Disclosure Scotland UK applications processing: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/02962
Date received: 7 December 2017
Date responded: 9 January 2018

Information requested

1. For how long has Disclosure Scotland been processing applications from the rest of the UK? (Due to a new headquarters for England being set up.)

2. When will Disclosure Scotland stop dealing with applications for the rest of the UK?

3. How much has the UK Treasury paid Disclosure Scotland for taking over the English service, from the time this arrangement began till November 2017?

4. How many colleagues have been moved from England to the Disclosure Scotland office?

5. How many of these above colleagues are in temporary accommodation paid and how much does this accommodation cost per week?

6. How many workers at Disclosure Scotland are supplied by an employment contractor?

7. What is budget for supplying in total the number of contacted workers at Disclosure Scotland?

8. How much are the temporary workers who have been brought in to Disclosure Scotland paid per annum pro rata?

9. What has been the Disclosure Scotland budget annually from its first year in operation up to and including 2017?

Response

1. For how long has Disclosure Scotland been processing applications from the rest of the UK? (Due to a new headquarters for England being set up.)

The processing of applications from out with Scotland began in August 2003 in response to a direction issued by the UK Department for Transport that applicants for a restricted zone pass at UK airports must have a basic disclosure carried out. Scottish Ministers agreed to provide the basic disclosures as the then Criminal Records Bureau (now the Disclosure And Barring Service) did not offer a basic disclosure service. The Scottish Ministers formed the Executive Agency called Disclosure Scotland from 1 April 2009 who continued providing this service under delegation from the Home Office and now the Disclosure and Barring Service under the Police Act 1997 as amended.

2. When will Disclosure Scotland stop dealing with applications for the rest of the UK?

Disclosure Scotland currently carries out basic disclosures for England and Wales under a delegation by the Disclosure and Barring Service of its functions under the law of England and Wales. This delegation of functions will not extend beyond January 2018. Thereafter, Disclosure Scotland will receive and process some applications from across the UK (which will be processed under the law of Scotland) in cases where, for example, a person living in England, Wales or Northern Ireland is moving to live and work in Scotland.

3. How much has the UK Treasury paid Disclosure Scotland for taking over the English service, from the time this arrangement began till November 2017?

The UK Treasury has not provided any direct funding to Disclosure Scotland.

4. How many colleagues have been moved from England to the Disclosure Scotland office?

No Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) staff have been moved to the Disclosure Scotland Office.

Disclosure Scotland agreed that DBS could locate some of their staff at our Disaster Recovery site to get experience doing criminal history checks, at DBS expense.

5. How many of these above colleagues are in temporary accommodation paid and how much does this accommodation cost per week? Disclosure Scotland does not hold this data.

6. How many workers at Disclosure Scotland are supplied by an employment contractor?

Table 1 below contains the Average number of whole Time Equivalent Agency & Temporary Staff employed during each year from 2009-10 with the annual cost. This has been extracted from Disclosure Scotland's Annual Report and Accounts for each year. The costs for the first three years had to be calculated as they were not reported.

Year	Average No. of whole Time Equivalent Agency & Temporary Staff employed during the year	Cost £'000s	Average cost per Whole Time Equivalent £'000s
2009-10	22	561	25.5
2010-11	46	1,181	25.7
2011-12	76	1,942	25.6
2012-13	91	2,371	26.1
2013-14	89	2,407	27.0
2014-15	84	3,029	36.1
2015-16	151	5,423	35.9
2016-17	226	7,206	31.9

The average number of whole time equivalent agency & temporary staff employed in Disclosure Scotland has increased commensurately with annual workload increases. In 2009-10 Disclosure Scotland processed some 947,000 applications and by 2016-17 this had increased to 1,868,000. The number of temporary staff has increased significantly in the last two years because Disclosure Scotland must anticipate reducing processing capacity when English and Welsh basic checks fully transfer to the Disclosure and Barring Service in early 2018.

7. What is budget for supplying in total the number of contacted workers at Disclosure Scotland?

The budget for Agency and Temporary Staff for 2017-18 is £8.206 million

8. How much are the temporary workers who have been brought in to Disclosure Scotland paid per annum pro rata?

See table 1 above. All temporary staff brought into Disclosure Scotland have to be paid the equivalent rate (including enhancements) to a civil servant working at the same grade.

9. What has been the Disclosure Scotland budget annually from its first year in operation up to and including 2017?

Disclosure Scotland is an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government. Its budget fall within that of the Scottish Government Children and Families Directorate. The Scottish Government publishes its budget data and the data is available therein.

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