Worcestershire Arts Partnership Blog

Tuesday 26 February 2013

Changes to Charity CRB(DBS) Regulations

The CRB now known as DBS are making some important changes to criminal record checks in Spring 2013. They will impact on all charities particularly those that employ a lot of volunteers.

The two main changes are as follows:-

1.       The DBS is going to limit the issue of a paper Disclosure to the applicant only. Organisations will cease to receive a copy.
2.       The DBS is going to make Disclosures more portable. Applicants will be able to pay a small sum of money each year for a Disclosure they can take from ‘job’ to ‘job’. It is expected that DBS will provide this service free of charge to volunteers.

The reason for writing to you is that under our online system, you would continue to receive clear Disclosures, so there would be no change from what you have at the moment. You would only have to wait for the applicant to bring you their copy of the Disclosure, if they had a criminal record.

Furthermore, portability is going to be better for applicants but there are also benefits to charities/employers too. Our online system will provide a 24/7 Police National Computer (PNC) checking service so if one of you applicants, under the new system, acquires a criminal conviction or caution, you will be informed immediately, and you will be able to request a new Disclosure. We will charge a nominal fee for the 24/7 PNC checking service and we expect this new facility to be extremely popular.

If you would like further information concerning our online system or the DBS changes coming in shortly, please email mike@mgcare.co.uk with your details and I will be pleased to get back to you.

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