Voluntary organisations will no longer have to pay to screen their employees/volunteers for child abuse convictions.

The waiver will only apply to organisations enrolled with the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations.

Until now, voluntary organisations used to pay €15 for every request and €3.75 for every notification done to verify whether the employee or volunteer is on the Protection of Minors Register.

In total, 419 applications were submitted to check the register in 2017, compared with just 887 applications between 2015 and 2017.

All organisations, be they public, private or voluntary, need to check that anyone who works with minors is cleared with the Protection of Minors Register to verify that the person has no criminal past related with child abuse.

This obligation, also known as Application 518, is established according to the Protection of Minors Act which was passed in the Maltese Parliament in January 2012.

Apart from waiving the fee, the government said voluntary organisations would be guided in how to put in place response mechanisms with regard to child/minor protection concerns to be able to tap into referral mechanisms to the appropriate authority when and if necessary.