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Transcript: How to make a good quality barring referral to DBS

Published 17 September 2019

1. How to make a good quality barring referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)

1.1 Introduction

When you make a barring referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service, it’s important that you try and provide us with as much good-quality information as you can. Providing this will help us to make accurate and appropriate decisions.

Make sure that any information you send us is clear, and legible, so we can read and understand the information you’ve provided.

1.2 Details of the person you’re referring

It is vital that you include full personal details of the person you’re referring. We need their full name, gender and date of birth. This information is essential and is used to place someone on the barred lists, and to check a person’s barred list status in the future.

Contact details of the person you’re referring are equally as important. This includes their most up-to-date address and a date that they were last contacted or confirmed as living at this address. Phone numbers and email addresses are also useful, so we can try to contact the individual if they have moved to a new house.

1.3 Details of the work carried out

Alongside their job title, a description of the person’s job role and the types of activities they would normally carry out are helpful, so we can understand what their job involves. The person’s employment history is also important as this provides evidence towards the individual satisfying the ‘test for regulated activity’. Helpful documents to support this include job descriptions, application forms and CVs.

It also helps if we have knowledge of a person’s qualifications and training record, so we can understand the level of training and skills that they have in relation to their role.

1.4 Information from the disciplinary investigation

It’s important that we receive copies of the evidence you’ve gathered in support of any disciplinary investigations carried out relating to the person you’re referring.

This evidence could include:

• copies of signed and dated witness statements
• victim statements
• the account of the person who is alleged to have caused harm or caused a risk of harm
• investigation meeting minutes and reports
• any available physical evidence such as CCTV

Any other evidence relied on in the disciplinary process should also be provided if possible.

Details of the victim or potential victim, and what harm was caused, are also important. These details should include the victim’s age, and why they are viewed as ‘vulnerable’, for example, they’re a child or an adult receiving care. Be explicit when describing what has happened and provide us with as much information as you can, including the type of harm caused, such as financial, emotional or physical.

If you are referring from the care sector and a care plan exists, you don’t need to supply the whole document, but any parts that you deem relevant to the case may be useful. Minutes from any disciplinary hearings are also extremely useful alongside a copy of any outcome letters.

Our remit is not to revisit any decisions you’ve made or make judgements regarding your disciplinary procedures. We need this information to assess the risk that the person you’re referring may harm vulnerable groups including children in the future, or place them at risk of harm.

It may also be the case that as part of your investigation, certain elements of the case could not be proven. At DBS however, we may hold information from another organisation such as a previous employer, or the police, that contains such similar detail that it enables us to make additional findings on the ‘balance of probabilities’. This means that given the additional information, it is more than likely that something occurred.

Sometimes, an individual will resign partway through a disciplinary process, or other circumstances arise that mean an investigation can’t be held. If this happens, it’s important that you still provide any information that would have been used to support the disciplinary process.

1.5 Information from external organisations

If there has been an external investigation in relation to the case of the person that you’re referring, we require details of this. This could include interviews, police intervention or details of multi-agency meetings. We need to know what other agencies have been involved including contact names and reference numbers.

1.6 Other relevant information

It’s also useful to have any other relevant information and supporting evidence about the person’s time when they were employed by you, such as previous investigations, allegations or concerns.

Provide us with a timeline of events if possible. This provides us with a greater insight into how the behaviour occurred and any potential triggers.

1.7 Redaction

As part of the process to decide if an individual should be included in a barred list, any information that you provide in your referral may be used by us and could be disclosed to the referred person or other parties. If you redact any information, it would be helpful if you could code your redaction, so the caseworker can determine who is being referred to.

1.8 Sharing information

If we decide that it may be appropriate to bar someone on either list, we are legally obligated to share all information that has been used to reach this decision, with the referred individual.

Prior to sharing this information, we remove all non-essential personal details.

In cases where the referring person or organisation have requested to remain anonymous, we will make sure that this request is respected.

The same principles apply if an individual makes a subject access request.

1.9 Why does this all matter?

DBS has no investigatory powers, so we rely on the information that you provide in your referral. When you provide good-quality, relevant information, we are better able to make fair and transparent decisions in terms of whether or not to bar someone.

This ensures that we continue to safeguard the most vulnerable members of society, and bar those who pose a significant risk, from working or volunteering in specific workforces.