Category: DBS News and Advice

How confidential is the information that appears in all levels of Disclosure and Barring Service’s (DBS) checks?

In response to the increased demand for frontline healthcare workers in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic that’s swept the UK, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is now providing standard and enhanced CRB checks free-of-charge.

Scams are nothing new. Scammers however have to be constantly one step ahead of the game and come up with new ways of parting people from their money. One of the most recent scams is around fleecing prospective job candidates, asking them to apply for a DBS Check which just doesn’t exist.

Every business goes about hiring in a different way, with their own checks and balances to ensure that they are getting the right workers. There is however increasing evidence that a slap-dash approach to recruitment could be damaging to your business in the long run. There’s an obvious balance to be struck between spending a fortune on checking everything, and not doing any checks at all. Here’s our ultimate guide to getting it right for your organisation, and protecting staff, customers and your profits too.

Recruitment will undergo a huge change in the UK after the Brexit process has been completed at the end of 2020. Employers who have traditionally recruited from other parts of the European Union with no red-tape, will suddenly find themselves unable to get staff as easily as they have in the past. For this reason, business support organisations are urging companies to take action now to see whether they qualify under Licensed Sponsor status.

Over the past months since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, a whole Army of unpaid volunteers have stepped up to help their local communities in a multitude of different ways. Most of the volunteers help the NHS, but recent calls from the Children’s Commissioner for England has led calls for a similar scheme to support social care, in order to stop some of the country’s most vulnerable children from falling through the gaps.

The last six months has seen unprecedented change in the UK, with the covid-19 pandemic affecting almost all aspects of our lives. This is particularly true for employers, who have had to adjust to having more staff than ever working at home and trying to work out how to recruit and interview in a socially distanced way. Although not entirely absolving employers of responsibility over how they recruit, the government has relaxed the rules in some areas of the system in an attempt to help employers manage things digitally rather than face to face.

The idea of asking someone to drive a taxi or private hire vehicle such as a minicab is nothing new. We’ve all heard of London taxi drivers doing the “Knowledge” to get the right to drive the iconic black cab, and have seen the metal plates on taxis in other parts of the UK demonstrating that the car has been approved for private hire. Taxi licensing however isn’t something managed by government on a country-wide basis. Each local authority across the UK does its own thing and has its own process for approving people to work as taxi drivers. This has obviously led to inconsistencies, and so it’s hardly surprising that the government is trying to develop a more consistent approach.

The economy isn’t in a great place right now, and thousands of people around the country are either out of work, or worried that they are about to be out of work shortly. Employment scams are nothing new, but the scammers have seized on the anxiety many people are feeling around getting work. We’ve all heard the saying that if it appears too good to be true it probably is, but when you’re feeling concerned about paying the bills, it’s easy to take a chance. If you, or someone you know is looking for a job, then here are the top scams to look out for.

2020 has turned into the year of the Zoom call, with everyone turning to video conferencing technology to communicate when confined to home. Many clubs and activities have switched to offering virtual sessions, with others combining face to face meetings with smaller groups with online sessions for others. Many parents mistakenly believe that online is zero risk, but this is not the case. Several law enforcement and child protection charities have warned that exactly the same rules apply to online meetings as they do to face to face gatherings.