Guidance and Privacy Notice
This form must be completed by all applicants for roles engaging in regulated activity[i] or roles working/having substantial contact with children and/or vulnerable adults. This includes all Clergy[ii], as well as all Church Officers[iii] who are applying for a role that has been assessed as requiring an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) (with/without Barred List) check. The nature of these roles means they are exempt from the provisions of Section 4(2) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (1974 (ROA 1974) by virtue of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2013 and 2020) (the ROA Order 1975 (as amended)).
All individuals applying to work/volunteer in such roles will be subject to a satisfactory Enhanced DBS (with/without Barred List) check before the appointment is confirmed as well as a satisfactory Enhanced DBS (with/without Barred List) re-check every 3 years.
You are required to disclose all unspent convictions and conditional cautions and all spent[iv] convictions and adult cautions that are not protected[v] (i.e. that are not filtered out) as defined by the ROA Order 1975 (as amended)). The ROA Order 1975 (as amended) provides that when applying for certain jobs and activities, certain convictions and cautions are considered ‘protected’. This means that they do not need to be disclosed to employers/voluntary organisations and, if they are disclosed, cannot be taken into account.
A criminal record will not necessarily exclude an individual from consideration for appointment. This will depend on the nature of the role applied for and the circumstances and background of the offences. All information declared on this form will be carefully assessed to decide whether it is relevant to the role applied for and will only be used for the purpose of safeguarding children and/or vulnerable adults. If you answer yes to any question, please provide details, on a separate sheet if necessary, giving the number of the question that you are answering.
If it is later discovered that any statement is false or misleading, then depending on the nature of your engagement, it may lead to disciplinary procedures, where appropriate, and/or dismissal from your post/role. If you are unsure of how to respond to any of the questions, please seek appropriate advice e.g. from the appointing organisation/responsible person/recruiter, an organisation such as NACRO or Unlock[vi], or a solicitor.
Registered Bodies and those in receipt of DBS Update Service information must fulfil the DBS Code of Practice requirement to have a written policy on the recruitment of ex-offenders in place[vii]. Copies of these documents are available on request and the DBS Code of Practice is available from the DBS via DBS code of practice – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The accompanying Privacy Notice explains how the information you supply on this form is used and your rights with respect to that data as required by the UK General Data Protection Regulation, (the ‘UK GDPR’), and the Data Protection Act 2018, (the ‘DPA 2018’). If applicable, please inform relevant members of your household that you have included their details on this form and give them a copy of the Privacy Notice (it will only be applicable if members of your household have been included in the response to a question on the form, e.g. Qs.6 & 7).
Footnotes
[i] Eligibility guidance for enhanced DBS checks – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
[ii] Applies to all Church of England ordained and licensed Clergy including Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons, Deans, stipendiary parish Clergy, self-supporting Minister / non stipendiary Ministers, Chaplains, locally ordained Clergy, Clergy with ‘permission to officiate’ (PTO), and those seeking ordination training or ordination.
[iii] A Church Officer is anyone appointed/elected by or on behalf of the Church to a post or role, whether they are ordained or lay, paid or voluntary.
[iv] Please note that the ‘rehabilitation periods’ (i.e. the amount of time which has to pass before a conviction etc. can become ‘spent’) have been amended by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Since 10 March 2014, custodial sentences greater than 4 years are never ‘spent’. For further guidance in relation to the ‘rehabilitation periods’, please see https://unlock.org.uk/advice/detailedguideroa/.
[v] The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2013 and 2020) provides that when applying for certain jobs and activities, certain convictions and cautions are considered ‘protected’. This means that they do not need to be disclosed to employers, and if they are disclosed, employers cannot take them into account.
Convictions: You do not have to declare any adult conviction where: (a) 11 years (or 5.5 years if under 18 at the time of the conviction) have passed since the date of the conviction; (b) it did not result in a prison sentence or suspended prison sentence (or detention order) and (c) it does not appear on the DBS’s list of specified offences relevant to safeguarding (broadly violent, drug related and/or sexual in nature). Please note that a conviction must comply with (a), (b) and (c) in order to be filtered.
Cautions: You do not have to declare any adult caution where: (a) 6 years have passed since the date of the caution etc. and (b) it does not appear on the DBS’s list of specified offences. As of 28 November 2020, reprimands, warnings and youth cautions, are automatically filtered. Please note that a caution etc. must comply with (a) and (b) in order to be filtered.
Further guidance is provided by the DBS and can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dbs-filtering-guidance/dbs-filtering-guide.
[vi] See https://www.nacro.org.uk/ and https://unlock.org.uk/.
[vii] See DBS sample policy on the recruitment of ex-offenders – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).