National Redress Scheme – Update

This newsletter provides an update on the National Redress Scheme (the Scheme). It includes details on the Scheme’s application processing and participating institutions.

The update contains material that could be confronting or distressing. Sometimes words or images can cause sadness or distress or trigger traumatic memories, particularly for people who have experienced past abuse or childhood trauma.

Support is available to help you if you need it. To find out more, go to
www.nationalredress.gov.au/support.

If you need immediate support, 24-hour telephone assistance is available through:

Application processing and recent institutions to join:

Application progress

As of 29 July 2022, the Scheme:

  • had received 17,783 applications.
  • made 10,184 decisions (through the Scheme’s Independent Decision Makers (IDMs)) — including 8,968 payments, totalling approximately $781 million (m), with an average of $87,119.
  • Of the 10,038 outcomes issued, 9,765 applicants (representing 97.3% of all outcomes issued) are eligible for redress and 273 (representing 2.7% of all outcomes issued) are ineligible.
  • is currently progressing 7,953 applications.
  • had 1,587 applications that are on hold or paused, including 121 applications due to institution not participating (representing 1.5% of applications on hand).
  • had finalised 9,342 applications.
  • had 45 IDMs actively making decisions.

Participating institutions update

All institutions where child sexual abuse has occurred are encouraged to sign up to the Scheme as soon as possible.

As at Declaration 4, signed by the Minister on 21 July 2022:

  • all Commonwealth and State and Territory government institutions and 598 non government institutions are now participating in the Scheme. 
  • approximately 70,400 sites across Australia are now covered by the Scheme. 
  • 73 unique institutions have been declared under the Funder of Last Resort (FOLR) arrangements. 
    • These institutions are defunct and the Commonwealth and/or relevant state governments are the FOLR.

A number of institutions were recently added to the Scheme legislation. This declaration is available via the Federal Register of Legislation:
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2022C00727.

For the latest information about institutions, visit our website:
https://www.nationalredress.gov.au/institutions.

July is reporting time for participating institutions with regard to Direct Personal Responses delivered. Many thanks to those institutions that have already responded and we look forward to receiving reports from the remaining institutions.

Update to the Member Service Portal

Following the recent announcement of 15 new Redress Support Services from 1 July, in the near future there will be a banner on Redress Member Services to encourage applicants to access Redress Support Services prior to submitting complete Redress applications.

Find out more

For further information about the Scheme, go to www.nationalredress.gov.au or call 1800 737 377 from Australia or +61 2 6222 3455 from overseas.

For regular updates about the Department of Social Services and the Scheme, you can ‘like’ or ‘follow’ the Australian Families Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/FamiliesInAustralia/.