Fair Access to Employment
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Latest news
VIEW ALL -- 08/03/2021in Employment discrimination, Latest, News & Media, Unlocking Experience
New report highlights impact of criminal records on women
While women overall are less likely to have a criminal record than men, those women who do are more likely to face barriers when accessing employment according to the report, “Angels or witches”: The impact of criminal records on women, published on International Women’s Day by Unlock. Read the full report Read a summary The report, which br... - 13/01/2021in Employment, Employment discrimination, Ineligible checks, Stop ineligible checks
Take action on bad recruitment practice
Most employers ask about criminal records on application forms, and many carry out Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks before making a final offer. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 allows some criminal records to become ‘spent’ after a crime-free period. This means they are no longer disclosable – for example to employer...
Our website for employers
There's a talent pool of over 11 million people that you might be overlooking. People with criminal records make good employees. Make sure you're not missing out. Recruit! is a website from Unlock that supports UK employers to recruit people with convictions and helps them to deal with criminal records fairly.
Overview of project
Find out more about the work that we're doing to support employers to recruit people with convictions and challenge employment discrimination.
Our approach to employers
This page explains our approach to employers as part of this project.
Supporting & challenging employers
We are working with employers to develop and implement fair and inclusive policies and procedures that support the recruitment of people with convictions.
Stopping unlawful checks
We are challenging employers who breach the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act by carrying out unlawful criminal record checks or unlawfully take into account spent convictions.
Pushing for improvements to how the DBS works
We are working to ensure criminal record checks operate fairly for people with convictions, and are tightened so that employers are unable to carry out ineligible checks.
Project contact
This project is overseen by Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock. Click above to find contact details.
Latest news
Read the latest news relating to our fair access to employment project.
Sign up for email updates
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Ban the Box
Ban the Box is a campaign that calls on employers to remove the 'tick box' from application forms. Find out more, and how it can help you as an employer.
Send us bad practice
We’re on the look-out for evidence of bad practice by employers with regards to the policies and processes that they have in place for job applicants with criminal records.
Supported by
We're grateful to the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for their support of this work