Category: DBS News and Advice

It’s a rite of passage for many British teenagers – spending a week or two working in a local company to get a feel for the world of work and make some contacts which could help them in their future career. Work experience is usually organised between parents, schools and the young people themselves, and usually no payment changes hands. It’s a system which works well, but there are often worries about keeping on the right side of legislation designed to protect children and vulnerable adults. If a teenager under the age of 18 is doing work experience, do the other people in the office need to be DBS checked? And what about teens doing their work experience in a hospital or school, should they also be checked? Schools and colleges come up against these issues regularly, and it is often simple to figure out what should happen in your child’s case.

Although the Criminal Records Bureau ceased to exist in 2012, there are still many workers who have their old CRB certificate stored safely at home. The way we talk about police checking is slow to change also, and you’ll still hear people talking about “getting a CRB check” done rather than using the new Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) terminology. If you’re employing for a job which requires some level of DBS checking, will your employer accept your existing CRB certificate, or will you have to go through the process again?

We’re living in an increasingly online world. More and more of our dealings with the government from job seeking to filing a tax return are being moved online. There are lots of advantages to doing things digitally; it’s quicker, cuts down on the amount of paper, and allows users to track documents and correspondence over time. The latest official system to be partially moved online is the DBS service, the system used for carrying out police checking on people applying to work with children or vulnerable adults.

One of the most difficult decision any parent faces is which childcare provider to use for their very young child. It can be daunting to select a nursery to care for a baby or toddler for as many as 50 hours a week, and parents want to be sure that they are selecting the very best setting for their child. There are however a few key things to look at to decide whether a nursery is a good and more importantly safe place to send your child.

Controversial taxi company Uber hit the headlines again recently when Transport for London withdrew Uber’s licence to run taxis in the capital. One of the main concerns raised by TfL was the procedures used by Uber to make sure that their drivers were safe and competent, and that they had no criminal records which could make them unsuitable as drivers. Although the decision was welcomed by London’s black cab drivers who have to undergo stringent vetting, Uber is still free to operate taxi services in several other British cities, including Cambridge, Liverpool and Glasgow. So, what is the real story behind TfL’s withdrawal of the Uber operating licence?

Father Christmas is approaching his busiest time of year. As all children know, the real Santa is hard at work creating toys for well-behaved kids, and so delegates the responsibility for chatting to children and finding out what they want to a team of helpers. Taking your kids to see Santa is a time-honoured British tradition, but times change and with increasing awareness of child protection issues, does anyone employing a Santa in a department store, or someone volunteering to stand in for Santa at a charity event need to have a DBS check?

Taking effect in May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) heralds a complete rethink in the way the employers handle our data. It replaces the current Data Protection legislation, and even with the progress of Brexit, GDPR will still become law in the UK. It’s employers who really need to worry about complying with their new obligations under the GDPR, but as an employee it’s also worth while knowing what is going on and understanding what your employer can and cannot do with your data.

In January 2018 Disclosure Scotland will no longer process Basic Disclosure applications for residents in England and Wales, instead a new online service will be available through Disclosure and Barring service.
Currently UK applicants can make an online application at my gov.scot. The application process allows the applicant to track the application after 48 hours with an 18-digit reference number and download, email, fax or post required documentation. There is a restriction of 1MB per downloaded document, anything exceeding this cannot be downloaded via the website and must be submitted via an alternative method.

Every so often a press article appears detailing issues with backlogs in the DBS checking system in certain parts of the country. It’s certainly true that some areas perform far better than others; although the government sets a target of 85% of applications turned around within 14 days, several regions are regularly missing this target. Performance in London has been consistently poor, with waits of up to 100 days not uncommon. Depending on the role, workers may not be allowed to start work until their paperwork is received, remaining in limbo for months while they wait for their checks to be done. So, if you’re in the position of applying for a job as a carer or teaching assistant in Yorkshire or London, what can you do speed up your DBS checks?

We’re all used to “Health and Safety” being used as a catch all for banning everything from climbing ladders to playing with conkers in autumn. Could it be that DBS checking is the next thing which people are latching on to as a reason why people can or cannot do things? This certainly seemed to be the case recently when parents at a school in Kent were told that they were not even allowed to accompany their children into the playground without a DBS check.