Types of Check
DBS Checks
Typically, it is a DBS Check that is referred to if police checks are mentioned. DBS stands for the Disclosure and Barring Service. There are three levels of check that exist: Basic, Standard and Enhanced (plus Barred Lists). Your employer will state what level of check is required, dependent upon the job role you will be doing. A Basic Check would be for jobs like alcohol sales or working in an airport. If you will be working in a hospital, prison, or school, but not directly responsible for patients, children, or prisoners, perhaps in an admin role, then you would need a Standard DBS Check. If you will be directly working with children or vulnerable adults, then you would need an Enhanced DBS (with Barred Lists). These may be referred to as Police Checks, as the DBS Checks look at your past criminal history, and the local police forces, of every area that you have lived in for the past five years, will be contacted to see if you have any spent, or unspent, convictions, cautions, reprimands, warnings, or any other information relevant to the job role.
Basic DBS Check
A Basic DBS Check is the first level of DBS Check that can be conducted. It looks at your past criminal history and it will report upon unspent convictions and conditional cautions. This Basic DBS Check can be conducted on anyone over the age of 16 years old. A person can request a Basic DBS Check themselves, whereas Standard and Enhanced DBS Checks need to be requested on an employee’s behalf by an organisation or agency.
A Basic DBS Check does not include spent convictions, fixed penalty notices, or allegations. Some very serious crimes where a person has been sentenced to prison for more than 4 years never become spent.
If you have applied for a job in retail, logistics, delivery companies, at an airport, working in transport, or on licensed premises, you may be required to submit a Basic DBS application as part of the recruitment procedure.
You can apply for a Basic DBS online, and you will need to produce 1 proof of ID, and 1 proof of address. Typically, you will receive your Basic DBS Certificate in around a week.
Standard DBS Checks
A standard DBS Check is more in-depth than a Basic DBS Check but is not quite as thorough and detailed as an Enhanced DBS Check. It is not possible for an individual to request a Standard DBS Check themselves, this has to be requested by an employer on a person’s behalf, and for specific job roles.
Many types of job may need a Standard DBS, this could involve working in a hospital or prison or legal environment, but in roles where you don’t physically provide care for the patients. It could a job in admin or finance within those areas.
Enhanced Checks
An Enhanced DBS Check is a very thorough level of DBS Check. Only an employer or agency can request this check on their employees’ behalf, and only for very specific job roles. For an Enhanced DBS Check people need to be in positions of social responsibility. They are typically required for schoolteachers, healthcare workers, social work, medical staff, veterinarians, taxi drivers, and childcare providers etc.
This Check covers spent and unspent criminal convictions, cautions, official warnings, and reprimands. This Check also contacts the local police force for every area the applicant has lived, for the past five years, to see if the police hold any information on the applicant that is relevant to the job role.
If a person will be doing regulated activity in their job role, so working directly in contact with children, or vulnerable adults, they will by law, be required to have an Enhanced DBS Check, but also one with Barred Lists. The Barred Lists check that the person’s name does not appear on them, due to past violent, abusive, neglectful, or sexual crimes involving children or vulnerable adults. It is against the law to employ someone who is on the Barred List to work with children or vulnerable adults; and it is against the law for them to have applied for the job in the first place.
Usually, most people will get their Enhanced DBS Check back in approximately 14 days, but it can take longer, because it’s a more in-depth Check, and depending on a person’s address history too, this may mean several police forces need to be contacted.
Police Checks
Sometimes in job adverts it may state that police checks are necessary prior to being hired. The terminology ‘police checks’ could mean different things to different employers. Police checks also vary depending on what job role you will be doing.
