Ministers have agreed to make 1m available per year so that volunteers working with vulnerable adults and children in the voluntary sector will not have to pay a fee for the checks. However, this will not apply to childminders and private day nurseries.
A different approach is being taken in England, where all childcarers have been exempted from paying for criminal records checks in the first year of operation of the new Criminal Records Bureau. In Scotland the checks will be carried out by Disclosure Scotland, formerly part of the Scottish Criminal Records Office. Local authorities previously carried the cost of police checks.
Scottish Childminding Association national development officer Maggie Simpson said, 'When we heard that the latest proposal was that the fee would be about 12, we breathed a sigh of relief. I think this is within acceptable boundaries, although there might be rare situations where a childminder might find it difficult, for example if there were a number of other adults in the household who also needed to be checked.
'It's important to take into consideration the fact that this is just one of the costs associated with starting up in childminding and we are trying to provide assistance with the full range of those costs.'
The new arrangements will widen access to criminal records checks to include voluntary organisations where workers have access to children or vulnerable adults. Disclosure Scotland will provide three levels of checks, basic, standard and advanced. The two higher levels of certificate will start to become available in April 2002.
The person applying for a criminal record check is liable to pay for it. However, a Scottish Executive spokesman said that in the case of nurseries, the employer could choose to reimburse staff.
A consultation paper seeking views on the arrangements, including the fee levels, published on 19 December, is available on the website www.scotland.gov.uk. The consultation finishes on 22 February. More information is available on www.disclosurescotland.co.uk.
