Protecting vulnerable groups scheme

Our existing Protecting Vulnerable Groups – Guidance for Care Inspectorate Staff and Service Providers advises that providers should seek updates on individual staff PVG Scheme membership every three years.

This is not a requirement of Disclosure Scotland but rather our advice for safe recruitment good practice.

Where someone has previously only been a member of the PVG scheme for children and will now be working with vulnerable adults (or the other way round) an application to join the appropriate scheme must still be made.

If you have any questions in relation to this please contact your inspector.

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 In February 2011, the Scottish Government introduced a new membership scheme to replace and improve upon the current disclosure arrangements for people who work with vulnerable groups.

The Protecting Vulnerable Groups Scheme (PVG Scheme) will:

• Help to ensure that those who have regular contact with children and protected adults through paid and unpaid work do not have a known history of harmful behaviour.
• Be quicker and easier to use, reducing the need for PVG Scheme members to complete a detailed application form every time a disclosure check is required.
• Strike a balance between proportionate protection and robust regulation and make it easier for employers to determine who they should check to protect their client group.

The PVG Scheme is managed and delivered by Disclosure Scotland.

The Care Inspectorate, as a scrutiny body, has the following duties:

• Ensure that we are satisfied about the fitness of providers and managers of registered services.
• Ensure that providers of services implement the PVG scheme appropriately as part of the safe recruitment of the managers and staff of care services
• Ensure that we use our power to refer providers and supply information required by DS appropriately.

Read our guidance that sets out how we will achieve these duties and what we expect from providers of care services.

Referrals for consideration to Dislcosure Soctland

For this scheme to work successfully, it is necessary for organisations to pass information to Disclosure Scotland where they consider that an individual may not be suitable to do regulated work so that this can be properly evaluated and appropriate action taken.  Referrals can be made to Disclosure Scotland by employers and regulatory bodies such as the Care Inspectorate. These referrals will then be considered by Disclosure who will assess whether the individual should be barred from regulated work.

Read our guidance to find out more about refererals, consideration for listing, risk assessment and determinations.

Quality assurance

Ensuring that findings of joint inspections are robust and supported by a sound evidence base is critical. The Care Inspectorate service manager (strategic scrutiny) is responsible for overseeing the delivery of each inspection and undertakes quality assurance activities at key points during the process of each inspection. These include having regular discussions with the inspection lead and attending key meetings of the joint inspection team and selected professional discussions.

Draft inspection reports are reviewed and approved by the Care Inspectorate’s Quality and Consistency Panel before being sent to the partnership. The Quality and Consistency Panel is chaired by the Chief Inspector, strategic scrutiny and includes representatives from Education Scotland (ES), Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Scotland (HMICS). The remit of the panel is to:

• quality assure joint inspection reports including progress reports and agree any amendments to ensure key messages come across clearly and that the report tells a coherent story;
• test out the team’s evaluations to satisfy themselves that these are robust, evidence-based and support the story of the inspection, reflecting the experiences of children and young people, making any necessary adjustments;
• benchmark the inspection findings and evaluations against previous joint inspection reports to achieve consistency; and
• consider the need for a progress review or post-inspection improvement support, including the timing, focus and approach.

Issuing a draft of the report to the CPP prior to publication is a further step in the quality assurance process by providing the opportunity for partners to comment and amend any factual inaccuracies. For more information, including the role of the Quality and Consistency Panel see quality assurance arrangements.

Following the inspection’s conclusion, community planning partners are invited to provide feedback on the inspection process using a standard post-inspection questionnaire. This helps to support the Care Inspectorate and scrutiny partners in our own quality assurance and continuous improvement.

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Quality framework for daycare of children, childminding and school-aged childcare

We published our quality framework for daycare of children, childminding and school-aged childcare in March 2022, informing the sector that we would use the framework in our inspections from 1 June 2022.  We want to take this opportunity to provide you with some additional materials to support understanding and use of the framework as a self-evaluation tool.

The framework focuses on children’s wellbeing and sets out the elements that will help us answer key questions about the impact care and learning is making to outcomes for children. The primary use of the framework is as a tool for self-evaluation to assist settings self-evaluate their own performance in delivering good care and learning for children. What influences good outcomes for children has not changed but we hope the way in which the framework is set out will reassure practitioners of how this will apply in their particular setting. This framework should support settings to showcase their strengths and identify improvement, where required.

You can read across the new key questions to the previous quality themes:

Our inspectors will use the framework to provide independent assurance about the quality of care, play and learning. In March 2022 we informed providers that when using the framework at inspections, we will select a small number of core quality indicators. We have taken account of what has been happening in some settings alongside recovery from the pandemic, imbedding of the expansion programme and staffing. We have therefore updated the list of core indicators and included deployment of staff.  The core quality indicators that will be evaluated at inspection will be:

1.1 Nurturing care and support

1.3 Play and learning

2.2 Children experience high quality facilities

3.1 Quality assurance and improvement are led well

4.3 Staff deployment

      *4.1 Staff skills, knowledge, and values. (For childminders without assistants)

Useful links

• Frequently asked questions
• How our framework links to Education Scotland’s ‘How Good is Our Early learning and Childcare'

We also want to share some good practice examples of how the framework is supporting improvement in settings and inspectors will be keen to hear from you on inspection about the improvements you have made since the introduction of the framework.  We are excited to use the framework as our methodology will be transparent on how inspectors evaluate practice and supports settings deliver high quality play and learning experiences for children.  We look forward to seeing how the framework is used across the ELC sector to enhance the quality of care, play and learning provided to our children in Scotland. 

Pleased be assured when your inspector undertakes the first quality framework inspection of your setting, they will use the same approaches as previously used and at the beginning and throughout the inspection we will share information to ensure settings are fully informed and involved in the process.

Following the publication of ‘Putting Learners at the Centre: Towards a Future Vision for Scottish Education’, including the recommendation, put forward by Professor Muir, to create a shared inspection framework for early learning and childcare settings, Scottish Government will undertake a consultation on approaches to scrutiny of early learning and childcare in the coming months. We are fully committed to working with the sector, other inspectorates and partner organisations to implement the findings of the consultation.

In the meantime this framework provides the sector with a framework that reflects national policy and best practice and will support settings moving forward and supporting good outcomes for children and their families.

Recording

All inspection team members have a professional responsibility to maintain accurate records during inspections and we take our recording responsibilities seriously. We record using agreed tools and templates. We use the evidence gathered to reach conclusions and findings and record our rationale.

We do not record the names and identifying details of children and families unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as where we need to do so to ensure that a concern about the child’s safety or welfare is passed on. We do not record individual staff member details other than by designation.

We keep all written material securely and only share it between inspection team members for the purposes of the inspection. We record, store, share and retain information in line with the Care Inspectorate’s policy.

Please also refer to the Care Inspectorate’s core privacy notice.

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