§ Mr. LetwinTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to provide funding for local volunteer development agencies to assist these organisations to register as an umbrella body to use the Criminal Records Bureau. [87249]
§ Hilary BennSince announcing, in February 2001, that higher level disclosure checks would be issued free of charge to volunteers, we have received representations from voluntary organisations requesting additional funding to meet their associated administrative costs. We have considered these representations very carefully but we are not persuaded that it would be appropriate for additional funding to be made available.
We are in discussions with the voluntary and community sectors to explore a range of access arrangements for using the disclosure service which might meet the needs of the organisations concerned in the most appropriate and cost effective manner.