DBS Check (Disclosure and Barring Service)

There are three levels of DBS check: basic (unspent convictions only, available to any employer), standard (spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands, and final warnings), and enhanced (standard plus relevant local police information). Enhanced checks with a children's or adults' barred list check are required before anyone takes up regulated activity — defined as unsupervised contact with children or vulnerable adults in specified settings. It is a criminal offence for a barred individual to work in regulated activity or for an employer to knowingly employ them. The DBS Update Service allows employers to check that a certificate is still current for a £16 annual subscription. Registered bodies (not individuals) apply for standard and enhanced checks; basic checks can be applied for directly on the DBS website.

In practice, the level of check is dictated by the role, not by the employer's preference. You cannot lawfully request a standard or enhanced check for a job that is not listed in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order or the relevant regulations, and asking a candidate to disclose spent convictions for a role outside those exceptions is itself unlawful. If you are unsure, work backwards from the statutory definition of regulated activity rather than from how sensitive the job feels.

Worked example: a small charity recruits a volunteer to run weekly unsupervised sessions with children. Because the work is unsupervised, frequent and in a specified place, it is regulated activity, so an enhanced check with a children's barred list check is required and the volunteer application is free of charge. A second volunteer only staffs the refreshments table under supervision and never has unsupervised contact — that role does not meet the regulated activity test, so an enhanced check with barred list access would be unlawful. The charity records its reasoning in a written recruitment policy so it can justify the difference if challenged.

The pitfalls are mostly procedural. A DBS certificate is a snapshot on the day it was printed and has no expiry date, so a three-year-old certificate proves nothing about today unless the person is on the Update Service. Certificates belong to the applicant, not the employer, so you should see the original rather than rely on a copy. Filtering rules mean older minor cautions and convictions are no longer disclosed on standard and enhanced certificates. And a clear certificate does not discharge your wider safeguarding duty: references, interview scrutiny and supervision arrangements all still matter.

DBS checks sit alongside right to work checks, which are a separate legal duty with different consequences, and feed into adult safeguarding obligations. If you are recruiting, read our guide to DBS checks and pair it with hiring your first employee so the checks happen in the right order.