While DBS checks might not be mandatory for all jobs, it is essential for certain positions. By doing a DBS check, the HR team ensures that it stays responsible. Accordingly, tasks like validating DBS checks are a part of routine HR work. From the point of view of jobseekers, it is common for recruiting companies to ask them to submit a DBS check or provide the company with the authorization to carry one out if you land the job. Besides jobs, DBS checks play a critical role in the functions of many voluntary positions so, here is what you need to know about them.
A Brief Explanation Of DBS Checks
Formerly known as a CRB check, the former name still enjoys more significant usage despite the change in terminology. For the uninitiated, the complete forms of these acronyms are as follows:
- DBS- Disclosure and Barring Service.
- And the full-form of its former name CRB is Criminal Records Bureau.
If there are vulnerable people associated with the hiring, then DBS checks play an essential role. All spent, and unspent criminal convictions of an individual are recorded in the DBS check. You must perform a DBS check to ascertain if a particular person possesses risks to particularly vulnerable society sections. These include disabled people, children, and the elderly, and other especially vulnerable groups.
How To Request A DBS Check
The process of ascertaining whether you can ask for a DBS check is a simple and uncomplicated one. The process can be initiated and completed online just by visiting the UK government’s official website. You can start the DBS checking process with the online checking tool provided to you at the website. By using the tool, you will know if you have the due authorization for carrying out a DBS check for the job position in question.
Using this tool, job applicants who receive requests for DBS checks from potential recruiters can also verify the authenticity of a DBS request. There is one caveat, though, for job seekers- they are not allowed to apply for Disclosures about their profiles both in its standard or enhanced forms.
How To Register With The DBS
Any organization or corporate firm that conducts more than a hundred DBS checks annually can register for the DBS service by paying a fee of three hundred pounds. However, suppose you are an organization that does not require as many as 100 DBS checks yearly. In that case, you are free to join one of several umbrella organizations that will provide you with the same facility. The gov. UK site itself contains an exhaustive list of such umbrella bodies.
Applying for a Standard or Enhanced Disclosure
Remember that you can only use the standard and enhanced check options offered by DBS checks for specific positions. The official government website’s online checking tool will let you know if the job qualifies for a standard and enhanced DBS check.
As mentioned earlier, conducting DBS checks is only available to recruiting organizations and other specifically licensed bodies. A DBS check will reveal all unspent criminal convictions along with any spent criminal convictions that might be associated with the former. Remember, you can find them in the Always Disclose List. If they are listed, that means the convictions are for a serious offense and that the individual might present a permanent threat.
Enhanced and Standard disclosures, on the other hand, list other spent convictions which are, however, less severe but are still quite serious. Such types of offenses form a part of a DBS check record for as long as fifteen years. Additionally, Enhanced and standard disclosures also record unspent cautions.
The Enhanced Disclosure Document
Besides the standard DBS check, there are also the enhanced disclosures which are the most detailed variety of DBS checks. It puts down in writing if a person has permission to work with children or vulnerable sections of adult society. Often, such enhanced disclosure documents record other relevant details if the police find the information to be related.
The DBS Check Application Process
While it works effectively to safeguard the security of employing organizations and their members, the DBS process still entirely goes the required distance to provide the potential employee with the highest privacy levels. It is, however, to be admitted that potential employees who refuse to grant DBS check permissions are assumed to be guilty. The DBS check application process consists of the following steps:
- Employers ask for a DBS check application form.
- The employee fills up the form and provides supporting documents. Typically, such documents are the driving license, passport, and birth certificate.
- The recruiter sends the form and employee identity documents.
- The DBS check documentation is sent to the employee and NOT the employer.
- The employers ask the employee to reveal the DBS check documentation.
HR personnel needs to realize that clean DBC check records are by no means a surety for the potential employee’s reliability and safety issues. Many things remain hidden, and the future is something that no one knows. So, it is essential to maintain a constant vigil. May your workplace stay secure and safe!
