PVG scheme will be a legal requirement

People and organisations now have less than four months to make the changes needed to prepare for the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme becoming a legal requirement from 1 April 2025. 

The Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme becomes a legal requirement from 1 April 2025

From 1 April 2025, it will be a legal requirement for individuals to be a member of the PVG scheme when carrying out a regulated role with children, protected adults, or both. Organisations must ensure that individuals who are to carry out a regulated role (paid or voluntary) have PVG scheme membership from 1 April 2025 onwards. 

From 1 April 2025, ‘regulated work’ will be replaced by ‘regulated roles’. We expect that roles which are currently included under regulated work, will also be regulated roles. However, the introduction of ‘regulated roles’ will bring new roles into the PVG scheme that are currently not regulated work. These include, football agents, talent scouts, hypnotherapists and certain hospital or hospice-based roles that do not currently qualify for the PVG scheme. 

To help you assess the criteria for regulated roles, please review the Disclosure Act schedules on ‘regulated roles’ with children and protected adults, and explanatory notes. If you work in a regulated role, you must become a member of the PVG scheme. 

Disclosure Scotland’s Customer Engagement Team can help you to establish if your role(s) are regulated. Email DisclosureAct@disclosurescotland.gov.scot for advice.   

Please notify our Customer Engagement Team directly with volumes of additional PVG scheme applications you expect to make as a result of the move to the PVG scheme becoming a legal requirement, and the introduction of ‘regulated roles’, from 1 April 2025. This will inform Disclosure Scotland’s resource planning to ensure that we maintain a similar level of service to all our customers.

Three-month grace period for those who need to become a member of the PVG scheme 

There will be a short grace period of three months after the PVG scheme becomes a legal requirement. This will ensure individuals and organisations don't immediately commit an offence if there are individuals who are not yet PVG scheme members but are currently working for in regulated roles. 

Individuals and organisations will not commit an offence if an individual who is carrying out a regulated role for them has, before the 1 July 2025, made an application to join the PVG Scheme, even if Disclosure Scotland has not issued the result.

From 1 July 2025 onwards, two new offences will come into force. It will become an offence for: 

• anyone carrying out a regulated role to do so whilst not a member of the PVG scheme  

• organisations to offer any type of regulated role to an individual unless they have received a Level 2 with PVG disclosure

This adds to the existing offences under the PVG Act. For example, it will continue to be an offence for an individual to seek, agree to do or carry out a regulated role if the individual is barred from working with children, protected adults or both. Similarly, organisations must also not offer a regulated role to someone who is barred from that type of regulated role.

Disclosure Scotland will report individuals and organisations to the police if we believe that any of these offences may have taken place. The penalties for these offences is up to five years imprisonment, a fine up to the statutory maximum, or both.

Requirement for applicants to share their disclosure result 

From 1 April 2025, applicants will have more control over their information. The disclosure process will include a requirement for applicants to share a copy of their disclosure with the accredited body that countersigned the application, or to notify Disclosure Scotland that they will seek a review of the content of their disclosure result.

This will end the current process of applicant and countersignatory results being shared at the same time. 

Disclosure Scotland’s Digital Team are currently developing this process. We are gathering user feedback to inform our future development of the applicant sharing process.

Organisations should consider how they can adapt their current recruitment processes to maximise awareness of this new step for applicants that will help them control their own information.

Implementation of secondary legislation 

In November 2024, a number of Scottish Statutory Instruments (SSIs) were laid in Parliament in support of enacting the parts of the Disclosure Act that will come into force on 1 April 2025. These SSIs support the introduction of the PVG Scheme as a legal requirement. 

Visit Disclosure Scotland’s Linktree for links to the policy notes, which will explain in more detail what each of these SSIs do. Disclosure Scotland intends to lay the next packages of SSIs in early 2025.

Fees 

Following our recent public consultation on fee discounts and waivers, a consultation report will shortly be published on our website. We will update you further when the report is available.

The consultation responses are being fed into the policy development and options to Scottish Ministers. Decisions on the future fee arrangements at Disclosure Scotland will be made balancing public finances against affordability for customers.

We expect to be laying fee regulations in early 2025.   

Organisations should tell Disclosure Scotland when an individual stops doing regulated work with them 

To ensure compliance with data protection legislation, organisations should notify Disclosure Scotland when a PVG scheme member stops doing regulated work with them. This will prevent organisations receiving information to which you are no longer entitled.

This will also help your organisation prepare for the move to a five-year PVG scheme membership, which will commence from 1 April 2026 onwards.

To do this, please email dsupdate@disclosurescotland.gov.scot with:  

• the individual’s name  

• date of birth  

• PVG number  

Disclosure Scotland will then remove your organisation’s interest in the individual.

Your organisation should have records of PVG scheme members you are linked with. If you do not, Disclosure Scotland can provide your organisation with a list of PVG scheme members that your organisation is linked to. Please request this by contacting our dedicated team at dsupdate@disclosurescotland.gov.scot and provide your countersignatory and registered body codes in your request. 

Please keep your PVG scheme membership details up to date 

By law, if you are a PVG scheme member, you need to tell Disclosure Scotland if your personal details have changed. By informing us, you will ensure that Disclosure Scotland holds accurate address and contact information for PVG scheme members.

For information on how to update your PVG details, timescales and legal requirements please visit our website. Organisations can highlight this requirement to their employees and volunteers.

Public launch of Online Accounts  

Our Online Account service is now live. This is an important development to support the implementation of the Disclosure Act. PVG members can now apply for a PVG scheme disclosure and view their results online. In partnership with Scottish Government’s ScotAccount,  Disclosure Scotland is the first organisation to use this new online sign in and verification service and is leading the way for other public sector organisations in this area.  

Keep up to date with future developments 

Follow us on X, Facebook and LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads. 

Please ensure you sign up to our mailing list to receive important news and updates about changes to our services and the Disclosure Act. 

For further information on: 

• Disclosure Scotland, please visit our website: www.disclosure.gov.scot 
• the Disclosure Act, please contact DisclosureAct@disclosurescotland.gov.scot