Scotland's Redress Scheme: combined annual report 2025

4.23 Save the Children

Introduction

This report provides information about the activities Save the Children UK (SCUK) has taken to support survivors and meet its obligations as members of the Scottish Government’s Redress Scheme for Survivors of Historic Abuse. The reporting period covered in the report is the third year of the scheme, from 7 December 2023 to 6 December 2024.

The report includes information on the steps we have taken to ensure that we provide assistance to survivors. The report covers activities on the non-financial elements of scheme membership. These are:

• Funding for emotional, psychological, or practical support
• Advice and assistance on accessing historical records
• Advice and assistance on tracing and reuniting families
• Activities relating to the acknowledgement of abuse and providing a meaningful apology to survivors
• Other relevant examples of support provided to survivors including our approach to safeguarding.

Governance

Our approach to supporting survivors and our membership of the Scheme is led by an oversight group. The oversight group is responsible for monitoring and implementing our membership of the scheme. This group includes senior staff responsible for our work in Scotland, as well as representatives from our Safeguarding and Legal teams. Colleagues in our People and Wellbeing Team are available to provide support and advice to the oversight group, as needed. This group reports directly to our Trustees, primarily through the Audit and Risk Committee and Safeguarding Committee of our Board.

In addition, we have an agreement with Harmeny Education Trust Ltd (HETL) on how we work together as members of the scheme to support former pupils to access records and provide emotional and practical support. Non-financial Redress Activities

Emotional, psychological or practical support

Our Safeguarding and Wellbeing teams follow a values-based, people-centred approach to providing emotional, psychological and practical support to survivors.

Support to survivors of historical abuse is included in our case management standard operating procedures and survivor-centred protocol. Our Director of Safeguarding is the named lead for these policies and these policies are subject to periodic review and update.

We have developed a therapeutic pathway for survivors of all historical abuse relating to the organisation, including any survivors contacting us through the auspices of the Scheme. The pathway sets out how the organisation follows a person-centred approach and provides support that is tailored to an individual’s needs. Our Safeguarding and Wellbeing teams work closely together to ensure that the best possible support is available to survivors, and this includes an initial screening with a trained TRiM (trauma risk incident management) practitioner. Following this initial screening and discussion with individuals, we can offer counselling or a referral to a clinical psychologist. These services are provided through third-party, accredited providers depending on where the survivor is based. Our approach is flexible and continually monitored. We aim to refine our approach based on feedback from survivors on how it works in practice.

We would be happy to provide more information on our pathway and providers.

During this reporting period, we have not had any contact or referrals from case workers relating to cases arising under the Scheme with requests to provide emotional, psychological or practical support.

Providing advice and assistance to survivors to access historical records

Our cooperation with HETL (the organisation that took over management of Harmeny School from SCUK) continues to be frequent and strong, particularly with regard to the provision of historical records to survivors.

In order to govern our relationship in this regard we have a legal agreement in place to ensure that our obligations to make historical records relating to Harmeny School available to applicants under the Scheme are met. This agreement sets out the basis for the control, protection and sharing of personal data between HETL and SCUK in line with data protection legislation, as well as forming the basis on which HETL and SCUK will cooperate with one another in relation to access to, and use of, the historical records relating Harmeny School. Under our agreement, and in practice, SCUK and HETL work together closely to handle subject access requests by former pupils of Harmeny School. Such requests are generally received by the management at HETL, whereafter HETL and SCUK will jointly prepare the response to survivors to ensure that all appropriate records relating to a survivor’s request can be provided. HETL maintains contact with the individual making the request, or their representative, by telephone or email, and offers the opportunity to visit the school, if acceptable to the survivor.

Given requests for records can go back some decades, there may be instances where we do not hold detailed records for survivors to access. We therefore work with HETL to provide as much information as we can from our records relating to our period of ownership of Harmeny School.

As an organisation, senior staff in our Safeguarding, Wellbeing and Legal teams are able to assist survivors to access their records directly in the event that they contact us directly, or through the Scheme. Over the course of the reporting period, all requests for records have reached us through HETL.

In the reporting year, we provided financial support and assistance to HETL to support access to historical records, as well as assistance and support for any former pupil visits to the school.

During this reporting period we:

• Supported one individual, in conjunction with Harmeny School, to access their records, as well as one former pupil for whom we do not appear to hold any records
• Continued to provide assistance to a former student in accessing their historical records
• Individually and in partnership with HETL, provided responses to verification requests to the Scottish Government in respect of one former student. This request related to confirmation of placement at the school or to previous relevant payments made in respect of the individuals concerned.

Providing advice and assistance in tracing and reuniting families

We have had no requests to provide assistance in tracing and reuniting families during this reporting period. We are able to offer advice and assistance if required in future. As an organisation, we recognise that abuse can have both immediate and longer lasting emotional, psychological and social effects, and that the trauma of abuse can impact survivors in a variety of different ways. This means that we will ensure that any assistance offered puts the survivor’s needs and wishes at the centre. Our ‘Survivor-centred Protocol’ encapsulates this approach, directly references non-recent/historical abuse and is available on our website.

Providing apologies to survivors

Apology is an important element of non-financial redress. We have made a statement of apology for past abuse, and this is available on our website. We are committed to providing individual apologies based on any requests received. During this reporting period we have not been contacted to provide an apology to any individual survivor of abuse.

As set out in our response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on the apology framework, and in line with our own survivor-centred approach, we will tailor an apology to an individual, ensuring that the language we use towards the individual is dignified, respectful, compassionate and contrite.

In terms of the mode of apology, we aim to follow the wishes of the survivor and to support their recovery. Where circumstances allow, we can offer either a face-to-face apology from our CEO or suitable alternative (for example, our Chair of the Board), or a written apology, or both.

The key obstacle to providing the most meaningful form of individual apology is the availability of accurate and relevant information relating to the individual and the period in which they attended the institution at which they suffered abuse. The information available to the organisation from our historical records, if any, can often be basic, thereby limiting what we can ascertain, such as the dates during which a student attended the relevant institution. This may mean that we are unable to provide meaningful context to explain the situation at the institution in question at the time a victim attended, which we understand could be frustrating for victims and which we know would hamper our ability to expand more fully on the content of any apology we provide. We are committed to sharing as much accurate and relevant information as possible within these constraints, and, where we cannot, we are committed to sharing the reasons why.

Other support

Support for former pupils to visit HETL

Through our agreement with HETL, we offer a joined-up approach to supporting former pupils of the school during SCUK’s period of management.

We support HETL to facilitate visits to the school from former pupils, principally through providing financial assistance to HETL to host former pupils on the school’s premises. HETL have committed to supporting any visitor who discloses historical abuse on those visits.

A copy of the book, ‘Recollections of Harmeny: The First Fifty Years’ is also available free of charge from HETL to any former pupil, should they wish to have a copy. The book covers a history of the school and can support former pupils to make sense of their time at the school.

Our approach to safeguarding

Keeping the children and adults we work with safe is vital and is our top priority. We believe that all children, adults, families, and communities who come into contact with us or our partners (in person or online) should have a safe, inclusive and collaborative experience, free from all forms of abuse, harm and harassment. We expect all staff, volunteers and partners to demonstrate the highest standards of behaviour in both our professional and personal lives. And we do all we can to prevent, report and respond appropriately to all safeguarding concerns.

Our five pillars of safeguarding are: prevention (preventing harm, including through robust risk management), reporting (ensuring children and adults can share any concerns they have, and will be protected to do so, whilst also encouraging lower-level, ‘near miss’ reporting), response (investigating all concerns in a prompt, safe, fair and survivor-centred way), learning (seeking feedback from children and families, and regular case reviews) and governance (ensuring that our Board is well equipped to hold us to account). We aim to be unflinching in learning from our mistakes, including historic cases, and this learning is reflected in how we implement our safeguarding policies in practice.

Our safeguarding team is survivor-led and benefits from having registered social workers and a former Police officer within the team. We supplement our safeguarding team with a network of safeguarding leads within different departments. These individuals are trained and supported to champion safeguarding, encourage reporting and support robust risk management within their area of expertise. We completed an internal assessment of our safeguarding approach in 2024 and, as a result, have (1) made some changes to our risk assessment process, and (2) updated our participation toolkit for engaging with families.

Conclusion

Our approach to supporting survivors and safeguarding is based on continuous learning, development and best practice. We aim to build on the steps we have taken this year to ensure a joined-up approach with HETL in providing practical and emotional support to survivors and learning from any historic cases that we become aware of through the Redress Scheme or outside of it.