The Enhanced level check, via the Disclosure & Barring Service, provides details of spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands and final warnings (subject to filtering rules) and will also check information held on an individual by the police.

Subject to further eligibility criteria, it also confirms whether the applicant is on the list of people barred from working with children or vulnerable adults.

This check was designed for individuals residing or working in England and Wales but is also used in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

This check is available only for certain job roles, duties, positions and licences as outlined in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 and the Police Act 1997 (Criminal Records) regulations.

It is normally required where an individual will work or volunteer in a role providing services to (or having close and regular supervision of) children or vulnerable adults.

Depending on the role, it can be ordered on its own or with checks on one or both of the Children's or Adult's Barred Lists.

Verifile Criminal Record Check (Enhanced DBS, England & Wales)

1-15 working days

Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, United Kingdom

Disclosure & Barring Service

5%

When ordering a DBS check, depending on the Profile Type and the value of the 'Regulated activity with children?' toggle field found in the Barred List section of a staff profile page, you will be presented with a specific type of DBS check that comes with a fixed job title. Please see a table of these job titles at the bottom of this help article.

If the person is in regulated activity, then you will see 'Enhanced DBS Check with Child Barred List':
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If the person is not in regulated activity, you will need to toggle this off in the 'Barred List' section, then you will see 'Enhanced DBS Check without Barred List':
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If the profile type is a Governor or Volunteer, you may also be offered an alternative check at a reduced cost, such as the below:
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For information on the DBS digital identity check including how to switch this on for your account, please see further down this guide.
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If you have this feature enabled on your account, when you click to order a check you will notice that the DBS Check option will default to include the digital identity check as below:

You can, however, choose to order a DBS without this option by clicking 'Change DBS Check Type' which will then present you with another option to order the DBS without the digital identity check, as below:

Simply select 'Change DBS Check Type' again on your selection, and this will update the check for you.

Once the candidate has worked through their flow, they will have selected a set of documents to use for their identity checks. They are required to present original copies of the documents they selected during a face-to-face identity check with you.

Once the identity check is complete, you can press the Confirm Identity button against the order, this will present a form for you to confirm the documents and values on the documents.

Check each box on the right as you verify each value against the relevant document.

If the candidate has brought in different documents to what they specified, then you can press Change Documents and select different ones.

If the values do not match the document, you must edit them using the pencil icon against the value.

You then need to confirm that you have seen these documents in line with the DBS Code of Practice. Please see here

Once confirmed, the DBS check will proceed and the candidate will be issued a DBS certificate.

A report will be generated and uploaded into the documents section, marked as confidential.

The DBS number will be entered in the DBS Section (unless there is already a number in there)

They must then bring that in for you to verify the DBS number against the number contained in the report.

When confirming a candidate's identity you may find that an error message comes up if there is missing or incorrect information. A couple of common error messages and how to solve these are listed below:

Name must contain only letters and spaces, and must start and end with a letter - This error message will show if you have a space (or anything other than a letter) at the start or end of your name when you enter this to confirm ID in the below fields. please review the information entered in these fields and try the submission again:
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Validation failed for DefaultMandatoryValidationProvider - This error message will show if mandatory information within the ID details is missing, such as a missing birth certificate number or incomplete passport field. Please review the information provided, enter any missing information via the pencil icon next to the field (as per below), and try the submission again:

For any other error messages or for assistance with the above, please contact our support team.

When the DBS certificate is issued, it will contain a job title. The job titles are fixed as we have worked with Verifile to produce a preset of the required types of DBS checks for our system.

Volunteer- No DBS fee applies to this (just the admin charge)

Digital Identity Checks are the new government-approved method to digitally verify the identity of individuals applying for a job in the UK. When you verify your applicants’ identities digitally, you no longer need to meet them in person or check and copy their original identification documents. This feature is now available through our app.
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The current price for the digital identity check is £4.99, which is automatically applied to your total DBS cost when placing an order.

To gain access to DBS Digital Identity Verifications, you will first need to set up an account to be able to order external checks through Sign In Central Record if you don't yet have one. Please see the following guide for this: Accessing Checking Services

If you already have an account for external checks, please send us an email at [email protected] and we will enable the feature on your account.
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The temporary remote measures that were in place due to the pandemic, while more convenient, impacted security and increased the risk of fraud. Digital ID Verification was approved as there is now certified technology to check the authenticity of documents, including checking security features, which makes the ID-checking process more robust and reliable.

Yoti and the Post Office have created a unique partnership in the UK to provide a holistic and accessible ID verification mobile app. The EasyID provides a growing network of reusable Digital ID wallets.

Digital ID checks can potentially impact any employer in the UK, but the end of temporary measures on September 30th 2022 has the most impact on employers recruiting remotely. Organisations had to go back to face-to-face identity checks for Right to Work and DBS Identity Verification checks from October 1st 2022 unless they embraced digital identity checks.

Digital ID checks will also be very helpful for any organisation recruiting staff to work in more than one location across the UK. It has traditionally been challenging for many such businesses to ensure consistency and good practice when it comes to RTW and DBS checks and Digital ID checks will significantly alleviate the problem.

Right to Work ID checks can be carried out over video calls Job applicants and existing workers can send scanned documents/photos of documents for checks rather than sending originals The temporary measures below that were in place for Right to Work checks from 30th March 2020 to 30th September 2022 will no longer be allowed:

Therefore, employers must carry out face-to-face ID verification with original copies of documents if they are not utilising Digital ID verification. The new legislation only impacts Right to Work checks, while temporary measures are still in place for DBS checks. No end date has been given for DBS temporary measures and the DBS have confirmed that they are likely to become permanent in the next iteration of the DBS ID check guidelines.

No. Only valid and in-date passports (of any nationality) will be accepted for DBS checks.

Please note that NO expired passports, from any country, can be used as an identity document for DBS check purposes.

Candidates can either:

No, the mobile app is free for candidates, and the employer will pay for the digital check(s) for eligible candidates.

Yoti’s highly secure technology, data storage and data privacy approaches are fundamental to building trust with governments, businesses, charities and the individuals that use their services. The Yoti app stores every item (attribute) of personal information (date of birth, first name, surname, telephone number, passport number etc.) in its own layer of bank-grade encryption, where only the individual has access to that data. The encryption keys are stored in the secure element of their smartphone.

Furthermore, there is no ‘profile’ of a user in the Yoti app, and as such, we hold a ‘sea’ of attributes that have no relationship between them unless that real, authenticated individual requires it. In this way, Yoti does not – and cannot – access personal information. We just now that one attribute is a type – ie. type = DOB or first name – but not the actual content.

The technology and security are highly audited and include ISO27001 and SOC2 Type 2 certifications. As such, Yoti were the first IDSP to be certified by the government for DBS, RTW and Right to Rent checks. Yoti users are in total control of their data and can download or delete data at any time they wish. Verifile retains the data that the candidate shares with them in exactly the same manner as they do at the moment, and likewise with the employer. For data deletion, the same process would still apply.

Verifile has provided a short video showing the candidate's side of the process for digital identity checks:

The DBS's identity-checking changes in 2012 made it more difficult for individuals to conceal previous criminal records by changing their name(s). These changes are part of an ongoing improvement process that will enable easier detection of undeclared name changes in the future.

The guidelines offer three routes to follow to verify ID: Route 1, Route 2 and Route 3. You should be able to validate the identity of the vast majority of applicants using the new Route 1 process. In extreme cases where this has not been possible, Routes 2 and 3 should be used as detailed in the following guidance:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dbs-identity-checking-guidelines/id-checking-guidelines-for-standardenhanced-dbs-check-applications-from-1-july-2021

There are occasions when an Enhanced DBS Check might not be required for certain people.

On Sign In Central Record, you now have the option to specify when an Enhanced DBS Check is not required per Profile Page (for certain Profile Types)

You will need to enter the reason that the check is not required so we have put this guide together to help you determine if an Enhanced DBS Check is required or not.

The person is supervised or escorted - e.g:

The person is in school out of hours - e.g:

The person is under 16:

(You may want to consider carrying out a Risk Assessment for anyone coming into the school on work experience. This might include speaking with their school/college to get a character reference or ask about any concerns regarding the pupil.)

If you are not sure whether someone is in Regulated Activity or not you can refer to our Help Article: Who is considered to be in "Regulated Activity"