Dozens of pensioners and terminally ill people have applied for compensation for child sex abuse in the first six weeks of a new government plan.

The Scottish Government's Advanced Payment scheme, which opened on April 25, has accepted applications from more than 120 people looking to seek financial redress for the abuse they suffered while in care.

Open to anyone over the age of 70 or with a terminal illness, the scheme will see £10,000 compensation being awarded to those who were abused.

It is intended to provide some form of payment to those who may not be alive when the full compensation scheme opens in 2021.

A charity which helps survivors of child abuse said it has been swamped with people looking for help to obtain their records to prove they were in care, in order to apply for the payment.

Janine Rennie, CEO of In Care Survivors Service Scotland (ICSSS) said the total number of people who could come forward for the scheme may also extend into the thousands.

She said: "We didn't expect there would be a lot of people coming forward for the scheme, but we've received 69 referrals in the last few weeks - normally we don't receive anything like this.

"Before the scheme launched it was really difficult to establish how many people would apply. From our work with survivors, we have worked with around 2,500 people and those are just the ones who have come forward to try and get justice.

"They came forward before any sort of compensation or redress scheme was available.

"They were purely looking for counselling and support.

"According to the police, they have been contacted by around 4,000 people who say they have been abused in care. "From our research we know that only about 10% of people make a report to the police, so that gives a bit of a n indication on how many survivors there may in total - up to 40,000.

" If you look at the number of care homes we are dealing with, its more than 300 currently

"There could be a massive number of survivors who haven't come forward for any form of support, as in some ways it is very difficult to speak out.

"Some people won't have even told their own families. Some of the survivors who have come to us have never told anybody."

Many of those applying for compensation will have attended the larger homes such as Nazareth House, Quarriers and Smyllum Park, according to Ms Rennie, where child abuse has been found to have extended over decades.

She said the scale of abuse was horrifying, and added: " It is a national disgrace, that we are dealing with this level of child abuse in our country.

"When children were supposed to be cared for and looked after by the state they were unfortunately in a situation where they were abused. It is a massive concern that we are dealing with.

"Obviously £10,000 is nowhere near enough or compensate for a lifetime of abuse, but we do really welcome it because survivors have been fighting for decades for anything at all.

"It gives them an opportunity to have something at the moment. It is never going to compensate for hat happened, and survivors do not do this for the money.

"It is going some way towards the state acknowledging what happened to them."