 Mae'r siwg ychydig yw, yn ymgyrch yn ymgyrch yn siwg, hefyd yw, mae'n cystafol am eu cyfaint, mae'n gweithio'n gwybod i fyf Ngysig, in the name of Johann Lamont on the National Strategy for Survivors of Childhood Abuse. Debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I invite those members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak mutins now or as soon as possible and I now call on Johann Lamont to speak and open the debate. Ms Lamont, you have seven minutes or thereby please. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It's a privileged hope in this debate and I'd like to thank all those members who supported the motion and all of you who are here tonight to listen to the debate. I can also welcome to the gallery members of the cross-party group on adult survivors of child sexual abuse and thank them and Barnadows, Scotland NSPCC and Children First for the briefings they provided and I particularly thank Margaret Mitchell, who is the convener of the group, for all the work that she has done over a significant period of time to keep that group going. In the time I have, it is difficult to do justice to all the many issues that are highlighted in the motion, but I would urge members to attend the meeting directly after this debate to hear more about the concerns and challenges that the groups have identified. However, this is an opportunity to recognise the importance of the cross-party group on adult survivors of child sexual abuse and its role in the creation of a national strategy for supporting survivors and the establishment of Survivor Scotland. Today, we have the opportunity of the 10th anniversary to thank all those who were involved at the time, particularly survivors and those who worked with them. May I include my friend and former MSP Marlene Livingstone, who at that time was pivotal in the work that she did as part of the group, making sure that there is a very important issue that was addressed. In marking this anniversary, we have the opportunity to address the concerns voiced by survivors, by those who attend the group and those who work with survivors about the current effectiveness and the level and strategic direction of support and whether that matches up to the ambitions of 10 years ago. We have, of course, come a long way in this very difficult issue. As a young woman in the 70s, an age of my daughter is now, I had little awareness of the nature of the suffering of child sexual abuse, its prevalence, the abuse within institutions, churches and boarding schools where adults were in a position of trust and chose to betray it, and within the homes of children by their own families. The celebrities of my youth are the men who now have found that their crimes against children have been exposed. We are more aware now of that crime. There is more acknowledgement of it, but the test for us is whether there is more understanding of what we need to do to address it. As a young secondary school teacher in the late 70s and into the 80s, training did not refer to child sexual abuse. No guidance was given to me as a young woman about how to be aware of the possibility of abuse being suffered by children in my class. No information given about how or why to raise concerns. No information about children who were victims about how you might treat them. As a young political activist, I was only beginning to learn and understand from those brave men and women who began to insist that their abuse should be acknowledged, that its devastating impact should be understood, and then critically that understanding and recognition that that abuse was as much a matter for political debate and action as anything else. That change politically, that recognition that Government action at every level was required for something that, over time, was developed. There is more talk about it now. There is more acceptance of the grave injustice that grave injustice continues, but we have to understand that we need to do more. The test is whether we continue to focus on needs. Survivors need more than acknowledgement. They need rather to be sure that we address the consequence for them throughout their lives. Ten years ago, the strategy outlined the need to raise awareness, increase awareness of the long-term consequence for physical and mental health. The importance of surviving support service and enhance the health and wellbeing of survivors and to develop training skills for front-line workers. It was also recognised that it was important too that we tackle and identify the level of abuse. Critically, we need to ensure that survivors are not just supported to address the medical consequence for them, but there is an understanding of the wide and diverse range of needs that they have and the importance of those being addressed to. We need more education, prevention, protection and understanding of the importance of support services. The strategy also needs to be clear that it should offer justice and a clear recognition that child sexual abuse is a crime and justice for survivors must be pursued. The cross-party is clear that all survivors should have support and justice power by those who portrayed the trust that was placed in them in care homes, in churches, in boarding schools and in institutional settings should be placed firmly in the context of child abuse where 80 per cent of child sexual abuse happens within the home and within communities. For the one thing that is consistent in child sexual abuse is not the setting, it is the brutalising powerlessness of the child and the impact of that child throughout life. Those are not competing needs, they all deserve justice. We supported many across the chamber, supported the establishment of the inquiry into historic child sexual abuse in institutional settings. The minister will be aware of the concerns of groups like White Flower Alba and others about the narrowness of the remit, excluding consideration of survivors who still suffer today but whose abuse happened too long ago to be investigated and which may in some circumstances exclude the experience of one survivor but include that of another, even when the perpetrator is the same because the setting was different. I urge the minister to listen carefully to those concerns and reflect on how maybe we address that in the remit. I would also urge the minister to resist the narrowing of the Government's focus in the way in which it supports survivors. There are genuine concerns among those at the very heart of this issue about the direction of survivor Scotland in defining the criteria for funding. It cannot just be about medical recovery, it must be the journey through life where they are supported. Ten years ago it was clear that it was not just about accessing health services but support services developed in the voluntary sector drawing on the lived experience of those who know best what this abuse means. I ask the minister directly to confirm that he will examine the approach now manifesting itself in funding a medical model rather than that deeper, richer support that was identified before. In conclusion and in summary, I would urge the Scottish Government to recognise the pervasive nature of child sexual abuse in our society and the traumatising impact it has not just on a person's health. I further urge the Scottish Government to review the remit of the historic abuse inquiry to ensure that it gives comfort to those who are looking to it for justice. Look again and resist the model developing through Survivor Scotland and ensure that rich development of resources are available. Finally, I urge the minister that in reflecting on the last ten years the minister now instructs the development of a refreshed and renewed national strategy. If he does that and recognises that time has come to address it again, he will find a cross-party group, he will find all those who give support to survivors, he will find survivors themselves and he will find people in this chamber ready to help to ensure that it is fit for purpose. Many thanks. I now call on Mike Russell to be followed by Graham Pearson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I congratulate Johann Lamont and the cross-party group on not only achieving this debate, but on the work that they have done over the last decade. I think that the group has been exceptional in its actions and I have no doubt whatsoever that the support, action and even the inquiry must learn from the work that the group has done with survivors to ensure that those things are survivor-centred, survivor-led and must be available to all. Those are basic principles that we cannot deny. The reason for it being survivor-led, survivor-centred and available to all is that there must be an outcome that allows survivors to move on from that definition. Not just to be defined by those who have survived, but to be defined by people who wish to live and flourish after that experience. I am sure that the minister will reflect on that because it is the outcome that will be important. This has been a tense and difficult process in the establishment of both the inquiry and the support fund and the cross-party group knows that better than most. Those people involved have often had, fully understandably, the most awful experiences that have destroyed their trust in government, in authority and indeed in fellow human beings. Therefore, it will not always go smoothly. As Johann Lamont has indicated, this is a political issue and politics have entered into it. The slowness of the political process in recognising the injustices and acting on them is something that we should all be ashamed of. When we recognise those things, we have to find a way forward. The way forward is goodwill, determination, courage and constant listening. Last year, on 11 November, when I was still Cabinet Secretary, I announced not only the Government's acceptance of the outcomes of the insight process but also the establishment of the fund. That was confirmed by my successor in May at a total of £13.5 million over five years. However, that was a mechanistic thing. Of more importance to me was the experience that I had in understanding, as Johann Lamont has said, over a period of time and progressively the awful responsibility of society, the way in which society had to confront honestly what had taken place and help those who had survived those experiences to move forward. The most important part for me was the insight process. In April this year, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, which was responsible for that process, made a submission to the Scottish Government about the inquiry. It made two crucial points that we should bear in mind tonight. The first of which is calling on the Scottish Government to ensure that the panel principles are observed whenever this issue is considered. Those principles are participation, accountability, non-discrimination inequality, empowerment and legality. Every single thing that the Scottish Government does in this area should be underpinned by those principles, but there is a second point that the Human Rights Commission made, which is of importance to me, to ensure that work continues more widely for all survivors while the inquiry takes place, not to delay the process of helping those because focus is elsewhere. This has been a long, slow process. The national strategy, the cross-party group, is a way for insight and the fund. It led to the inquiry, led to the action on time bar, it has led to the actual amount of the fund, but this is a process, it is not event driven. The process is to provide justice, to restore trust and to create a future for those who have been affected and moreover to ensure that it can never, ever happen again. I think that this debate will help that process, but nothing, nothing will overcome the injustice that was done. But every fibre of our being as politicians working together, working with survivors, working with charities, every fibre of our being should be to do our best in this matter and to do it together. Many thanks. Graham Pearson to be followed by Margaret Mitchell. Presiding Officer, thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to speak on tonight's debate. I open by congratulating Joanne Lamont on achieving this debate this evening and acknowledging Margaret Mitchell's convenership of the cross-party group on the adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The CPG and its supporters who are here in the chamber have, across the period of these 10 years, been extremely successful in maintaining a spotlight on the pressing issues demanding the need for an effective strategy and policies to be implemented, a strategy supporting survivors, victims, their nearest and nearest. I would also acknowledge Mike Russell's courage in recognising the need to change last year and creating the context within which the Government could change its approach to this issue and finally see the need for a public inquiry. The sexual abuse of any human being is repugnant. The circumstances of children suffering such abuse is particularly harrowing and no one comes to this issue voluntarily. Whether it's those who seek the help from politicians or indeed politicians who are drawn into these debates as they try and find a way of supporting survivors and victims. It's not often that Mike Russell and I would agree on much, but I have to say I agree with everything he's had to say this evening and it saves me reiterating the words that he's uttered. I'm grateful for the many briefings I've received before this debate and do note that progress has been maintained in terms of developing a Government strategy over these 10 years. But much yet has to be done and there are concerns across the sector amongst survivors and victims regarding a commitment to funding the services and support that Mike Russell made reference to. Survivors, their victims and families need support now. They need medical support, psychological support and on occasions financial support as well as all the policy changes that we need to decide on in the months and years ahead. We need to demonstrate a true commitment to these changes because survivors have too often been promised in the future only to be let down. White Flowers Alba have briefed repeatedly on the shortcomings that they've identified and I know that there are members of that group in the Parliament today. Inquis also have contributed. Yes, the court service does note that there are substantial increases in the number of court cases being handled and the accused who are being prosecuted in relation to sexual abuse. Many of them are historical in nature but thereby sees a fresh demand for Government support as more survivors come forward and indeed we know with the growth of the internet the extent of that need is in thousands not merely a few people here or there. The abuse of children as yet has not been answered in a way that survivors and victims would wish. I implore the minister to give a commitment to show a positive response to the needs of survivors and the demands that they make. They make them in good faith, they don't ask for much and to listen and to engage with them is all the more important at this time in our development. Presiding Officer, I'm grateful for that opportunity. Thank you very much Mr Pearson. I'll now call on Margaret Mitchell to be followed by Jim Hume. Thank you Presiding Officer and I thank Johann Lamont for using her Labour member's business time to bring this important motion for debate to the chamber. The cross-party group on adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, the CPG, came into being following one of the first ever petitions lodged in the Scottish Parliament's petitions committee. I pay tribute to the first convener, Marlon Livingstone, the members and co-conveners of the CPG for all they have done to support survivors and to raise awareness about childhood sexual abuse and to focus on preventative measures for almost 16 years now. The national strategy for survivors of childhood abuse was the culmination of years of the hard work and persistence of primarily the CPG together with the successive former health ministers, Malcolm Chisholm, Andy Kerr and then later Nicholas Sturgeon. This was a groundbreaking initiative that represented a pioneering approach in the UK and further afield, which put in place a national plan for preventing abuse from happening in the first place and to increase support for survivors of childhood abuse. It's aim was to address the situation which the strategy document sets out whereby too many survivors report a revolving door experience being moved from service to service without having their needs satisfactorily addressed. This in turn explains why the strategy took a trailblazing survivor-led approach and the survivor Scotland strategy achievements as it celebrates its 10-year anniversary are not inconsiderable including the pooling of information online for easy access to resources and research and the highlighting of the needs of both female and male survivors as well as providing funding services and projects to support survivors and to carry out preventative work. However, 10 years on and despite the success the strategy has during this time, there are now serious concerns regarding its future. For example, survivors of abuse often look for support services in their area and in particular for services that offer trauma counselling, but there's still a lack of specialist trauma services available. With a shift of emphasis towards a medical model for determining our understanding of the needs of survivors, this lack of provision is clearly worrying. In addition to this, the Scottish Government proposed changes to the way the survivors will access support services has caused yet more concern. More specifically, survivors and support services are dismayed that moving to a broker model where further emphasises healthcare rather than a holistic approach including social welfare could potentially be a significant risk to survivors' wellbeing. At a time when child sexual abuse cases are hitting the headlines across the UK, and the Prime Minister has prioritised childhood sexual abuse as a national threat on a par with serious organised crime, and with a Scottish public inquiry into historic child sexual abuse under way, there has been a worrying silence about the future of the national strategy. The CPGA has therefore warned that with the public inquiry and the focus on institutional abuse, the fact that the vast majority of child sexual abuse takes place within a family setting and in communities has been largely absent from the national conversation. Presiding Officer, there are clearly many opportunities for our renewed strategy to further the progress of the last 10 years in supporting the courageous survivors who make the brave decision to disclose the abuse that they have experienced. Consequently, the uncertainty surrounding both the future of the strategy and the changes to the provision of support services needs to be recognised and addressed as a matter of urgency. I hope this evening that the minister can give some much-needed and deserved assurance and reassurance on this point. Thank you so much. I now call on Jim Hume to be followed by Malcolm Tism. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I too, of course, congratulate Joan, Joanne Lamont for securing this debate and of course also congratulate the CPG, the cross-party group for doing all the work they have done and support very much what Margaret Mitchell was just saying. Childhood sexual abuse is a sobering reminder that our main priority should be to do our best to put in place protections for people starting from as early a point as is possible in their lives. That means protecting, unfortunately, people from other people. Children are probably the most sensitive and vulnerable to abuse, physical, emotional and sexual as they are unable to defend themselves trapped in their own homes too often. Our duty and responsibility is to make sure that the measures that we put in place prevent abuse from happening. However, when those things do happen, our systems must be ready and able to respond appropriately by always keeping the survivors in mind. I want to commend the work of my children first in my own area in Selkirk. Their work on keeping children safe and helping them to respond to their traumas is commendable in its ability to create a slightly safer place for people. The work on the survivors of sexual childhood abuse that they do there, survivors travelling many miles across the region to come from to take the services there. That comes into question about are we actually providing enough service across the country. People are travelling two hours to Selkirk for that service. I think that we need to build services, hire staff perhaps, establish organisations that can provide support to people. What is absolutely essential is the need for time and a focus on the individual, the survivor. Any experience of abuse that has taken place in a person's childhood will have long-term effects. In order for someone to come forward and be able to talk about his or her experience, they must have a good and trusting relationship with a person they are revealing their experiences to, their councillor. I am sure that we all appreciate that those experiences are not taken lightly by anyone, even less by those who have lived through it. Allowing time for people to trust that they will have all the support they need is a responsibility, not just for the Government, but for all of us, and we must support that. Because of the nature of those experiences, many memories are very deep and hidden away. In order to access those painful memories, the person must be able to trust their councillor or consultant. That takes time through long-term consultations and often meetings that take a very long time. Of course, one of the biggest obstacles to a healing process for a survivor is the ability to disclose. Disclosing is not an easy thing for someone to come forward with, so we have to do more. As more people do come forward, we have to recognise that there are many that need a safer environment to disclose what has happened in the far past. Perhaps GPs need to have a standard question when they have some of their standard meetings with patients that may make it easier for survivors to disclose. The Scottish Government's new service model for in-care survivors will become effective next April. The service seeks to put in place NHS-led services through using psychologists. It opens secret notes that this new service will not itself have any councillors working for it or provide therapy. With the current limited resources and psychological provision throughout the NHS, there are limited numbers of psychologists, but even less so psychologists were able to dedicate hours to a person. That is exactly what abuse survivors need—time and dedication. We need consultants with the ability to work with childhood abuse survivors in a long-term relationship. Ensuring time and adequate provision for survivors of childhood abuse is something that the Government must provide. Children will grow up to become adults, and those painful memories can prove to be damaging throughout life. It is our responsibility through the services that the state can provide that any person at any stage in their life, anywhere in Scotland, can come forward and know that they will be heard and that they will be helped. Thank you. Malcolm Chisholm, to be followed by Christine Grahame. Thank you, Johann Lamont, for introducing this very important subject and paid tribute to her work in the cross-party group and indeed to the work of Margaret Mitchell. I hope that the Government will pay very close attention to the speeches of both Johann Lamont and Margaret Mitchell today, because I think that they did encapsulate many of the concerns of survivor groups currently. They certainly know far more about it than I do, although I was involved in the early days as Margaret Mitchell referred to it, and in particular set up the short-life working group on the care needs of people who have survived childhood sexual abuse. I think that the report of that group actually still repays reading again today, as I did prior to this debate, because I think that it does give the broad view that we all want to see. But clearly, although that fed into the strategy, I think that it was the cross-party group that was the main influence on the development of the strategy all those years ago, and so we should certainly celebrate the work that they now do and the work that they have done. Of course, that leads us back to Marlin Livingstone, who was the first convener and we should remember her today as well. Survivors groups have always been crucial to the strategy. Not just in terms of mutual support, but in terms of spreading information and understanding to professionals and service providers and the wider public. It is very important that those groups are supported financially in the first instance. In the motion today, open secret is mentioned, but we know of other groups. For example, the Kingdom Abuse Survivors group. I believe that they must be supported and that they must be involved in the continuing implementation of the strategy. They should be in leadership roles as they have been in the past. I hope that they will be in the future if they are not adequately in that position currently. Clearly, one of the fundamental demands here is justice. That is a crime that we are dealing with, not an illness. Clearly, survivors also need the chance to confront their own experience with loving support around them. That is part of the holistic approach that speakers have referred to in the debate today. The motion refers to the concerns of survivors groups. Those have been referred to by Joan Lamont and Margaret Mitchell. I would also commend to the minister the article by Sarah Nelson in the herald today. She has been very closely involved with work in this area for many, many years. I first came across her on trauma, mental health care needs of women survivors of childhood sexual abuse, which made a very big impression on me. It was 2001 or sometime around then. She pointed out the way in which psychiatric services routinely do not face up to and understand the mental health implications of what some people have endured. I would recommend that article in the herald today. We all welcome the focus on historical abuse in institutional settings on the inquiry, chaired by Susan O'Brien, although as Joan Lamont reminded us that there are concerns about the narrowness of the remit. Sarah Nelson and other speakers today have reminded us that 80 per cent of survivors are abused in the family or the community. We need to have a holistic partnership approach to address their needs as well. The strategy has to focus on prevention, health training and wider agendas that have been referred to. There are concerns about a narrowing of focus of the strategy now. Sarah Nelson describes it in her article today in focus on individuals and on a medical model. Clearly, we need to have a holistic approach that involves groups as well as individuals. I think that article should be paid attention to by the Government as well as the speeches from Joan Lamont and Richard Mitchell. She also raises the interesting question about where this is located within the Scottish Government because this is something that I have found confusing recently, whether it is in the education and young people, their health and no doubt justice has a role as well. I think that there are issues there and she makes the interesting suggestion that it should be in equality. Those are just things to reflect on. They are not the most important part of the debate today, but they are part of what should be considered. The historical abuse inquiry is very important, but the Government must also make sure that its policy and funding pays attention to the needs of the 80 per cent of survivors who are abused in the family or the community and crucially lets involve these people in the implementation of the strategy as was always intended from the start. I now call on Christine Grahame to move the closing speech for the minister. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As a preliminary looking at the motion, it is clear as other members have said that the majority of childhood sexual use takes place within the family or within the community. It is as we know not stranger danger but someone known to the child and regrettably it is still happening today. I think as Malcolm Chisholm has said we don't know where this particular issue lands across many portfolios. In the chamber we have a Minister for Health, a former Cabinet Secretary for Education, and I myself will abacbencher a member of the Justice Committee, as is Margaret Mitchell, and I congratulate you on your work which we know you bring to the Justice Committee on the cross-party group as also convener of it. I want to focus on some of the things that we have done in legislation because you talked about justice at the end of the day, it isn't I don't think just about supporting people it is about getting justice on the day in court and I hope successful prosecutions. Currently we have enacted the Victim and Witnesses Act which has tried very hard from the point when someone comes into police station to not just the point when they are sitting in court giving evidence not just to the point when we hope that the accused person is successfully prosecuted and sentenced but after that when they are in prison and then after released whether temporarily whether they are out on bail or whether they have finished their sentence the victim is at the heart of the judicial process and is treated respectfully and is treated in a sensitive manner in these particular cases and that I think that the various agencies have moved a long way in that direction whether it is in police training in the training in the legal profession on the judiciary and beyond that is something that the Parliament has brought forward and again this week enacting an EU directive which strengthens even further the support for witnesses and victims we have supported that through a statutory instrument through the government and that gives even more support which should be given and has long been advancing in the judicial system sometimes the victim as the prime witness in a case was almost a bystander was not told what was happening was not engaged and not supported that has now passed and I hope we continue along that so I felt in this debate it was important to bring that particular part to what must be at the end a resolution of sorts for victims of childhood sexual abuse and abuse of other sorts some kind of resolution to it and finally I want to speak about Margaret Mitchell's Apologies Bill which again does not deal with any remedies in the sense of criminal or civil action but at least allows an apology be taken I think the committee as you know is very sympathetic to it the minister has moved and I know that the propulsion for that has been your experience in chaining the cross-party group and childhood abuse so it is important to say let's not put this into silos this crosses health it crosses education and it crosses into justice it crosses into social justice and therefore I thought important to put in the record that I don't see it in silos and I don't think members of the Parliament see this in silos they see it as something relevant to many of our workings within the committees thank you very much thank you very much we now move to closing speech from the minister thank you very much I begin by thanking Joanne Lamont for bringing forward this sensitive but important subject for debate and I thank all members for their thoughtful contributions this evening I thank members who have been involved in the work of the cross-party group Joanne, Lamont and Margaret Mitchell preeminent among them of course there have been others involved too over the years as Michael Russell set out and indeed as the motion sets out has played a prominent role in developing the national strategy for survival of childhood abuse which has been instrumental in raising awareness and improving knowledge of abuse let me say I know that previously we had been due to have a meeting between myself and the office bearers of the cross-party group I regret that of course I can't quite remember what the events were that caused it to have to be rearranged but I'll be very happy to meet any member of the cross-party group or indeed any member of this Parliament to discuss any issues around our approach to this area should they want to contact me to request such Since 2007 1.5 million pounds has been invested in the current in-care survivor Scotland service and 9 million pounds has been invested in the third and voluntary sector organisation providing a wide range of local services that support all survivors of abuse across Scotland However, since the survivor strategy was launched 10 years ago we know more about the complex health and wider social needs of survivors and the services must be more responsive to their individual needs one size does not fit all we have also more evidence about what services and interventions work well enabling survivors to thrive and recover all aspects of their lives our recently published strategic outcomes framework sets out our vision it builds on the legacy of the 2005 strategy and prioritises our actions to meet survivors needs these priorities which I'm sure will be shared by us all include preventing child abuse enabling and educating Scotland's public service workforce to be trauma informed and continuously improving the wide range of local support services that provide vital support to survivors every day a recently published report by the NSPCC reveals that one in eight children will report abuse but we already know that the shocking statistic is that one in four children is the victim of abuse preventing abuse is therefore a priority for this Government achieving this will require professionals across all sectors working together to identify and protect our most vulnerable children from abuse and the devastating impact it has regardless of where it has taken place training framework led by NHS Education Scotland will support this by ensuring a strategic and consistent standard or training for all who need it across all sectors that provide vital support to survivors protecting children from abuse is however a duty shared amongst us all as a society and the cabinet secretary for education, lifelong learning has made clear that she is committed to improving and child protection and will make a statement to Parliament early in the new year the recent launch of the e-learning resource developed in partnership with Rosiny the Scottish Government and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is a real example of how organisations are working in partnership to share their expertise and knowledge on this important issue a free online resource that will raise awareness and help build the skills and knowledge our workforce needs to support survivors I am very grateful to these service providers throughout Scotland and the statutory volunteering third sector the Moira Anderson Foundation in Airdrie a rape crisis working right across the country the sparseless trauma centres in Lothian and Glasgow are just a few of the organisations that provide a valuable range of services to survivors of childhood abuse regardless of where that abuse took place and how long ago It's fantastic to hear all the news for all what's going on but does the minister recognise the need for not just survivors to be able to disclose easily but also the need for a long-term relationship with the counsellors? I know that Mr Schumer raised this point in his opening remarks so I will come to that in a minute what I would say the services that I have just mentioned are vital in helping survivors across the range of support that they so desperately need and that's why in the last few days 20 organisations have been notified they have been successful in securing funding of almost £1 million for innovative partnership projects I'll be happy to provide details to any member who wants them they represent a range of organisations I hope that they will demonstrate that their approach is not entirely health-based or a so-called medical model but that does bring me to the point that Mr Hume mentioned because of course there is a role for our national health service he rightly identifies some of the challenges we face in mental health services right now and I would recognise myself that we have those challenges of course in responding to those challenges we've invested in additional £100 million over the coming five years in mental health services we have seen more people treated through the services we provide but I reckon as we have to do more and that £100 million will bring forward a range of services that will offer improvements including I believe in the area that Mr Hume touched on a moment ago we must not forget that without the dedication and bravery of survivors who have spoken out about their own experiences and campaigned relentlessly to have their voices heard progress to date could not have been made Graham Pierce and urged me to listen to voices of survivors of course I give him that assurance of course we will always listen and look to respond in that regard there has been some comments about the nature the scope of the inquiry of course the original call for inquiry was for in-care an in-care inquiry there was of course a call to extend we'd listened to those calls and inquiry has gone beyond just institutional care to include foster care and other forms of residential care such as independent residential schools what I would say here is of course we should always do well to remember that survivors don't always speak with one uniform voice there are different points of view amongst survivors themselves and there are a range of views on the remit of the inquiry and indeed all the matters we discuss today and the remit aims to strike a balance to seek truth and address failings but to report in a timescale that is meaningful and acceptable to survivors and of course decisions going forward are for the chair of the inquiry I see him coming up against time so let me move to the final area that I wanted to touch on in terms of where we go forward in terms of our funding to support survivors over the past year there's been extensive engagement with survivors and the organisations that support them and Scottish Gump to take stock of how far we've come and given us the opportunity to hear survivors' views about the things that matter to them and may we announce investment of £13.5 million over five years to expand and enhance the current model of support for survivors of in-care childhood abuse Mike Russell was absolutely right to talk about the need to focus on outcomes for survivors that is our approach to support fund is designed around the personal aspirations and outcomes that survivors wish to see the fund will enhance and expand the current range of services to give survivors access to information resources and support that is important to them in meeting their individual psychological, physical, social education, employment and housing needs and having listed that area that's why I would say this is not a medical model of support this is not entirely health based model of support 1 which recognises the needs of individual survivors it will be different and very specific to them as individuals to have time I recognise you are coming to the end of your speak Minister and I wonder if you would address the strategy on its future and its future funding specifically Minister Well of course I would be happy to discuss that further I think with the cross-party group of speakers we have made a significant commitment in terms of our support to survivors that's a significant increase in funding that I've just set out but why don't I commit to meeting Ms Mitchell to discuss that further I'd be very happy to do it I think that would be a way that we could move this matter for. Let me say in conclusion the vision of this government is that survivors should have equal access to integrated care, support and treatment resources and services to reduce the impact of the inequalities and disadvantages that survivors have experienced as a result of abuse while we'll continue to develop and invest in capacity and capability of current services that's why we'll support new approaches of integrating individual needs based and outcome, focus, support and care that enable survivors to achieve their own personal outcome goals survivors have told us that's what they want and that's what we will seek to deliver Many thanks and many thanks to you all for taking part in this important debate and I close this meeting of parliament