New legislation for Disclosure and Barring Service certificate (DBS) changes application criteria for home carers

The DBS check, formerly the Criminal Records Background (CRB) has introduced new filtering rules this week.

Legislation has been passed which will allow some old and minor offences to stop appearing on DBS certificates.

Applicants applying for care assistant roles will now have certain minor and old convictions left off from their DBS check.

Policy Officer for the United Kingdom Homecare Association, Joyce Francis said: “Effective recruitment decisions can be challenging and homecare providers may be apprehensive about the filtering of some older convictions as that’s potentially one less piece of information to feed into their decision.

“However, it’s important that providers make use of all the information they have about an applicant to make the right decision, the DBS check is just one part of that.

“Providers can be reassured the filtering rules ensure that some important offences will never be filtered out and that disclosures on prospective recruits with more than one offence will continue to list all convictions. An important area to get to grips with as employers can no longer ask if an applicant has ever committed an offence, they must only ask about those that would now appear on a DBS check.”

The result has come as a response to the court of appeal judgement in January which stated that the current DBS certificate which disclosed all cautions and convictions was a breach of Article 8 of the Convention of Human Rights.

The appeal claimed that having all details of their criminal history disclosed on a DBS certificate was a breach of their human rights.

An adult conviction will be removed from the DBS certificate if it is more than 11 years old, it is the person’s only offence and it did not result in a custodial sentence.

The rules are slightly different for children under the age of 18; with the length of time in the past the crime was committed being five and a half years for convictions and two years for cautions.

However a list of convictions that will not be removed has been created which includes safeguarding convictions.

When filling in the DBS application form, registered bodies are being encouraged to ensure that applicants are aware of the changes which occur at question e55 of the application.

Although the question currently asks: ‘have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence or received a caution, reprimand or warning?’ Applicants are being informed to ignore this question and respond as if they were being asked ‘do you have any unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands or warnings?’

For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dbs-filter-certain-old-and-minor-cautions-and-convictions-reprimands-and-warnings-from-criminal-record-certificates