When you bring someone into your home, it’s important to know if they are honest and trustworthy – and if they have a criminal record.
If you use care workers or a personal assistant through an agency, they will have already done these checks for you.
If, however, you are using direct payments and are advertising and recruiting for a personal assistant you will be taking what that person tells you on trust. In these circumstances for your peace of mind (and safety), it’s always best to submit an application to the DBS.
There are four levels of checks:
- basic (£18) – checks for unspent convictions and conditions cautions
- standard (£18) – checks for spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands and final warnings
- enhanced (£38) – the same as standard, plus any additional information held by local police that’s considered relevant to the post being applied for.
- enhanced with list checks (£38) – as enhanced but includes a check of the DBS barred lists, i.e. whether the applicant is on the list of people barred from doing the role.
The information received will be accurate at the time the check was done.
DBS checks have replaced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks.