 The next item of business is an urgent question, and I call Brian Whittle. I appreciate the opportunity to bring this to the chamber. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the publication of the six case study findings by the Scottish child abuse inquiry, in which the chair, Lady Smith, criticised the Scottish Government for a woeful and wholly avoidable delay in setting up an inquiry into accusations of historic abuse in Scotland. The Scottish Government apologises unreservedly that it did not respond more appropriately and sooner to the concerns of survivors of abuse in care who called for a public inquiry. Responding to survivors of abuse in care spanned different administrations between 2002 and 2014. Steps were taken by the Government to respond in that period to the issues raised in the original petition, but that happened too slowly and did not go far enough. An inquiry was announced within weeks of the current First Minister, assuming her office, in 2014. We welcome the inquiry's on-going work, which is addressing the harrowing suffering experienced by survivors. We are grateful to survivors who have bravely come forward to participate and give their testimony. The Scottish Government will consider and address any future recommendations made by the inquiry to improve legislation, policy and practice. We are listening to all the issues and are determined to ensure that lessons are learned. Brian Whittle I appreciate the Deputy First Minister's response to that question. I know that we have discussed this before, but Lady Smith said that the Scottish Government failed to grasp the fundamental importance that survivors appropriately and justifiably attach to their need for justice, accountability and redress. Furthermore, there was a failure of ministers to listen and engage with survivors. The redress bill focuses on those who have suffered abuse in a care home setting, with the Deputy First Minister stating that the bill was tackling abuse where institutions had illegal status and obligations of parents. Welcome, though the report and the redress bill are, they failed to recognise that there are victims with the same trauma from abuse within local authority buildings such as schools where similar parental responsibilities are afforded to teachers. It says in the 1989 education bill that the words in local parentis, the definition being responsibility for a child where the child's parents are absent. In other words, while children are in school, teachers are legally in local parentis. I ask the Deputy First Minister why consideration was not given to those victims in the inquiry, because their abuse and their trauma is no less acute. I understand entirely the sentiments that Mr Whittle puts to me. In no way would I seek to differentiate in the suffering of individuals in any circumstances wherever a child was abused in whatever circumstance is wholly and utterly unacceptable and the perpetrators are reprehensible for their conduct. The establishment of the abuse inquiry focused on essentially addressing the question of in-care settings where abuse had taken place. That was the substance of the original petition and it was the basis of the extent of where the state essentially assumed the role of providing parental support to a child on an on-going basis. The example that Mr Whittle provides to me of schools is not on a permanent basis. It is on for a period of time during the day where parents remain in the role of parents in those circumstances. That explains the distinction, and I would not in any way want to seek to establish any lack of equivalence in the suffering of individuals in what they have endured in those circumstances. I appreciate very much that the Deputy First Minister's response to that. I have suggested to him in the past that the way in which the law has been drafted breaks UNCRC law and creates inequality, and I have written to the UNCRC and await its response. However, I have witnessed the deterioration of one of my constituents' mental and physical health while trying to help her journey through the judicial system as she searches for justice, redress and closure. In dealing with sexual abuse cases, both currently and historically for constituents and in both the Health and Sport Committee and the Petitions Committee, it is my conclusion that the system does little to support the victim in their search for justice. There are many agencies with a part to play who do not seem to be able to communicate with each other, so it is little wonder that the conviction rates of solo and alleged victims of such crimes are continually re-traumatised by the processes. Will the Deputy First Minister please take the time to look again at the journey of a victim through the justice system, consider the changes that are desperately needed and put the support in place to ensure that all victims' voices are heard? I am absolutely committed to ensuring that the voices of all victims are heard. That is precisely why the Government took the step. Despite having been a number of different initiatives taken in the period during 2002 to 2014 to hear the voices of victims, I accept unreservedly that all of those steps were not good enough until we had established the inquiry. The inquiry, in my view, is fulfilling a difficult, painful but necessary role in Scottish society to oblige our country to face up to its past. The forensic nature of the interrogation of this evidence by Lady Smith, the power of her conclusions, I hope provides some assurance to survivors that their voices are now being heard. Mr Whittle raised the difficulties that individuals face, where they have already suffered in trying to pursue those issues through the judicial system. That is exactly why the Government established the redress system, because we want to try to minimise the suffering of individuals in trying to help them to achieve some form of redress. Indeed, the evidence that I now see from the advanced payment system that we have had in place now for about two years is that individuals appreciate a pathway that enables them to seek some form of redress for their suffering to help them on the road to recovery. I assure Mr Whittle that the issues that he raises are taken very seriously by the Government, lies at the heart of our approach to establishing the inquiry and at the heart of the thinking behind the redress bill that the Parliament has already passed into statute. I would like to place on record my thanks to Lady Smith in her team for this very thorough report, which puts beyond any doubt the serious failure of Scotland's governing institutions and how badly survivors have been let down. If it is satisfied that the catastrophic failures of process that have been outlined in the report have been rectified and that they no longer exist as a barrier to justice in Scotland, when the first payments of the redress scheme will be made, and what progress has been made in setting up the survivors forum that will ensure that survivors are supported throughout the process? In relation to the process that we are going through, I assure Mr Marra that the Government is acting to rectify any of those past failures. I am not going to say in Parliament today that the journey is complete because I await further conclusions from Lady Smith's inquiry. Indeed, it would premature for me to say that the journey was complete because I do not know the scale of the challenge that Lady Smith will put to us, but I put on record my determination to make sure that that is properly addressed by the Government. In relation to the redress payments, all of the milestones for the establishment of redress Scotland are being met. The chair is in place, the chief executive officer is in place, and the steps to organise and to open the scheme before the turn of the year will be met. I am confident of that. What then flows in relation to payments being made is slightly dependent on the applications that come forward and on the nature of the process that has to be gone through to verify those applications. I assure Mr Marra that, based on the experience of the advance payment scheme, I would be confident that payments could be made swiftly after the receipt of applications—by swiftly, I suspect that I should put some degree of time into that, that there is due time for consideration. However, the advance payment scheme has paid very quickly in relation to those payments. In relation to the survivor forum, various steps have been taken to interview individuals to be part of the survivor's forum, and, as I indicated in my earlier answer, the development work on that is on track. To ask the Deputy First Minister in what ways the redress for survivors historical childhood abuse and care Scotland act provides tangible support for those who have experienced abuse and care? As I have just explained to Mr Marra, the steps to establish the redress scheme are under way, as envisaged in statute. The advance payment scheme will remain open for those eligible by either age or nature of their assessment of their health to enable them to participate in that scheme. I am confident that those arrangements are available on a timuous basis for individuals. Although the scheme can deliver payments to individuals, it is a question of whether that helps in the recovery of individuals from the trauma that they have suffered. However, I hope that the combination of the fact that the inquiry is able to provide findings of the power that Lady Smith has expressed. That is the sixth report. The other case studies are focused on the individual settings in which abuse takes place, and they are, in my opinion, very difficult reading indeed. I hope that the prominence that has been given to those issues, the reflection of the detail, the acknowledgement by Lady Smith of the veracity of the events that are accounted, helps, along with the redress payments, to provide a route to recovery for individuals who have been so badly let down by the state in those examples. Can I welcome the Deputy First Minister's apology and recognise his long-standing personal commitment to the issue that has been around for far too long? Lady Smith said that far too long survivors' voices were not listened to, not heard, they were treated as if they were abused did not matter and as if they were not worth listening to, just as if they were abused in care. She said that we must learn the lessons from this tragedy. I ask the Deputy First Minister to tell Parliament what safeguarding issues are in place to ensure that the voices of survivors are never silenced by officials or ministers in this way ever again. All the comments that were made in the report by Lady Smith, the quote that Pauline McNeill has recounted to Parliament, is the one that I find the most difficult. Because institutions of government handle issues in particular ways, but there is quite simply no defence for the treatment for the words, the circumstances that are led by Lady Smith to write those words. There is just no justification whatsoever. For example, I chair the national trauma training board within Government personally, and it is designed to essentially address some of the behaviour that led to the dismissiveness of individuals. That is just one example of how we are trying to change the culture within Government to ensure that the voices of individuals are listened to. I have to also say that at a time when our Parliament and its processes can often be attacked, one of the elements of this Parliament's processes, the Public Petitions Committee, is at the heart of providing a platform and a voice for the individuals that Pauline McNeill raised. If it had not been for Chris Daley's original petition to this Parliament, the seriousness with which it was taken by Michael McMahon, when he was chair of the Petitions Committee, his tenacity in challenging government about it, and the tenacity of other individuals such as David Whelan or Helen Holland, to pursue those issues with ministers of successive administrations over many years, we would frankly not be in the position where we have to, as a Government, as an institution, confront some of those hard and uncomfortable realities. I am hopeful that we will be the better for it in the way in which we deal with individuals and some of the practical steps that we are taking, such as the trauma training and work that I preside over, is designed to address exactly the circumstances that Pauline McNeill puts to me.