Looking back over the last couple of months, we’ve written up a few examples of the people we’ve helped. We hope they give a good idea of how we help people. However, more importantly than our role, we think that these examples show how people with convictions are able to overcome some of the barriers

After working for a bank for several years, Felix had applied for a new role as a mortgage broker. The bank had carried out a basic DBS check when Felix was initially employed but, as his convictions were spent, nothing was disclosed on his certificate. However, he had recently discovered that his new role would

Caleb contacted our helpline as he was concerned that a recruitment agency were going to carry out an ineligible criminal record check. Caleb explained that he had a spent conviction for criminal damage from 2016. He’d always been very embarrassed about it and found it difficult to talk about and, it was for this reason

Wes contacted our helpline for some advice as he was concerned about how much access he should give a potential employer to his criminal record. Wes explained that he’d applied for a job as a university lecturer following an approach by the Head of Faculty. He knew that as his role would bring him into

Thea contacted our helpline for some advice in completing a university application form. Thea explained that she had two old cautions which were eligible for filtering (and so would not appear on her enhanced DBS certificate). However, the wording of the university’s statement and question on their application form implied that she needed to disclose

Our helpline was contacted recently by an individual who had some concerns about the questions being asked relating to criminal records on a homeless accommodation provider’s job application form. The individual had been applying to be an administrative assistant and, having seen the job description, assumed that the role would be eligible for a basic

We’ve just published our update for March 2020. This months update includes: An update to our page on types of criminal record checks to include details of the number of checks carried out in a year and the percentage of these that disclose information relating to cautions/convictions. A personal story from an employer whose attitude

Lawrence contacted us concerned that a crown court had provided information about his spent conviction without the proper authority. Lawrence had a spent conviction from 12 years ago which could still be found on the internet. His local residents’ association had used the information they found online to request a Certificate of Conviction from the

Going Forward into Employment is a government wide scheme providing employment opportunities in the civil service for people from a range of backgrounds. Prison leavers are one of the groups that can benefit from the scheme, and so far more than 30 people have taken up a civil service post after release. The Going Forward

Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DoJ) in Northern Ireland announced it was making changes to what is disclosed on standard and enhanced criminal record checks, in response to the Supreme Court ruling in January 2019. The criminal record checking process in Northern Ireland (administered by AccessNI) is separate to that in England and Wales (administered

It’s about a decade since we first started work on developing an online tool to help people work out if they need to tell employers and others about their criminal record. It was around 2009 when we started to receive an increasing number of calls to our helpline from people wanting to know if –

We’ve just published our update for February 2020. This months update includes: A new post on how the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) helps individuals protect their personal data and why it’s important to ask employers to delete any criminal record data which they should no longer lawfully hold. A personal story from an individual