Lambeth Council has paid out nearly £15 million to victims of abuse at its former children’s homes.

The Lambeth Children’s Homes Redress Scheme is compensating survivors of Shirley Oaks, homes which were open from the 1930s until the 1980s and 1990s.

The scheme, which is managed by Lambeth Council, provides individual redress of up to £125,000.

It also includes a ‘harm’s way’ payment of up to £10,000 for anyone who lived in the network of homes.

The council made a deal with the government to borrow £100m for the scheme, which has meant that council tax will not have to be raised.

Lambeth has paid out £14.7m to victims in the year ending April.

As of January this year, 1,002 applications were made to the scheme, with 851 ‘harms way’ payments processed.

As well as this, 68 victims have been paid £915,680.

Harm’s Way Payments have taken an average of 43 working days to process.

The final value of claims could range between £30m and £250m.

Former Lambeth Council leader Lib Peck and council leader Jack Hopkins have both apologised to the victims on behalf of the council.

Cllr Hopkins said:”We know that may former children’s homes residents will never be able to forgive the council but we hope that this redress scheme gives some comfort and redress.

“We’re determined to do all that we can to deliver swift and compassionate redress to those that have waited so long to even have acknowledgement of the suffering they have experienced,” he said.

The spokesman for the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, Raymond Stevenson, has said there were hundreds of victims.

The Scheme will be open to applications January 1, 2020 and opened on January 2, 2018.