Acronyms explained
- ACRO (Association of Chief Police Officers Criminal Records Office) The records office of the Association of Chief Police Officers, a professional forum for the sharing of expertise and experience. If you are a Non UK resident and seeking a criminal reference letter for UK work then advice is available here. http://www.acro.police.uk/home.aspx
- CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) An organisation designed for the specific on and offline protection of young people.
- ICPC (Intentional Child Protection Certificate) An international criminal records check designed by ACRO and CEOP for non UK companies to use for assurance that a UK national or non UK national currently residing in the UK has no criminal record with regards to working with children. This must be applied for the individual and may be requested at any time by an employer or future employer. Application forms can be found here: http://www.acro.police.uk/icpc/
- ISA (Independent Safeguarding Authority) Following the Huntley murders of 2003 the ISA was established to ensure all those applying to work with children or vulnerable adults were screened.
- CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) The disclosure from the CRB, previous to 2012, highlighted any criminal convictions current, pending or spent by individuals wishing to work with children or vulnerable people. A CRB check was requested by an employer and was not transferable between jobs.
- DBS (Disclosure Barring Service) The DBS now replaces the CRB checks after merging with the ISA in 2012. The DBS also offers an online service that now allows subscribed members to transfer their status between jobs within the same sector (£13 fee per year). Applications however must still come from the employer and may need to go through an umbrella body if the company does <100 DBS checks/year.
Standard (£26): This checks for spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands and final warnings, and will take about 2 weeks.
Enhanced (£44): This includes the same as the standard check plus any additional information held by local police that’s reasonably considered relevant to the workforce being applied for (adult, child or ‘other’ workforce). It takes about 4 weeks.
Enhanced with list checks (£44): This is like the enhanced check, but includes a check of the DBS barred lists, and takes about 4 weeks.
https://www.gov.uk/disclosure-barring-service-check/overview (Sept 2014)
- PSB (Public Security Bureau) Local Chinese police authority department responsible for registration of residency.
- Letter of good conduct: Obtained from your local PSB and on official letter headed paper. It states that you have not been convicted of any crimes currently or pending and that you are of good character. This may be* required for finding work in the same sector in the UK following time spent working in China. A proforma can be supplied to your FAO to then forward to the PBS for authentication.**
- Enhanced reference: Same as a letter of good conduct.
**Remember China time! Allow 3 months.
Get an enhanced reference before leaving the country as acquiring one thereafter may be very problematic.
Applicants (job candidates) can’t do a criminal records check on themselves. Instead, they can request a ‘basic disclosure’ from Disclosure Scotland (you don’t have to be from Scotland to do this). https://www.gov.uk/disclosure-barring-service-check/overview (Sept 2014)
In conclusion, any period in your work history that cannot be justified especially when working with children and vulnerable adults, will be questioned. As the DBS does not cover China then some form of letter of good conduct should be obtained from the local PSB. Failure to gain this may (probably will) cause considerable problems when seeking employment upon returning to the UK.
Consider this, what type of company would employ someone to work with children or vulnerable adults without ensuring by reasonable means they are safe?
Answer...an extremely suspicious one!