DBS checks are an essential part of safeguarding when working with children or vulnerable adults in regulated activities. The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) helps employers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children. The DBS decides whether it is appropriate to include or exclude an individual from a list of prohibited persons. A person who works in an unpaid capacity for the benefit of others is considered a volunteer. The law defines an adult (vulnerable) as someone who is 18 years of age or older and who receives a particular service specifically because they are elderly, ill or disabled.
These people are usually paid a local wage and lump-sum payments, which go beyond what could be described as accepted “out of pocket expenses”. Therefore, DBS considers that these roles do not entitle you to receive voluntary checks from DBS. DBS checks cover a person's criminal record in the UK and are mandatory if you hire someone for a position that requires a DBS check (regardless of the country they have previously lived in).You must indicate that the applicant is a volunteer by completing section Y of the Request Manager section of an application for standard DBS or enhanced DBS. Employees who work in regulated activities with vulnerable adults are in a critical protective role and are therefore subject to stricter controls by the DBS.
For the purposes of DBS, a volunteer will need their information disclosed if their role involves regular volunteer work with children under 18 years of age or vulnerable adults. For all adults, DBS will consider them “vulnerable” if they require that they be provided with regulated activity. When completing section Y of the “Application Manager” section of the enhanced DBS application, you'll first need to request an adult DBS verification. If the volunteer in question is going to work regularly with children under 18 or vulnerable adults, they will need a DBS check. Among other protective organizational measures and safe hiring practices, duty of care can be taken very seriously, including organizational protection measures, obtaining information for volunteers working with vulnerable clients, if they meet the requirements to do so. Adoptive caregivers often receive payments for these activities, so DBS believes that neither adoptive caregivers nor other household members over 18 are entitled to receive voluntary DBS checks. The applicant will have to enter their current address abroad in the addresses section above and enter the end date as the current month and year (for example, it would be November 201); DBS will then process their DBS verification and the hard copy of the DBS certificate will be mailed to you once it has been completed. If volunteers work with vulnerable service users, organizations have a legal obligation to ensure that the volunteer is suitable for that role, which means that they must “act reasonably” in making that decision and carrying out appropriate hiring and vetting procedures.
Depending on the activities the volunteer is going to do, the organization should also consider whether it needs to carry out a criminal background check. We hope this blog has helped you understand what constitutes a “vulnerable adult” in relation to DBS checks and the scope of this term, as well as the associated level of DBS verification that is required when carrying out regulated activities with vulnerable adults. Online DBS checks, AccessNI checks, PVG checks, basic disclosure checks, external identity validation, company employee credit checks &.
