Child sexual abuse advocacy groups spark urgent funding warning for national redress scheme

The government has paid out $1.31bn in redress to institutional child sexual abuse survivors, but legal services advocating for them fear an uncertain and underfunded future unless there is an urgent intervention.

In a joint inquiry into the national redress scheme on Monday, MPs and senators heard from the Department of Social Services that more than 38,000 applications since the scheme began in 2018, currently averaging about 294 each week.

The national redress scheme was set up in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and is open for applications until the end of June, 2027.

More than 15,700 claims have been finalised, with 14,716 payments totalling approximately $1.31bn made.

But crucially, March 2024 saw the highest number of applications received by the scheme in one month since it began.

The release of the latest figures came just after Knowmore, an independent legal service providing free advice to child sexual abuse survivors, said they feared tens of thousands more could slip through the cracks unless the government urgently intervened and gave them more funding.

“We are stretched beyond breaking and following the last reduction of our funding in 2023, we’ve had to make some really difficult decisions,” chief executive officer Jackie Mead told the committee.

She said the funding model was outdated because it was based on modelling that suggested the projected survivor numbers would decrease.

Instead, there’s been a 40 per cent increase between the 2021/22 financial year and the current year.

“We’ve continued to request funding adjustments from government to meet that demand all while seeking to meet the increasing needs of survivors,” she said.

“We just cannot be expected to continue to do the same or more with less, and we’ve therefore been forced to make some really difficult service delivery changes as a result of the last round of funding cuts.

“We had to decide whether we would service less people with increased wait times, or reduce the support and time that we offered. All of those are unpalatable.”

Ms Mead said the service had ultimately chosen to service less people, reducing the scope of those accessing support.

She said there was ongoing uncertainty in the lead-up to the May budget, and had “not received any word from government about additional funding”.

“A 25 per cent reduction in our funding and workforce capacity is expected for the next financial year and frankly, the options to address this are even less palatable than the ones that we faced last year,” she said.

The Department of Social Services later said March 2024 had been the busiest month to date, receiving 1434 applications.

The department said while application numbers had increased considerably, there had been a “small increase” in application processing times.

The last eligible applicants can lodge a claim is June 30, 2027.

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