Disclosure Scotland fees - discounting waivers and accredited bodies: consultation analysis

Introduction

Background and context to the consultation

The Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 (“the Disclosure Act”) protects the public while balancing the right for people to move on from offending, and to simplify the process for disclosing criminal history information.

The Disclosure Act replaces the current disclosure products with new types of disclosure: Level 1 and Level 2. Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme membership disclosures will be available as a confirmation of scheme membership or as part of a Level 2 disclosure.

This means the Scottish Government needs to set new fees for each type of disclosure and for organisations registered to receive disclosure information (“accredited body”).

The consultation focused on Disclosure Scotland’s approach to fee waivers and discounts. It also asked about the annual fee for accredited bodies.

Fee levels

Disclosure Scotland’s fees have not changed since 2011. This is the longest time fees for disclosure products in Scotland have been frozen. The Public Sector Finance Manual sets out that fees should be set at full cost recovery. This consultation and wider engagement work gathered views on the impact of increasing fees, however, the consultation did not ask specifically about the fee levels for different disclosure products. This is due to there being no scope to reduce fees as Disclosure Scotland’s fees are currently set well below cost recovery. The impact of increasing our fees were initially gathered during the wider PVG Review consultation in 2018, and through further ongoing engagement until October 2024 undertaken separate to this consultation

Work is ongoing to ensure fees are set at a level which balances affordability for customers against the cost of delivering disclosures.

This consultation set out some example fee levels for disclosure products under the Disclosure Act, taking account of actual cost of delivery and inflation, to help illustrate the impact of any discounting or fee waiver.

Targeted engagement on fee levels took place throughout summer and autumn 2024. An update on proposed fee levels is expected in January 2025.

Consultation format and structure

The consultation on Disclosure Scotland fees – discounting, waivers and accredited bodies was hosted online on the Scottish Government’s Citizen Space portal. It ran from 5 March 2024 to 28 May 2024. Late responses were accepted via email up to 12 June 2024.

It consisted of 24 questions (six closed format questions, nine open format questions and nine optional questions gathering information about the respondent and their organisation for learning and further contact from Disclosure Scotland).

The consultation asked questions about discounting for people in receipt of benefits and care experienced young people, a fee waiver for volunteers and a question for organisations on accredited body (registration) fees.

The Scottish Government also accepted responses provided via email or post. The consultation was open for 12 weeks. 1236 responses were received, including late responses.

Data processing and cleaning

Scottish Government officials analysed the responses to this consultation. This report provides a summary of the responses to the questions the Scottish Government asked during the consultation.

The 11 responses received by email were reviewed, entered manually into the final dataset and analysed alongside responses submitted through the online platform.

Responses were manually reviewed and screened for any offensive, abusive, defamatory or explicitly vulgar content; one response was redacted because of this screening, the rest of that response was left available for analysis.

One group of responses was identified as a campaign response with 38 responses using the same template.

Analysis approach

A higher than estimated number of responses and the requirement for a cost-effective internal Scottish Government analysis approach resulted in a delay in producing a consultation analysis report. Substantive analysis was completed in August and September 2024 and applied to impact assessment work around the policy development to identify further areas for engagement and research.

A framework was used to draw out key themes for analysis from narrative responses and to identify to analysts where respondents provided statistics or detailed additional analysis from their own organisation or individual experience.

Consultation responses were analysed fairly, rigorously and systematically.

Due to the number and range of respondents, it is impossible to detail every response in this report. Some, especially organisations, provided lengthy submissions reflecting their specific subject matter expertise. Full responses to the consultation, where permission for publication is granted, can be found on the Scottish Government’s consultation website.

Organisational responses with cost analysis have also been applied to detailed impact assessments which will be published in due course.

Respondents

As with all consultations, respondents views may not be representative of the views of the wider population. Individuals and organisations who have a keen interest in a topic – and the capacity to respond – are more likely than those who do not to participate in a consultation. This self-selection means that the views of consultation participants cannot be generalised to the wider population.

For this reason, the approach to consultation analysis is primarily qualitative in nature. Its main purpose is not to identify how many people held particular views, but to understand the full range of views expressed and the concerns that respondents may have. The qualitative analysis also helps to illuminate responses to the closed questions and gain insight into people’s views.

Respondents were asked if they were responding to the consultation as an individual or organisation. These responses were self-reported and not independently verified. A small group of respondents identified themselves as an organisation but did not provide an organisation name or type.

556 respondents identified themselves as an organisation. 548 provided an organisation name or type.