Most groups working with Children and Young People or vulnerable adults will be aware that new vetting arrangements, ‘Access NI’ will be launched on the 1st April 2008. This new service, established by NIO will replace the existing POCVA (NI) service and fulfil the legal requirements that anyone applying for a regulated position must be checked prior to commence of duties (either paid or unpaid).
Whilst information about the new Access NI service has, at times, been slow to filter through and slightly confusing, groups working with children and/or vulnerable adults have two possible routes through the new service, either signing up as a registered body and completing the checks themselves or registering with an umbrella body. Umbrella bodies can request checks on your behalf and deliver the necessary services.
Types of Disclosure
The service allows organisations to check prospective employees or volunteers at three different levels. The basic disclosure will show all details of
convictions considered to be unspent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Order 1978 or state that no such convictions were found. The cost is £26. A standard disclosure shows details of the spent and unspent convictions and cautions. The cost is £28. An enhanced disclosure contains all the information
in the Standard Disclosures in addition to any other relevant information held on police records or by other law enforcement agencies. The cost is £30.
Volunteers
Standard and Enhanced disclosures are free to
volunteers (as defined by ANI). The exception to this is where the volunteering is directly for a statutory organisation or where a non-profit organisation is delivering statutory services under contract or in a specific project for which that organisation has received funding from Government which includes provisions covering the costs of Standard and Enhanced Disclosures for volunteers.
Having offered the POCVA in partnership service to a number of local groups and as part of our continuing service to volunteer involving organisations, the North West Volunteer Centre has registered with Access NI as an Umbrella Body and we intend to offer this vetting service to organisations registered with the centre. The main benefits of this is peace of mind that you know your organisation can get access to this essential service whilst minimising any administrative duties attached with completing vetting checks. Whilst we expect initial teething problems, we are committed to working with groups to ensure that the information is gathered completely and that the checks are submitted in a timely fashion. In addition, we will be able to liase with groups when the information from Access NI is returned to ensure that you can involve your volunteers appropriately and quickly. An administrative charge of £5.00 will apply to each check completed on behalf of a volunteer (as defined by ANI), whilst checks on behalf of employees or volunteers in statutory organisations will cost the appropriate disclosure fee in addition to the administrative charge. We appreciate that most organisations will have taken the necessary steps to sign up as a registered body with Access NI however if your organisation does not want the administrative headache of completing these checks or you don’t have the necessary expertise or you only need a small number of checks completed each year then we would encourage you to apply to us to benefit from our services.
We would urge organisations intending to use our service to complete and return the user agreement to us at one of the addresses provided. We intend to provide an information session to help guide organisations in the completion of forms and inform you of the key parts to the service however if you do have any specific concerns or queries about this service, please contact the centre and a member of staff will be happy to discuss this in detail with you. In addition, you can access further information about the new Access NI on the dedicated website www.accessni.gov.uk or alternatively on the Volunteer Development Agency website www.volunteering-ni.org.
Click here to download the Access NI guidance notes
Click here to download the Access NI user agreement. |