The Scout Association has announced, and implemented, a small change to the declaration in the appointment forms.  This arises from the filtering out of old, trivial convictions that was made law with the Freedoms Act.  This means that while old offences will remain on a person’s record but they are not obliged to declare them nor will they appear on the DBS disclosure certificate.  Old trivial offences should never have been used to prevent a person joining Scouts.   This is important because many people do have fears about their old convictions.

The “Filtering Rules” are

For those 18 or over at the time of the offence:

• An adult conviction will be removed from a DBS certificate if:
• 11 years have elapsed since the date of conviction; and
• it is the person’s only offence, and

it did not result in a custodial sentence

Even then, it will only be removed if it does not appear on the list of offences which will never be removed from a certificate. If a person has more than one offence, then details of all their convictions will always be included.

Different rules exist if the offence was when the person was under 18.  See this link for full details

So on the AA form for example on page 5 the declaration was

And is now

Online forms are already updated – be sure to get the March 2014 versions (ones from previous visits to the website might be stored on your PC)

Paper forms can continue to be used provided the declaration is updated.  DCs, District Appointments Secretaries and line managers will need to be aware of this; the changed wording is small but it is also a matter of law.