Criminal Records Checks enable employers to make more informed recruitment decisions in order to protect their employees and customers. For certain roles such as those involving contact with children or care of the vulnerable Criminal Records Checks are mandatory. Even where checks are not mandated there's a strong business case for employers to make criminal record checks on all employees. These reasons include a duty of care to their current employees by avoiding employing violent or dangerous individuals through to ensuring that individuals with specific convictions are not recruited to roles where they could pose a high risk e.g. an individual with a conviction for fraud being employed within the finance department.

Basic, Standard and Enhanced Disclosures

There are 3 levels of Criminal Record Check referred to as Disclosures — Basic, Standard and Enhanced. Each level of disclosure returns varying levels of information, illustrated in the table below:

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 was designed to protect individuals from the unfair disclosure of their criminal record information. The Act states that after a given time - the rehabilitation period, the conviction will become classified as 'spent' as the offender is deemed to be successfully rehabilitated. This means that for most job roles an employer cannot see and potentially discriminate against an individual on the basis of spent convictions.

Employers are only allowed to see spent convictions if the job role is exempt under the Act. Generally these roles involve contact with children, care of the vulnerable, working within law enforcement and the justice system and other regulated industries including healthcare. A full list of job roles exempt under the Act can be found on the Criminal Record Bureau website at www.crb.gov.uk — search for 'disclosure access category code'.

Criminal Records Checks — Spent and Unspent convictions

How long a conviction is classified as 'unspent' for, and therefore can be taken into consideration by employers in their recruitment decisions, is determined by the rehabilitation period. In turn, the rehabilitation period is determined by:

1. The type of sentence passed (e.g. custodial, fine, community service order etc) and;
2. The age of the individual at the time the sentence was passed

A custodial sentence of more than 2½ years can never become spent (regardless of the time actually spent in custody) and therefore would always be displayed on a Basic Disclosure. The table below explains how long it takes for various convictions to become 'spent'.

	Rehabilitation Period
Sentence	People aged 18 or more when convicted	People aged 17 and under when convicted
Prison and young offender institution term of 6 months or less.	7 years	3½ years
Prison and young offender institution term of more than 6 months, up to 2½ years.	10 years	5 years
Fine, compensation, probation (1), community service or combination order (2), action plan, curfew, drug treatment and testing order or reparation order.	5 years	2½ years
Absolute discharge.	6 months	6 months
(1) For people convicted on or after 3 February 1995. Probation Orders are now called community rehabilitation orders. (2) Community service orders are now called community punishment orders. Combination orders are now called community punishment and rehabilitation orders.

	Rehabilitation Period
Sentence	People aged 12, 13 or 14 when convicted	People aged 15, 16 or 17 when convicted
Detention and training order of 6 months or less.	1 year after order ends	3½ years
Detention and training order of more than 6 months.	1 year after order ends	5 years

Sentence	Rehabilitation Period
Probation (1), supervision, conditional discharge and bind over.	1 year or until the order ends (whichever is longer)
Attendance centre order.	1 year after the order ends
Referral Order.	Once the order ends
(1) For people convicted before 3 February 1995.

Using the information from Criminal Records Checks

Employers should not automatically discriminate against a candidate with convictions on their disclosure. Time should be taken to consider the nature of the offence, the relevance to the job role the individual is applying for and a range of other factors such as:

• The age of the candidate at the time of conviction
• How long ago the conviction was made
• Whether the conviction was a one-off or part of a pattern of repeat offending
• Whether the candidate actually declared the unspent conviction on their application

NACRO (covering England and Wales) and Apex Scotland are organisations dedicated to working with ex-offenders and provide help lines for employers with regard to recruiting ex-offenders and explaining the convictions/wording that appears on disclosure certificates.

Criminal Records Checks — other useful information

The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) produces an online glossary of terms used in criminal record disclosures which you can view on their website — CRB Glossary of Terms

Criminal Record disclosures produced by Disclosure Scotland or the Criminal Records Bureau only contain information about convictions in the UK. The overseas page on the CRB website explains how to go about sourcing criminal records checks from other countries.