Five-year PVG scheme – one week to go!

What you need to know

From 1 April 2026, the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme will move to a five-year membership. This reform is an important step towards a safer, more accurate system - one that better reflects who is actively carrying out regulated roles and gives organisations the confidence that their records are up to date and data is secure.

Some important points to remember:

• five-year membership does not affect your current application processes. Do not apply for a PVG scheme application earlier than you would usually or change how often you would apply.
• there is no added cost related to five-year membership
• anyone who makes a PVG scheme application from 1 April will be automatically entered into the five-year PVG scheme.
• those who do not make an application will be moved to the five-year PVG scheme by Disclosure Scotland. This will be done in batches in order of the date you joined. You do not need to do anything, and we will contact scheme members before we intend to move you. This work will not start immediately – we will let you know when we expect it to begin.

There is more information on the five-year scheme and how your PVG scheme membership is changing on our website.

Manage scheme memberships

Disclosure Scotland’s organisational account lets countersignatories (CSGs) remove individuals their organisation no longer needs to monitor - either one-by-one or in bulk. This helps ensure that you do not receive updates or notifications about scheme members that you are not legally entitled to receive. You can read more about this feature on our website.

Important: Tell us your email address if you haven’t already

If you are a PVG scheme member who has not recently applied for PVG (for example, you haven’t applied since PVG moved online in 2021), it is important that you tell us your current email address. We need this so that we can contact you easily in the future to tell you when you are moving to the five-year scheme and how to create your online account.

Please email dsupdate@disclosurescotland.gov.scot with the subject header ‘Email address update,’ and tell us your:

• name
• date of birth
• PVG scheme number
• current email address

Deciding if your role is a regulated role

Deciding on the correct level of disclosure is a responsibility of the organisation countersigning the application. To assist organisations making the decision, we provide comprehensive guidance on our website, including our ‘regulated roles tool’, sector specific guidance and pre-recorded webinars, to support your decision-making.

You can also access free regulated roles training – upcoming dates are listed on our events page.

These resources should help you to decide if the role you are going to carry out, or that you will offer someone, requires PVG scheme membership or not. PVG scheme disclosures must only be used for roles that fit the legislative criteria.

Follow us on social media

You can also follow our social media channels for regular updates – organisations, you can encourage your staff or volunteers to follow us too, to ensure they know about changes, such as the five-year membership.

Disclosure Scotland’s February 2026 performance round-up

We completed 50,780 applications in February 2026, with an average processing time of 6.47 days. 98.9% of applications were completed within 14 days.