Umbrella bodies

To process criminal record checks an organisation may need to appoint an agency known as an 'Umbrella body' who can make the checks on the organisation's behalf.

Thirtyone:eight is one of the largest trusted 'Umbrella bodies' that process checks for the charity and faith sector in the England, Northern Ireland and Wales and Thirtyone:eight members can register with us to process your checks. 

Checks on workers in Scotland are managed through Disclosure Scotland. Volunteer Scotland Disclosure Service is funded by Disclosure Scotland to provide support to the voluntary sector with their disclosure checks.  

Larger organisations (that do lots of checks) may choose to register to become a Registered body or Accredited body (Scotland) so that they can process their own checks directly.

Across the UK, there are different requirements for becoming a Registered or Accredited body. For example, AccessNI requires an organisation will process 20 or more checks per year to become a registered body. For the DBS, 100 checks per year are required. In Scotland there is not a fixed number of checks required but there are set responsibilities that must be fulfilled.