Criminal records checks


There are the following main types of criminal records check, carried out by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), or Disclosure Scotland. The process involves a search of the Police National Computer:


• Basic check: A basic check is a criminal records check which an individual can request for themselves. An employer is allowed to ask a job applicant to request a basic check. It can be applied for by a job applicant in connection with any employment or volunteer position and will reveal unspent convictions and conditional cautions. 


• Standard check: A standard check reveals both spent and unspent convictions and unfiltered cautions. It can only be used for jobs listed in the Exceptions Order to the ROA 74. These include doctors, barristers, traffic wardens and probation officers. 


• Enhanced check: An enhanced check reveals spent and unspent convictions and unfiltered cautions. It can only be used for jobs listed in the ROA Exceptions Order and the Police Act (Criminal Records) Regulations, which include jobs working with children and vulnerable adults and taxi driving licences. 


• Children’s Barred List and Adults Barred List check: A check carried out when someone applies to work in a “regulated activity” with children or adults. An employer or volunteer manager who knowingly employs someone in a regulated activity with children or adults will break the law, as will the barred person who applies for such a role.


Questions about criminal records should only be asked once the successful applicant has been chosen and a job offer made. That offer can be conditional on a clear DBS check.


A standard or enhanced DBS certificate (which will reveal spent convictions) is only seen by the prospective employer and the applicant. About four million checks are carried out each year. An employer that carries out DBS checks must have a policy on employing ex-offenders which must be given to applicants on request. DBS certificates can be kept up-to-date using the government’s online DBS Update Service. 




Following a change to the law in 2013, some old, minor and irrelevant offences and convictions, for example, dating from childhood, must be “filtered”. They should not appear on a standard or enhanced level DBS check and must not be taken into account by an employer. Employers should not ask about them and they need not be disclosed (R (T) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] 1 AC 49). However, many offences can never be filtered. The DBS has published a list of these offences. Campaigners believe that the changes do not go anywhere near far enough (see box below). 


It is a criminal offence to require any job applicant or existing worker to obtain a copy of their full criminal record using a data subject access request (see Chapter 15). Some employers were using this tactic to force applicants to reveal their spent convictions.