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How Often to Renew DBS Checks
There’s no one answer unfortunately – when you need to renew your (or your staff’s) DBS checks depends on a handful of factors, which we’ll cover here.
Regulatory Requirements
It’s a legal requirement for workers in certain roles to be DBS checked, and this is monitored by official regulatory bodies such as Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, and the Financial Conduct Authority. However, the rules on renewal are not as clear, and often go completely unstated.
Most of the questions we get are about Ofsted and the CQC, as these two regulators oversee the majority of DBS-roles, and their rules on renewal aren’t clear either.
How Often to Renew DBS Checks for Ofsted
Ofsted doesn’t specify a DBS renewal frequency, but they will give organisations a bad score for safeguarding if they don’t renew staff DBS checks. This makes knowing when to renew difficult, but generally, schools will not go longer than 3 years without renewing staff DBS checks.
The majority of schools renew staff DBS checks annually, or subscribe their staff to the DBS Update Service (more on that later).
How Often to Renew DBS Checks for the CQC
Like Ofsted, the CQC doesn’t specify how frequently anywhere in their rules & regulations how frequently to renew staff DBS checks. However, they will penalise establishments that fail to perform regular renewals.
In practice, most establishments regulated by the CQC renew their staff DBS checks annually, or subscribe their staff to the DBS Update Service.
How Often to Renew DBS Checks: Company Policy
If you’re an employee checking how often your check needs renewing, the best thing to do is ask your boss! Most companies requiring DBS checks will have a policy in place dictating how often they need renewing.
If you’re about to start working for a new employer, and aren’t sure whether you need a fresh check doing, again it’s best to ask. If your old DBS certificate is from within the past year, and the specified job role is the same as what you’ll be doing for the new employer, you’ll probably be able to reuse it. However, this is the employers’ decision to make.
The DBS Update Service
The DBS Update Service is an official government subscription service. It can be used to keep DBS certificates up-to-date indefinitely, provided there are no changes to the subscribers’ criminal records. It costs £13 a year per applicant, which is much more cost-effective than applying for annual DBS checks.
The only issue with the Update Service is that if an Update Service subscription is invalidated by a criminal record change, the government won’t tell you! Employers must regularly log into each staff-member’s account to check this manually.
That’s why Aaron’s Department offers a DBS Update Service checking system:
for £1 per month, per subscriber, our system automatically checks for any changes on a daily basis, and we’ll let you know if one is detected. Hands-free!
Click here to read more about the Update Service, and how Aaron’s Department makes it even easier.
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