To be considered a volunteer and eligible for a free DBS check an applicant must be volunteering to undertake work and not receive payment or reward for their role. An applicant who receives, or expects to receive, any of the following as part of the role they are applying for would not be considered a volunteer and must pay the full fee for their DBS check:
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remuneration such as a wage, salary or other monetary payment (excluding out of pocket expenses)
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a benefit of some kind, including discounted childcare costs for their own child who attends the childcare provision
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credit towards a qualification or working at the setting as part of a placement
Details of the DBS' stance on this are available here.
If you are applying with Ofsted for any one of the following roles, you will not be eligible to be considered as a volunteer:
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Childminder
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Living at childminding premises
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Sole Proprietor
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Registered Manager
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Lives and works with childminder
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Home-childcarer (Nanny)
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Assistant working at childminding premises
Marking your application incorrectly as a volunteer will result in your DBS application being withdrawn. This will mean any fee already paid is forfeited and you will be asked to re-apply, this will include paying another administration fee and will result in delays to your application.
It is a criminal offence to knowingly make a false statement when applying for a DBS check. Capita and Ofsted closely scrutinises each DBS application before it is processed by the DBS. If an applicant falsely applies as a volunteer as part of their DBS check the full application fee will be recovered including any further administration costs. This may delay and/or adversely affect an application with Ofsted.
For the purposes of their DBS check an applicant would not be considered a volunteer if they have more than one role within an organisation and are paid for either of those roles. For example a paid nursery worker may also volunteer to be part of the committee that has overarching legal responsibility for the setting. In such instances they are not entitled to a discounted DBS check.