more than 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 that were exposed by Shaw.

Shaw also stresses the importance of using the existing law to improve the management of and access to children's records. Shaw recommends that children's organisations use the section 61 code of practice on records management from the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. We agree, so we will seek to include that code as a model for best practice within the looked-after children regulations, which are currently out to public consultation.

Shaw highlights the overriding concern of the survivors to whom he spoke that all those responsible for children in residential care now and in the future must learn the lessons of the past. He outlined the need to develop a culture in residential child care that is founded on children's rights and the need to raise respect for those children. I whole-heartedly agree with him. I want to work with partners to make residential care the first and best placement of choice for those children whose needs it serves. The starting point must be improving the status, morale and skills of residential care staff, who have among the toughest of jobs in caring for our most vulnerable children. We depend on their dedication and commitment, and 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. Of course, many such staff have already registered with the council, but progress is not good enough. We must ensure that all staff register with it in order to secure a well-qualified and highly professional workforce. We will engage with a range of key stakeholders, including employers and the council, to ensure that all parties are well placed to take forward such a 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 developing a continuous learning framework, which will help everyone in the sector to manage their 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 invite a range of partners to work with us to help achieve residential care of the best possible quality. I will look for recommendations on how we can achieve a supply of residential child care that matches the full range of needs of children and young people. We must also strengthen care planning for children in and out of placements by using the getting it right for every child framework. Furthermore, we must develop a more consistent approach to commissioning that is based on the desired outcomes for all children, with agreed roles and responsibilities for commissioning authorities and providers. We need to achieve agreement among providers, local authorities as corporate parents, the inspectorates and others on respective responsibilities for ensuring safety and good-quality care for children. I expect to receive early proposals on how those challenges can be addressed by June this year.

I want partners to ensure that we demonstrate that we have learned the lessons that are set out in the Shaw review and other inquiries, but of course we need to be continually alert to the potential for the abuse of children and ensure that 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's website the jointly agreed terms of reference for that inquiry. The inquiry team will engage thoroughly with survivors and ensure that their voice is central to the inquiry. Ex-members of staff will also be invited to provide insights into how abuse occurred over a long period of time without being prevented. The inquiry team will produce further details on its engagement with all relevant parties as its work continues. When the inquiry concludes, we will have a comprehensive picture of the strengths of the systems that we have in place to protect children and keep them safe, the shortcomings of those systems and further improvements to them that may be necessary.

Knowing what we know now, the Scottish Government considers that no further inquiries into historical abuse are necessary. Rather, our efforts will focus on the prevention of abuse in residential care and on the provision of support for survivors now. I am sure that all members will agree that the programme that I have set out will, over time, transform support for survivors.

The time for saying that we need to learn the lessons of historical abuse is over. Survivors deserve visible signs of progress. Their campaigning and willingness to share the horror of what they suffered will result in important changes that will help to protect children in the future.