Ms Rachel Downes:

One of the main issues was staffing and resources. We did not have enough staff to deal with the number of applications that came in at the beginning, and unfortunately that legacy carried on over a number of years. It took us six years to get on top of that. While we have always done outreach, we can now invite survivors into our offices, so we have done much face-to-face and focused outreach work over the past 18 months. That work has been invaluable and has also helped us develop relationships with survivors.