Types of Workforces for DBS Checks
If you are applying for a DBS Check it can be confusing to know which workforce type you should select on the form. When you apply, the DBS check will ask you to select which workforce you belong to out of child, adult or other. It is necessary for an application to know which workforce you will belong to, to ensure you are completing the right DBS application. This article will discuss DBS Workforce types to help clarify the issue.
3 Key Workforces
In DBS terms the three key types of workforces they differentiate between are:
- Child
- Adult
- Other
Sometimes ‘Child and Adult’ can be combined, and that will be discussed later in the article.
Child Workforce
If your job will involve working with children, you will be part of the child workforce. There are varying levels of interaction that you could have. You may be applying for a role as a caretaker in a school, or you could have regulated activity with children, whereby you teach, train, supervise or provide guidance to them. If you are driving a vehicle transporting children and you are doing this unsupervised, this would also be regulated activity. If you work in a nursery, this is also regulated activity. If you are over the age of 16 years old and live in a house where someone works as a childminder, then you too need to have a DBS Check, and this is categorized under child workforce.
Adult Workforce
If you will be working in a job role where you conduct regulated activity with vulnerable adult, then you would need to select the ‘Adult Workforce’ section on the DBS application. Regulated activity is where you may be providing personal care, physical assistance, driving vulnerable adults to healthcare visits, conduct social service activities, medical treatment, therapy, or managing a vulnerable adult’s finances. Many job roles will be relevant to tick the adult workforce box. If you were a building contractor, working in an elderly residential home regularly, you would still need to tick this ‘adult workforce’ box on a DBS Check.
Other Workforce
If your job role does not involve working with children, or vulnerable adults, then it falls into the ‘other’ category. This will be a job that still requires a Standard or Enhanced DBS and therefore could be a taxi driver, Uber driver, someone working in a betting shop or casino, someone who works with immigration, or someone selling pharmaceuticals, or if anyone works with or transports weapons.
Combined Child and Adult Workforce
Some jobs by their nature will require people to work with both children and vulnerable adults. Many healthcare profession jobs include this, such as doctors, dentists, clinicians etc. Their work will naturally include regulated activity with both. It may be a key component of them being registered for their job that they require an Enhanced DBS Check with Barred Lists. An Enhanced DBS Check with Barred Lists will show that they are suited to work with these vulnerable groups, and do not have a criminal history of spent or unspent convictions, cautions, warnings, no locally held police information relevant to the job role, and do not appear on any Barred Lists, for previous unsuitable behaviour of violence or abuse to children or adults.
This article will hopefully have clarified which of the workforce options you should tick, when applying for a Standard or Enhanced DBS Check.