The first compensation payments to victims of historical institutional abuse are planned to be made this spring.
Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service David Sterling revealed the time frame while giving evidence to the Executive Office scrutiny committee at Stormont today.
Legislation was passed at Westminster last November to allow victims to receive redress.
Mr Sterling said he hopes the first payments will be made from April/May.
Responding to questions by committee chairman Colin McGrath, Mr Sterling said the department had recognised that this was one of the areas that would "most keenly feel" the absence of devolved government, and he decided to make it a "top priority".
He said since the legislation completed its passage through Westminster, civil servants have been "working very hard with victims and survivors to put structures in place to allow redress payments to flow as quickly as possible".
"The first redress board is essentially in place, there are rules the redress board need to adopt which are reaching conclusion, there is also an application process which will need to be constructed," he said.
"The intention is that the application process will be open by the end of March at the latest, and that the first redress panel will be in place in April to begin to consider.
"Alongside that, we need to put in place a commissioner for survivors of institutional child abuse, that process begins shortly."
Mr Sterling said a "global communications campaign" will be developed to ensure anyone affected will know about the redress scheme.
He added: "I have said that we need to do this at the fastest pace possible that avoids any risk of things not being done properly, and I think that is where we are at the moment."
Mr McGrath said the committee will hold him to those timescales.
The compensation scheme was among the recommendations in the final report of the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry.
It examined allegations of physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children in residential institutions in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1995.
Mr Sterling was also asked about pressures on finances at the newly restored Stormont by DUP MLA Trevor Clarke, and whether he is "confident the British government will cough up more money".
He told the committee: "You will know the finance minister had meetings in London last week, I think he was quite positive about how they went.
"It's a matter of record that the Department of Finance is doing further work to identify the cost of the various commitments, the challenges that are facing us and to go back to Treasury with a strong case for additional resources.
"I wouldn't want to make a judgment on the likelihood of that leading to significantly more money but I hope it will.
"There will need to be political discussions about priorities."
UUP MLA Mike Nesbitt asked Mr Sterling about his previous indications that he planned to step down from the role in August.
"I have indicated that I plan to go at the end of August, yes," Mr Sterling told the committee.
"The process (to appoint a successor) will be one that will obviously need to be agreed by the first minister and deputy first minister, discussions around that are to begin shortly."
Mr Nesbitt suggested that there may "need to be some urgency to getting a process under way".
"Absolutely," Mr Sterling responded.
