The Church of England is setting up a multi-million-pound compensation fund designed to funnel money to victims of historic sex abuse by bishops, clergy and lay church workers.
Its ‘interim pilot support scheme’ will make the first payouts from a compensation process expected to cost the Church £200million.
The fund was approved by the Church’s Cabinet, the Archbishops’ Council, which also said that in the future it would invite outside authorities to run independent inquiries into allegations against Church figures.
A statement said: ‘The pilot scheme is designed to enable the Church to respond in particular to those survivors’ cases which are already known to the Church, where the survivor is known to be in seriously distressed circumstances, and the Church has a heightened responsibility because of the way the survivor was responded to following disclosure.
‘Experience with these pilot cases will help inform the setting up of the Church’s full redress scheme for victims and survivors of abuse as that is developed.’
Officials declined to disclose the scale of the new fund, but Church documents earlier this year said that the final bill was likely to come to £200million.
The interim scheme is expected to help between five and ten survivors initially, although any survivor of church-based abuse “who is in dire straits” can request help. This can be at any stage of their case management, even if they have already accepted a settlement with an insurer.
If it is a recent case, the diocese would be expected to support the application, but a survivor unwilling to engage with the diocese can apply direct. The presumption is that the survivor’s present difficulties are wholly or partially a consequence of past abuse “and/or the re-abuse through the Church’s actions in response to their report of abuse”.
The scheme will be able to offer cash sums, but the emphasis will be on funding support such as financial/debt counselling, therapeutic support, seed funding to help with employment. Help with housing is also a possibility, but is expected to be offered rarely.
If there is a suggestion of £200 million being ring fenced to compensate this would suggest that there are expected to be tens of thousands who may be eligible to apply once a full scheme is implemented.
Remedy Law have specific expertise in bringing claims against religious organisations and also in respect of compensation or redress Schemes. If you would like to discuss matters further then please do not hesitate to contact us.
