National Redress Scheme – Update

This newsletter provides an update on the National Redress Scheme (the Scheme).  It includes details on the Ministers Board Meeting, 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:

Communique from the Ministers Board Meeting.

The Ministers responsible for the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse (the Scheme) met via video conference on 7 October 2022.

Ministers confirmed their resolute and ongoing commitment to improving support for people who have experienced institutional child sexual abuse.

A key decision will now provide survivors with formal input into the Scheme’s operations by incorporating the Survivor Roundtable into the formal governance arrangements, which will embed a survivor voice within the Scheme.

You can read the communique.

Application processing and recent institutions to join:

Application progress

As of 23 September 2022, the Scheme:

  • had received 19,201 applications.
  • made 10,795 decisions (through the Scheme’s Independent Decision Makers (IDMs)) — including 9,425 payments, totalling approximately $824.8 million (m), with an average of $87,513.
  • made 1,072 advance payments since their introduction in September 2021.
  • issued 10,605 outcomes, of which 10,314 applicants (representing 97.3% of all outcomes issued) are eligible for redress and 291 (representing 2.7% of all outcomes issued) are ineligible.
  • is currently progressing 8,856 applications.
  • had 2,031 applications that are on hold or paused, including 1,110 where further information is required, at the request of the applicant or nominee, or where there are difficulties in contacting the applicant, and 125 due to an institution not yet participating in the scheme.
  • had finalised 9,819 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. 
  • 75 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.

For the latest information about institutions, visit our website.

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/.