Information Requested:
In your first email you asked this follow-up question to your previous Freedomof Information request:
“I would be grateful if you could review this guidance and advise me how the panel makes their decision and how they arrived there. The guidance advises what should be taken into consideration but is not specific in what needs to be looked at specifically. For example, one panel member may think that 1 year of rehabilitation is enough and yet another panel member may believe that 5 years of rehabilitation is necessary.
Whilst the guidance offers what has to be taken into consideration, there is no direct limits noted which can be very open ended from panel to panel.”
In your second email you asked the following additional questions:
1. Is addiction covered by the Mental Health issues taken into consideration for Serious Offences?
2. Noted in previous FOI it was noted it should be taken into consideration if someone had been abused in childhood, at which point does the abuse get cut off? Ie lots of applicants start of minor crimes, lead to bigger crimes etc
3. In terms of relevant offences – is there a list of which offences specifically other than rape/murder?
4. How are the applications for those in prison at the moment looked at? For example if they had a 6 year conviction 15 years ago, but have proceeded with miniscule offences and now are in prison for under 5 years but there is no rehabilitation noted.
5. Do serious convictions lead to an all or nothing application? For example you either qualify or don’t? or is there a possibility of qualifying for it but the amount being reduced?
6. Could you provide a copy of all training documents provided to panel members?
7. How many oral presentations have been completed in relation to serious offences and how do these come about? Are they requested by the client or panel members?
8. I note 11 individuals with serious convictions have been awarded from their applications, how many have applied and been rejected?
9. Could you provide an anonymised version of those who have serious convictions and have been successful in getting awards – please include the convictions, length of sentence, previous conviction history, rehabilitation of those, summary of any other considerations taken, award given and any other relevant information.
Redress Scotland’s Response:
In response to your first question, we note that we have provided our internal guidance on how panel members make decisions and directed you towards the relevant statutory guidance. While they must have regard to these sources of guidance and act in accordance with the legislation, panel members have discretion as to how they make decisions. It is therefore not possible to specify exactly what factors panel members may choose to consider, or how they will weight them within the context of an individual decision.
With regard to your additional questions:
1. The details about the factors that panel members must have regard to are contained in the guidance documents already shared. In addition, section 60(6)(e) of the Redress for Survivors (Historical Child Abuse in Care) (Scotland) Act 2021 (the Act) states that panels making decisions about preclusion on grounds of serious convictions may have regard to “any other matter that the panel considers relevant”. It is therefore not possible to define in advance all matters that a panel may choose to consider.
2. The definition of “child” in contained in section 18(3) of the Act: “In this Act, “child” means a person under the age of 18 years.”
3. The relevant offences for the purposes of the scheme are defined in section 60-61 of the Act which is available in the public domain. We therefore consider that that this information falls within the scope of the exemption in Section 25(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 which provides that a Scottish public authority may refuse to make information available where it is otherwise accessible.
4. As noted in the answer above, the definition of relevant offences is contained in sections 60-61 of the Act. Details about the information that the applicant must provide and the matters that panel members must have regard to can be found in the Act and statutory guidance already shared. We would therefore consider that the answer to this question is similarly otherwise accessible and falls under the exemption in Section 25(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
5. The decisions that the panel are able to make in relation to preclusion for serious offences are set out in section 60 of the Act and the relevant statutory guidance. We would therefore consider that the answer to this question also falls under the exemption in Section 25(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
6. Other than the internal guidance already provided, the majority of the training materials used for panel member training in this area were developed by our legal advisors within the context of their professional relationship with us. We would therefore regard these as exempt from disclosure for reasons of confidentiality under s36(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. I am able to provide a case study used in the training as this was developed by Redress Scotland, and I have included it with this response.
7. To date there have been no oral presentations in relation to serious convictions.
8. To date, one applicant has been precluded from financial redress as a result of serious convictions.
9. We believe that provision of the information requested could allow individual applicants to be identified. We would therefore regard this as falling under the exemption in section 38(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 which provides that in some cases a Scottish public authority may refuse to make information available if it relates to a third party
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