Making Referrals and Responding to Concerns

Responding to Concerns

Scottish Cycling promotes a culture where Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and you have a duty to act when required.  If you raise or share a concern, we want you to feel confident knowing that you will be listened to, taken seriously, supported, and that appropriate action will be taken.

Protecting Riders

Sometimes we see or hear something that makes us a bit uneasy and we're not sure what to do about it. Do we keep quiet and hope that someone else will complain, or do we tell the people who have the experience to investigate?

If you have a concern, or see something that concerns you, we ask that you please speak up.

You can talk through any concerns that you may have by getting in touch with a member of the Scottish Cycling Safeguarding Team. You can email wpo@scottishcycling.org.uk or call/message the Lead Safeguarding Officer, James Bracher: 07908672652.

Click here to view our flow chart for reporting concerns.

Click here to link to our concern recording form.

Making Referrals

The PVG Scheme requires organisations to make referrals to the Protection Unit at Disclosure Scotland in certain circumstanes.

If you permanently remove someone from regulated work you need to decide if the reasons(s) that they were removed mean you need to let Disclosure Scotland know whats happened. This is called "making a referral" and includes circumstances where you would have removed the person if, for any reason, they have already left the role.

This applies whether the person is a PVG Scheme member or not!

Disclosure Scotland will then use this information to decide if the person remains suitable to continue to do regulated work or if they should be removed from regulated work.

If you are unsure and need help or advice for when to make a referral, then the Scottish Cylcing WPO will be able to help and advise, contact: wpo@scottishcycling.org.uk 

By law, clubs must report harmful behaiour even if it takes place outside of club activities, or the club only find out about it after the person has left.

When to make a referral to Disclosure Scotland

You should only make a referral when these two conditions have been met:

Condition 1

The harmful behaviour meant that the person involved:

• was dismissed as a result
• would have been dismissed but left before they could be
• was transferred permanently away from work with children or protected adults

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If any of these disciplinary actions were taken, the club must make a referral to Disclosure Scotland within three months of the decision being made.

Condition 2

At least one of the following five grounds apply to their permanent removal:

• Caused harm
• Placed someone at risk of harm
• Engaged in inappropriate condict involving pornography
• Engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct
• Given inappropriate medical treatment

Making a referral is not optional. It is a legal requirement to report circumstances where both conditions are met. This should be done within three months of making your decision.

How to send a referral

To make a referral clubs should complete and send the employer referral form to Disclosure Scotland.

The form asks for:

• proof of the persons identity (name, address, date of birth, national insurance number)
• details of the type of regulated work they are employed to do
• the person's PVG scheme number, if they have one
• information on the harmful behaviour

The referral should not identify any children or protected adults by name. It should use a coded reference instead, like "child A - age 12, male, victim".

The completed form should be emailed to pucorrespondence@disclosurescotland.gov.scot or printed out and mailed to the address provided in the form.