Criminal background checks are used in a wide range of different industries as a vital part of the recruitment process. They’re a great way of checking whether a potential employee is lying about a significant part of their past, and can be incredibly important when it comes to protecting employees and customers alike.
While DBS checks are relatively uncomplicated with domestic employees, when it comes to overseas workers, things are a bit more complicated. Let’s see what you need to be aware of.
Legal Requirements
Carrying out DBS checks is often a regulatory requirement in a lot of industries. That means that while it may be possible to simply forgo the formality with overseas workers in an unregulated industry that requires nothing more than a basic check, for regulated industries such as healthcare and education, employers have a legal duty to ensure that the checks are carried out.
Eligibility
DBS checks mostly involve checking through the UK police force databases. That means that a DBS check can uncover most information pertaining to criminal acts that took place in the UK, but generally not in other countries.
You may still be able to have a DBS check carried out on overseas workers, but the information that it uncovers will never be representative of the whole picture. This also applies to British nationals who have spent extended periods of time outside of the UK; it’s possible that they could have a criminal record in a foreign country, and the DBS check wouldn’t pick up on that history.
International checks
As a result of the incomplete picture that DBS checks result in when it comes to overseas workers, it’s often necessary to carry out international criminal background checks. As every country has a different criminal justice system, the process of carrying out these international checks will look different in most situations.
It’s important to properly research the procedures you’ll need to go through with each individual country. Organisations such as Personnel Checks can often provide invaluable information in these areas, helping to ensure that businesses stay in line with regulatory requirements at all times.
Verification of right to work
Employers have a responsibility to make sure that all potential employees have a right to work in the country, especially if they’re an overseas worker. Typically, this is done by checking an employee’s NI (national insurance) number.
For candidates who don’t have a national insurance number, companies will have to go through their documentation, ensuring that they have a right to work, and then make copies of those documents. Employers must then keep a copy of the relevant documentation for at least two years past the date that the employee ceases to work at the organisation.
Clearly, the process of carrying out criminal background checks on overseas workers is a lot more complicated than it is with domestic workers. The process is often different in each country, making it important that organisations maintain a diligent approach each time they need to navigate a new country’s criminal record system.