Criminal record checks and BS 7858: how the two actually relate

BS 7858 is a screening standard. A criminal record check — disclosure at whatever level applies to the role — is a separate check, obtained through a separate process, that may or may not be required as part of screening for a given post. Treating the two as interchangeable is a common confusion, and it is worth being precise about the difference.

Why the position is not uniform

What level of disclosure applies, and whether it is required at all, depends on the specific role, the contract and the jurisdiction — the disclosure regimes in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are separate systems with their own rules, and none of them are the same thing as an SIA licence check, which has its own separate criminality requirements as part of the licensing process itself.

Where this gets confused in practice

• –Assuming a valid SIA licence means a criminal record check has already been done for the purposes of a specific contract's requirements
• –Assuming BS 7858 automatically includes a disclosure check, when whether it applies depends on the role and what the standard and the contract actually specify
• –Using an out-of-date disclosure certificate as if it reflects current status, when a disclosure certificate is a point-in-time document
• –Not knowing which disclosure regime applies when an officer has lived or worked across more than one UK jurisdiction

Each of these is an understandable assumption, and each is worth checking rather than relying on, because getting it wrong is not always obvious until a client or an assessor asks specifically for something that was assumed to already exist. Related: BS 7858 screening, walked through stage by stage.

What to actually confirm

The current published version of BS 7858, the relevant disclosure service's own guidance, and the specific requirements of the client contract are the three places to check — in that order of specificity, with the contract usually being the most demanding of the three, since clients frequently set requirements above the baseline standard.