The Scottish Government

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Chapter 1: Introduction and the consultation process

Introduction

The Scottish Government's consultation on policy proposals for secondary legislation required to implement the vetting and barring scheme introduced through the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007 ( PVG Act) closed on 12 February 2008.

This document is the analysis of the 199 written responses received by the Scottish Government. It is also informed by the findings from a series of open consultation events which attracted over 1000 stakeholders across rural and urban Scotland.

The consultation set out a number of policy proposals relating to each major issue.

• Chapter 2 - Scope of Regulated Work and Access to Disclosures
• Chapter 3 - Referrals and Listing
• Chapter 4 - New types of Vetting Information
• Chapter 5 - Retrospective Checks and Fees
• Chapter 6 - Connecting with the rest of the UK

The Scottish Government's response to the analysis will be published shortly and there will be further consultation towards the end of 2008 on secondary legislation required to implement the vetting and barring scheme.

Background

The PVG Act (which received Royal Assent in April 2007) creates the legislative framework for a strengthened, robust and streamlined vetting and barring scheme for those working with children and protected adults in Scotland.

It responds to recommendation 19 of the Bichard Inquiry Report published in June 2004, following Sir Michael Bichard's inquiry into the murder of two schoolgirls in Soham in 2002. Recommendation 19 states that new arrangements should be introduced requiring those who wish to work with children, or vulnerable adults, to be registered.

The PVG Scheme will ensure that those who either have regular contact with vulnerable groups through the workplace, or who are otherwise in regulated work do not have a history of abusive behaviour. It will also deliver a fair and consistent system that will be quick and easy for people to use.

It will stop people who are in paid or unpaid work who are unsuitable from working with children and/or protected adults and detect those who become unsuitable while in the workplace.

The Scottish Government is now considering implementation issues associated with the PVG Act and this consultation analysis plays a significant part in this process.

Current Position

Around 800,000 people in Scotland work with children or protected adults, either through their paid employment or as volunteers. Part 5 of the Police Act 1997 put in place a statutory framework to allow for criminal record checks for employment of these, and other, workers. Since April 2002, the Scottish Government and BT have worked in partnership as Disclosure Scotland to provide criminal record checks for Scotland, since then just under 2.8 million applications have been made for basic, standard and enhanced disclosures. In 2007/08 362,367 enhanced disclosures were processed.

Policy objectives

The policy objectives of the PVG Act are to ensure that:

• those who have a history of behaviour that indicates they are unsuitable to work with children or protected adults are prevented from doing so and those who become unsuitable are quickly removed from such work;
• employers have an improved tool to assess suitability and make safe and informed recruitment and retention decisions;
• the Scheme is fair, consistent and easy for people to understand and use;
• the underlying processes are as streamlined, responsive and efficient as possible; and
• the Scheme dovetails with arrangements in the rest of the UK to ensure that cross-border loopholes do not develop which could be exploited by those who would harm children and protected adults.

The PVG Scheme offers the following improvements over the current system:

• effective barring - it won't just collect and disclose vetting information, but will also assess it, so that individuals who are considered unsuitable on the basis of vetting information are prevented from entering the workforce;
• the adults' list - a new list of individuals who are unsuitable to work with protected adults;
• continuous vetting - continuing to collect vetting information about an individual after the initial disclosure check has been made will ensure that new information indicating that they might be unsuitable can be acted upon promptly;
• streamlined disclosures - recognising that some people have several roles and that many people move and change jobs over time, the scheme removes the need for repeated written disclosures to simplify and speed up the process.
• access to disclosure for personal employers - who will be able to check that the person they are seeking to employ is not unsuitable; and
• more sources of vetting information - giving both the scheme and employers more information to decide on the suitability of an individual for a particular post.

For more information, contact the PVG Act Implementation team at the Scottish Government on 0131 244 4905 or visit http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Young-People/children-families/pvglegislation

The consultation process

Components of the Consultation

There were two key parts of the consultation process

1. a series of consultation events
2. written consultation

Results from both these elements will feed into the final legislation.

Analysis of the consultation events and written consultation responses was conducted in-house by Social Researchers from the Office of the Chief Researcher, within the Scottish Government. Government Social Researchers are bound by the Government Social Research ( GSR) Code, including impartiality and objectivity.

"Research must not be undertaken with a view to reaching particular conclusions or prescribing particular courses of action; it must strive to be objective, and any limitations to objectivity should be made transparent."
GSR website

Where respondents to the consultation have agreed to have their responses made public, these responses have been made available in the Scottish Government Library.

The consultation events

Seven Protection of Vulnerable Groups ( PVG) Consultation events were held across Scotland between November 2007 and January 2008. These events were held in Edinburgh, Stirling, Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow and Perth. The Perth event was added as a result of over-subscription to the previous events. 875 people attended these events. Those who attended were stakeholders who had self-selected by signing up for the events.

The aims of the events were to impart information to relevant stakeholders about the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Act, to encourage them to respond to the consultation on proposals for secondary legislation under the Act, but also to gain information about their understanding and opinions on the subject, in order to use this information to supplement the analysis from the formal written consultation.

Events were run in an interactive manner where attendees (delegates) listened to presentations by members of the Scottish Government Protection of Vulnerable Groups Team, participated in group discussions on scenarios relating to the presentations, took part in electronic polling on key questions from each session and were given the opportunity to ask questions of the panel in Question and Answer sessions.

There were 3 discussion scenarios for delegates to discuss in their table groups, which generated much debate. Delegates were assigned to tables (groups) rather than being allowed to choose where to sit, so that as far as possible, each group would contain individuals from a range of backgrounds. Each group was asked to provide written feedback on the discussion sessions in the form of a feedback sheet. The discussion sessions related to the first three presentations of the day - session 1 related to regulated work with protected adults and children, session 2 referrals and listings, and session 3 vetting information. The aim of the scenarios was to provide examples to bring the topics to life and to allow the groups to think about and debate the issues. Scenario 2 (referrals and listing) tended to create most discussion. The fourth presentation of the day, fees and retrospective checking, did not have a discussion scenario attached to it, but was followed by a Question and Answer session to the Panel, covering all the topics of the day.

Analytical outputs from the events were:

1. Results from the electronic polling - which were analysed and broken down by sector and area of work/delivery

2. Feedback from the group discussions was collected and analysed

These findings were written up as a separate event analysis and where applicable have also fed into the analysis of the written consultation.

Event Delegates

The Voluntary Sector made up just under half of the audience (47%), and the Statutory Sector made up just under one-third of the audience (32%). In terms of work service area Social Work/Social Care was the most represented group at 30%, then Health and Community Care on 16%, Education on 10% and justice and Police on 8%, although 17% of delegates classed themselves as 'Other'.

Table 1: PVG Events - Delegates' Sector

Table 2: PVG Events - Delegates' Area of Work/Service Delivery

*It should be noted that the category Corporate Services was asked as parent/carer at the Edinburgh event, but no one fitted that category as their primary reason for attending the event, whilst Corporate Services seemed to be a recurring answer among those who classed themselves as none of the above. Therefore this category was changed to Corporate Services for all other events. As a result, there will be some respondents from Edinburgh who are in Corporate Services whose answers will be registered under "Other."

In addition nine Central Registered Body in Scotland ( CRBS) events were held, in Shetland, Orkney, Stornoway, Benbecula, Oban, Ullapool, Wick, Campbeltown and Dumfries. 176 people attended these events. The results from the CRBS events have not been added to the main polling responses to the PVG events, however the responses have been collated and included as separate tables of results in the event analysis.

The written consultation

The purpose of the written consultation was to allow respondents to inform the detail of secondary legislation. It set out a number of options for each major issue as well as seeking general comments on the proposals. The output of the consultation will be secondary legislation in the form of a number of draft Scottish Statutory Instruments.

The Scottish Government was keen to obtain opinions from individuals and organisations in a structured way on the secondary legislation relating to the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Scheme. A consultation document - Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 207) Scottish Vetting and Barring Scheme, consultation on policy proposals for secondary legislation- was issued by the Scottish Government. This set out the policy proposals for the secondary legislation and was structured around a series of options on the major issues and asked for views on these options.

The consultation was distributed to a wide range of individuals and organisations (over 3,000) and was also made available to the wider public on the Scottish Government website.

Twenty - three questions, consisting of a mixture of closed questions and open free text questions, were asked in the consultation. Respondents were encouraged to submit their responses via an online response form, however the majority chose to submit hard copy forms, and some wrote letters.

Analytical outputs of the written consultation

1. a database of responses

2. statistical analysis of closed questions

3. a written report consisting of the statistical analysis, qualitative analysis of responses and linking these to event findings where appropriate

Responses and Respondents to written consultation

A total of 199 written responses to the consultation were received prior to the deadline for the beginning of the analysis. The majority of these responses were made on behalf of groups, with only 10% of responses coming from individuals. 56 consultees responded online and the remaining 143 responded in hard copy. Of the 143 hard copies, 12 took the form of letters which do not follow the question format of the consultation response form, the rest either completed the form or submitted letters which clearly covered (at least some) of the questions in the response form. The 187 responses which followed, to some degree, the question format laid out in the consultation response booklet have been included in the statistical analysis. The 12 letters which did not follow the question structure had to be looked at separately.

Respondents were asked to indicate their background. Voluntary organisations were the most widely represented, making up 42% of the total responses. As well as the 10 categories listed in the consultation document, it was felt that there was also value in analysing responses by 3 additional groups - Councils, Regulatory Bodies and Child Protection Committees - as these groups were represented, but did not neatly fit into the categories provided. In particular there was value in isolating responses from Councils and Regulatory Bodies as specific questions in Chapter 4 related to Council and Regulatory Body information as vetting information and it is interesting to see how Councils and Regulatory Bodies responded to these questions.

The background categories were used in the analysis of the responses to look at responses by and between background groups.

Table 3: Background of those responding to the written consultation

*The 'Other' category includes trade unions, representative bodies and religious/faith groups, as well as those who did not state a background, or who ticked multiple background options.

Gaps in respondent type

No one who responded to the written consultation classed themselves primarily as Parent/Carer or Justice. Police and Sport and Leisure were the least well represented of the groups who responded. Voluntary Organisations were the most well represented and within the Voluntary Organisation responses there were responses from umbrella organisations such as Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations ( SCVO), who speak on behalf of a number of organisations.

Timing of the Consultation

The consultation ran from 1 November 2007 until 12 February 2008, although late replies were allowed until the 19 February 2008. The consultation was supported by 7 consultation events from November 2007 through to January 2008.

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