Screening & Vetting.
BS 7858 screening, right to work, and the evidence an assessor asks to see.
BS 7858 screening: the gaps assessors actually find
Most security companies believe their screening is sound until somebody audits it properly. The failures are rarely missing files — they are unexplained gaps, references that prove nothing, and screening that stopped at the start date.
28 August 2026 · 3 min readCriminal record checks and BS 7858: how the two actually relate
BS 7858 and a criminal record check are not the same thing, and assuming one covers the other is a common and avoidable confusion.
14 August 2026 · 4 min readBS 7858 screening: what an assessor actually asks to see
Screening is rarely the problem. Being able to produce the file, complete, for the officer they pick at random — that is where assessments go wrong.
12 August 2026 · 4 min readTraining records that survive an audit
Certificates in a folder prove someone attended a course. They do not prove the officer on site today is trained for the post they are standing on.
9 August 2026 · 4 min readRight to work checks, and why security contractors get asked twice
Every employer has to check. Security contractors tend to be asked to prove it more often, by clients as well as by government.
2 July 2026 · 4 min readWhat a vetting assessor actually checks, versus what gets assumed
A reference letter is not the same thing as a reference. The gap between the two is usually where a screening process quietly weakens without anyone deciding it should.
14 May 2026 · 4 min readExplaining gaps in employment history, properly
A gap in someone's history is not automatically a problem. An unrecorded gap is, because the file cannot show the difference between an explained one and an ignored one.
19 March 2026 · 3 min readVerifying employment history: what actually counts as done
A CV entry is a claim. Verification is the work of turning that claim into something an assessor would accept, and it does not happen by asking the applicant to confirm it themselves.
22 January 2026 · 4 min readBS 7858 screening, walked through stage by stage
The standard is usually described as a checklist. It reads more sensibly as a sequence, where each stage exists to close a specific gap the last one left open.