Children and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church in England and Wales are still at risk five years on from sweeping reforms of the way it handles abuse allegations, it was claimed yesterday.

Baroness Julia Cumberlege said she believed children and vulnerable adults were still being abused in spite of a series of reforms recommended by the Nolan report of 2001.

The former Conservative health minister was speaking following the publication of the Cumberlege Commission, a review she headed into the progress the church has made since the Nolan report.

Lady Cumberlege said she believed the Catholic Church in England and Wales was a safer place than five years ago and had made progress but there remained a "lot more to do".

Asked if the commission believed that children and vulnerable adults were still being abused today, she replied "yes, we do".

She said: "We want people to come forward. We want a much more open, transparent system, we want people to be confident in the church that they can come forward and that all the problems will be dealt with in a sympathetic way and natural justice will prevail.

"We feel that in the past that hasn't been happening."

People who claim they were abused in Scotland are understood to be still seeking compensation.

Last year 18 residents of the former Nazareth House homes in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Kilmarnock received awards of up to £7500.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority compensated the former residents of the Catholic children's homes after they claimed they were abused, beaten or humiliated as children by some of the nuns who ran the homes.

Nazareth House is part of an order, the Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth, formed in London.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said last night: "The order (Poor Sisters of Nazareth) was never under any church control because they were an autonomous order."