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The first part of any DBS check id to prove you are who you say you are. This is the case whether you’re applying to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) in England and Wales, Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) in Scotland or AccessNI in Northern Ireland. The process might vary slightly, but usually involves going along in person to an approved person in the organisation where you’ll be working with your documents, so that they can verify that your documents are authentic and that the person in the photographs is indeed you. In most cases this is easy, and just means a short journey into town to your new employer. If, however you’re applying for a job many miles away, or can’t get time off to travel for an appointment, it can be tricky. One option is to send originals in the post, but what happens if your passport, marriage certificate and driving licence get lost in the post or misplaced by your employer? One way round this is by using the Post Office’s verification service, which solves a lot of these issues.

On all job applications we are required to provide the same general information, i.e. Name, address etc. On most applications you will be asked if you have a criminal record and dependent on the post, a DBS check may be carried out to verify this.

As we know, any individual working with children or vulnerable adults is required to provide an enhanced DBS, checking for any current or previous convictions, formal warnings and cautions etc. However, an even more comprehensive check is an Enhanced and Barred list DBS, it is more detailed than a standard or enhanced DBS, and includes a check of people listed as being barred from working with children and vulnerable adults. This check shows any criminal convictions including spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands, and formal warnings together with any information held on the police computer.

The huge range of different options which employers in the UK have for screening staff can be confusing, especially as so many abbreviations and acronyms are used. Here are some of the most common types of screening, along with a brief explanation of where they are used to help you interpret the jargon.

We’ve all been there – applying for your perfect job, absolutely desperate to impress, secure that interview and start work. It wouldn’t hurt to tweak the truth a little, would it? Maybe inflate your A-level grades a bit, make up something interesting to do as a hobby and talk up previous experience? And what about that criminal record section, surely there’s no harm in forgetting to declare that minor scuffle outside a pub or a theft charge?

Around one in four of the UK adult population will suffer from a mental health problem every year. Talking about mental health has been taboo, but we’re finally starting to opening up as a nation and talk about mental health issues. Mental health covers a wide spectrum from people who might feel down at times to people who are ill enough to need care in hospital. Once recovered, experts agree that getting a job is a good step to recovery and mental health management for many people, but people who have had some sort of health crisis in the past which required police involvement are often very concerned about what will be shown on a DBS check into their criminal records.

There’s no denying that scammers and conmen are clever people. It always seems that the fraudsters are one step ahead of the authorities, and as soon as one loophole is closed they move on to their next scam. At a time where the economy is struggling through Brexit and a general downturn, and many more people are looking for jobs, there are a huge number of fraudsters preying on job applicants to try to con them out of money. Here are some of the most common scams, and how to avoid them.

It’s a phrase you often see in discussions about the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and jobs which require some degree of police checking – “children and vulnerable adults”. The definition of a child is fairly clear cut and is accepted as being anyone under the age of 18. But what type of people are classed as vulnerable adults?

Nobody likes waiting. Its inconvenient, boring and frustrating. When it comes to getting your DBS check processed you might have to be extremely patient indeed, as figures widely reported showed than in the London area, applicants for enhanced disclosure checks were waiting up to three months for their paperwork to come back, far exceeding the government’s own target of two weeks. These are people who are applying for jobs working with children or vulnerable adults, so it’s important to make sure that people with a serious criminal past or have shown worrying behaviour towards children in the past don’t slip through the net. But on the other hand, it seems unfair to have staff unable to start work because of delays in the system. The Adult First programme was introduced to get around the waiting period, and can be used in certain circumstances.

There are many employers who deal with processing DBS certificates for their staff members every day. Large employers like the NHS, which employs hundreds of thousands of staff who need to be DBS checks has set procedures for storing the information on a DBS certificate and making sure only the people who need to see it can access the information. Smaller employers sometimes struggle to know exactly what their obligations are in terms of data storage, and with new laws coming in early 2018 which will add even more to the employer’s burden, it’s important to know what happens to the information on a DBS, whether you’re an employee or employer.