Lambeth Council has paid more than £3.2m to survivors of sexual, physical and psychological abuse in the borough’s children’s homes since January, as part of a council-run redress scheme.

The Lambeth Children’s Homes Redress Scheme is compensating survivors of abuse suffered at the borough homes which were open from the 1930s until the 1980s and 1990s.

The scheme, which is managed by the Lambeth Council to make sure compensation is not swallowed up by lawyers’ fees, provides individual redress of up to £125,000.

The scheme also includes a ‘harm’s way’ payment which sees anyone who lived in the network of homes receiving a stepped payment of up to £10,000.

According to Lambeth Council documents, the total compensation paid to date is £3,268,500.

Between January and July this year, 552 applications for both the individual redress and harm’s way payments have been made.

In the same period, 343 ‘harm’s way payments’ have been processed, costing £3,223,500.

“Generally, the volume of applications received have been increasing each month since the scheme launch with a downturn in June,” the documents explained.

“The processing of Harm’s Way applications have taken an average of 31 working days from receipt of the completed application form until payment is processed to applicants.”

The total cost the scheme to date, including applicant and council legal costs and staffing, was £3,772,874.

About 3,000 applications are expected with total expenditure billed to reach £100m.

Previous criticisms of the scheme included concerns the two styles of compensation saw some who had been abused receiving less than those who were in harm’s way.

Raymond Stevenson, of the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (SOSA) said survivors who had been assessed through the individual redress scheme were only getting a top-up from the initial payment of £10,000 to match what they were entitled to – not both payments.

But a Lambeth Council spokesman said instances of inequalities would be reviewed on a case by case basis.

The next update on the redress scheme will be made in March 2019.