On 1 April 2025, the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 was enacted and the PVG scheme became a legal requirement for anyone carrying out a regulated role. Staff and volunteers carrying out a regulated role must be members of the PVG scheme, and providers employing them (paid or unpaid) must have received a PVG scheme disclosure before the staff member or volunteer commences their regulated role. It is not sufficient for the application to have been started, you must have received the disclosure from Disclosure Scotland before the individual can begin their regulated role. You will find a list of roles which currently need a PVG here.
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, and to ensure that unsuitable people cannot carry out a regulated role.
However, it is only the regulated role aspect of the role that cannot be undertaken before the PVG is received. That means any of the listed ‘regulated activities’ within Schedules 2 and 3 of the PVG Act must not be done prior to the PVG being shared with the provider. That might mean individuals can do their in office training or induction while the PVG is awaiting processing, as long as service users are not involved.
Disclosure Scotland performance levels
During week commencing 25 August, Disclosure Scotland processed 86% of disclosures within 14 days. Their average processing time for PVG was 8.3 days.
This followed a short period where, for some applications, they were processing slightly outside of their 14-day target. Those recent processing delays were due to the implementation of the Disclosure Act, when volumes increased even more than anticipated.
They continue to monitor their service delivery performance daily and fully expect to consistently remain within the 14- day period going forward. They intend to start publishing average processing times on their website and social media.
Sharing disclosures
The implementation of the Disclosure Act means that the individual must share their disclosure with you. This is done through their online account or, for paper disclosures, by the individual contacting Disclosure Scotland after they receive their paper disclosure.
Disclosure Scotland advise that around 90% of applicants are successfully sharing their disclosure within 14 days of receipt. If an applicant does not share their disclosure within 14 days, they can no longer share the disclosure themselves. Where the applicant has failed to share it within 14 days please ask your applicants to contact Disclosure Scotland (via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), with an email header of ‘APPLICATION SHARE REQUEST’, to request sharing. While Disclosure Scotland are experiencing a high volume of enquiries, they will continue to prioritise these requests.
For providers directly registered with Disclosure Scotland as accredited bodies, you can use your 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 at this stage to ensure that they have actioned the request from Disclosure Scotland to either share their disclosure or apply for a review.
That action by providers will complement the initial alert and subsequent reminders Disclosure Scotland send to tell the applicant that they need to take action. It will also enable the provider to take action to support employment sooner if the completed disclosure is sitting with the prospective employee.
Providers should update their own general documentation to make the applicant aware of the action they need to take during the disclosure process i.e. completing the application and sharing their disclosure. Please see Disclosure Scotland’s 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 in conjunction with Disclosure Scotland. Please disregard the information under the subheading ‘Exceptional circumstances and supporting short notice recruitment and deployment’ in the section Stage 4: Essential background checks.’ In the downloaded version you will find this on page 56.
We will work with Disclosure Scotland to update this section of the guidance. 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 (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
More generally, 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 via email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..