Salvation Army Hearing Prompts Spike in Correspondence to Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse

By Emily Bourke
ABC News
February 15, 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-15/salvation-army-hearing-promps-spike-royal-commission-child-abuse/5261248

[with audio]

The inquiry has received around 8,500 calls and 4,000 pieces of correspondence.

But in the past two weeks, there has been a 35 per cent increase in calls, with more than 200 per week.

There have already been 1,200 private sessions conducted, with plans for another 600 before the end of June.

But there are still between 800 and 900 people on a waiting list for a private session with a commissioner.

There are more people coming forward every day to tell their story, and the inquiry says it is committed to getting back to people within a day or two of their call.

Despite the hectic schedule of activities, the royal commission's chief, Janette Dines, is confident the inquiry will be able deliver its interim report by the June deadline.

"We've had a good chance now in the past 12 months to really scope out the task and look at what we believe needs to be done to complete our terms of reference," she said.

"Part of that, as well, is how many people need to tell their story and how much bearing witness should the commission be doing.

"We are on track to deliver an interim report by the end of June and in that report the commissioners will set out what they have found so far and from that, the stories and the work that must be done to complete their terms of reference."

Ms Dines says the commission has been able to reduce the backlog of calls.

"We're really pleased that we've been able to catch up, if you like, with the volume, the flood of calls that we received at the start," she said.

"Our objective has always been that we are able to deal with people immediately or within a day or two of them calling, so that's been a really significant achievement for us because we don't like to leave people waiting for the more intensive discussion that they have when we call back.

"The issue for us now is time. If commissioners are going to be in public hearings then that limits the time that they can sit in private sessions, so finding a balance between the work of commissioners in public hearings but also making sure that everyone who's called and wants a private session can be heard."