16th January 2023
VSDS Compliance Update
Rehabilitation Policy
There has recently been a change to the conviction information that is shown on higher level disclosure certificates. This change has taken place from 19 December 2022 and will affect conviction information shown on Standard and Enhanced Disclosures and also PVG scheme disclosures. These changes do not apply to Basic Disclosure Checks.
Higher level disclosures show:
- all unspent convictions
- spent convictions for offences that are disclosed according to rules
- spent convictions for offences that offences that must be disclosed
For enrolled organisations, this may now change what information is released to you on a disclosure. For example, robbery and embezzlement move from being subject to the rules to being offences that must be disclosed whilst the unlawful introduction of tobacco etc into a prison drops off the disclosed according to the rules list and will now only be released whilst subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders time periods.
Is there any action you need to take?
If you have a previous version of our recruiting with convictions policy, please make sure that you download the new version and use this going forward. The ‘Recruiting with Convictions with Self Disclosure’ and ‘Recruiting with Convictions without Self Disclosure’ documents are availble in the Sample Organisational Policies.
Please note that if an application is found to allow the applicant to apply for the removal of information, they will have 2 weeks to raise this with Disclosure Scotland. During this period the certificate will not be issued to organisations.
If you have any questions on anything, please get in touch with our Training and Compliance team who will be happy to help.