Are you the sort of person who changes jobs regularly? The current economic climate and changing working patterns means that a “job for life” is an outdated concept. People chop and change their employer regularly. We take on zero hour contracts, or juggle a couple of part time jobs to make ends meet. This isn’t necessarily a negative either. Doing lots of different things gives you a wide range of experience and allows you to see how lots of organisations work. One of the main problems though is with the paperwork. Not just keeping HMRC up to date in terms of tax and National Insurance, but working out what to do about your DBS check. Can you just get one DBS certificate and use it in every job you apply to?

Managing the DBS Check Process

Unfortunately, your DBS certificate is “one use only”. There are a couple of reasons for that. When you go online and apply for a DBS check, this is usually in connection with a specific job. Your employer will state on the form the type of work you will be doing. When the form arrives at the DBS, they will look at the information and use that when deciding what information on your file is relevant. Unless you are applying for an identical job with identical responsibilities, the DBS criteria might be totally different.

Secondly, the police database is constantly changing and being updated with new information. The certificate is printed at a set point in time and then sent out to you in the post. If any information is added to your police file after that date, there is no way of adding that to an existing certificate. So employers can’t take the risk of recruiting someone who hasn’t had a very recent DBS check, on the off-chance that there’s a new crime on their record which isn’t on the certificate.

DBS Update

Because of all of these issues about people changing jobs regularly and the fact that DBS checks have to be repeated, the government came up with a system to make life easier. The Update system has benefits for both the applicant and employee. From an applicant’s perspective, being on the Update service gives access to the online database. No more form filling, showing your ID and waiting for a certificate in the post. It’s all there on the screen. There’s an obvious benefit for the employer too. They can run checks immediately and get their vacancy filled right away.

Update works on a subscription basis. You pay an annual fee – less than the price of a single check – and this gives access to the database. There’s no limit on the number of times you can access the information about you. Remember though that the Update only applies to one “level” of disclosure check. This isn’t usually an issue for people who move around similar jobs, all requiring the same detail of disclosure checking. You’ll also have to remember to pay the subscription fee when it’s up for renewal.