Delays in carrying out background checks on new employees who want to work with children and protected adults is causing chaos in the industry. Thousands of applications for Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) assessments are taking longer than the target 14 days to process. The delays are said to make it harder for organisations such as nurseries to plan properly for the future. The stats were revealed in a Freedom of Information request by the Sunday Mail.
It showed for 333,680 applications made between April 1 to October 31 last year, 13501 were processed outside the 14-day target. Scottish Labour spokesperson for Children and Young People Martin Whitfield hit out: “A well-functioning disclosure system is a matter of public safety – the SNP must urgently get a grip of this system in crisis.” Scottish Labour claimed Disclosure Scotland is in “chaos”, after it spent over £100million on temporary staff in 12 years. The body paid about £1.9m to temporary workers in 2012 but by 2018 it reached £39.8m with about £16.6m spent on casual staff that year alone. Latest sums show another £9 million has been splashed out on temporary staff in the last financial year alone.