“If there are no records, there is no narrative”: the social justice impact of records of Scottish care-leavers

In 2004, the Scottish Parliament commissioned an independent review of abuse in children’s residential establishments between 1950 and 1995. In 2007, the review’s findings were published in a report entitled Historical Abuse Systemic Review: Residential Schools and Children’s Homes in Scotland 1950 to 1995, also known as the Shaw Report. In this article, the Shaw Report provides the jumping off point for a case study of the social justice impact of records. Drawing on secondary literature, interviews, and care-related records, the study identifies narratives that speak to the social justice impact of care records on care-leavers seeking access to them; it also assesses the potential of the surviving administrative records to serve as a foundation on which to construct historical narratives that speak more generally to the experience of children in residential care.