If you got your PVG scheme membership when you first registered and have not thought about it since, that is exactly how the scheme was designed to work, until this April. PVG membership has always lasted for life. From 1 April 2026, it does not anymore.
From lifetime to five years
PVG scheme membership now lasts five years from the date someone joins or makes an existing application, rather than running indefinitely. This is the biggest structural change to the scheme since it started, and it affects every childminder in Scotland who holds PVG membership, not just new applicants.
Nothing to do right now, one thing worth doing anyway
If you are already a PVG member, Disclosure Scotland has been clear that you do not need to reapply or take any action immediately. Existing members are being moved onto the five year cycle in phases after April 2026, not all at once, so there is no single deadline everyone shares. What does matter is that Disclosure Scotland sends an email notification at least three months before your new expiry date once you are on the five year cycle. If the email address or contact details on your PVG record are out of date, that notification will go nowhere, and a lapsed membership is not something you want to discover at inspection. Checking your details are current takes a few minutes and is the one genuinely useful thing to do about this change today.
Your other duties have not changed
PVG membership is still linked to the specific workforce you applied for, so it is worth checking your membership actually covers childminding rather than a different role from years ago. Your duty to notify Disclosure Scotland if someone in your setting leaves a regulated role, an assistant, for example, has not changed either. Nobody is removed from the scheme automatically for non-renewal without their employment status being checked first, but that is a safety net, not a reason to let your contact details drift out of date.
This is a Scotland-specific scheme
PVG is Scotland's own vetting and barring scheme, run by Disclosure Scotland. Childminders in England and Wales work through the Disclosure and Barring Service, which already issues checks with no fixed lifetime validity in the same way PVG used to, and Northern Ireland uses AccessNI. Scotland's move to a five year cycle brings PVG closer to how the other schemes already operate, rather than introducing something unfamiliar to the sector as a whole.
None of this is legal advice, and Disclosure Scotland's own site is the place to check your specific membership status. But if you cannot remember the last time you looked at what email address is attached to your PVG account, this week is a reasonable time to find out.