The Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 was enacted on 1 April 2025 meaning the PVG scheme is a legal requirement for anyone carrying out a regulated role.
Both staff and volunteers carrying out a regulated role must be members of the PVG scheme. Providers employing them must have received a PVG scheme disclosure before the staff member or volunteer starts their regulated role.
It is not sufficient for the application to be started; you must have received the disclosure from Disclosure Scotland before the staff member or volunteer can begin their regulated role. You will find a list of some roles which currently need a PVG on the gov.scot website.
The Care Inspectorate and the SSSC support implementation of the new legislation from Disclosure Scotland. Providers must ensure staff are recruited in line with legislative requirements, to ensure that unsuitable people cannot carry out a regulated role.
Training and induction
It is only the regulated aspect of the role that cannot be done before a provider receives the PVG from Disclosure Scotland. A regulated role is any of the listed ‘regulated activities’ in Schedules 2 and 3 of the PVG Act, along with contact with service users.
That might mean individuals can do office-based training or induction while waiting for the PVG, if service users are not involved.
Disclosure Scotland processing times
From week beginning 25 August, Disclosure Scotland resumed processing 86% of disclosures within 14 days. Their average processing time for a PVG was 8.3 days.
This followed a short period where, for some applications, they were processing slightly outside their 14-day target. Those recent processing delays were due to the implementation of the Disclosure Act, when volumes increased more than expected.
Disclosure Scotland continue to monitor their service delivery performance daily and expect to consistently remain within their 14-day processing target. They also plan to publish average processing times on their website and social media to keep everyone up to date.
Sharing disclosures
The implementation of the Disclosure Act means the individual must share their disclosure with their employer. This is done through their online account or, for paper disclosures, by the individual contacting Disclosure Scotland after they receive their paper disclosure.
Around 90% of applicants are successfully sharing their disclosure within 14 days of receipt. If an individual doesn’t share their disclosure within 14 days, they can no longer share the disclosure themselves.
If this happens, ask your applicants to contact Disclosure Scotland at response@disclosurescotland.gov.scot using the header ‘APPLICATION SHARE REQUEST’. Disclosure Scotland will continue to prioritise these requests.
Providers directly registered with Disclosure Scotland as accredited bodies, can use their online account to filter for cases at the ‘result issued’ stage, which means the disclosure is complete and with the applicant for sharing or to apply for a review. This allows providers to contact applicants to make sure they have actioned the Disclosure Scotland request to either share their disclosure or apply for a review.
This follow-up by providers will complement the initial alert and reminders Disclosure Scotland send to tell the applicant they need to act. It will also enable the provider to take action to support employment sooner if the completed disclosure is already with the prospective employee.
Providers should update their own documentation to let applicants know what they need to do during the disclosure process, that is completing the application and sharing their disclosure. Please see Disclosure Scotland’s PVG webpage on the application process for information.
Safer Recruitment Through Better Recruitment guidance
The Care Inspectorate and the SSSC are reviewing the Safer recruitment through better recruitment guidance.
Please disregard the information under the subheading ‘Exceptional circumstances and supporting short notice recruitment and deployment’ in the section Stage 4: Essential background checks.’ This is p56 in the downloaded version.
We will work with Disclosure Scotland to update this section. Providers should continue to use all other parts of the guidance as good practice.
Enquiries
If you would like to discuss these specific issues further, you should contact Gareth Wilks, Director of Policy and Customer Engagement at Disclosure Scotland gareth.wilks@disclosurescotland.gov.scot
For general enquiries, you can contact Disclosure Scotland by phone on 0300 0200 040, Monday to Wednesday, 9am to 4pm, Thursday CLOSED and Friday 9am to 3.30pm, or by email response@disclosurescotland.gov.scot