What is BS 7858 screening?
BS 7858 is the British Standard for screening individuals working in environments where security is important. It sets out how employment history, identity and other checks should be carried out and recorded.
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</figure>Its distinguishing feature is continuity. The standard is concerned with accounting for a defined period of a person's history without unexplained gaps, which is a harder task than checking a couple of references.
Gaps are the whole of the work. Periods of unemployment, travel or self-employment all need verifying by acceptable means, and a file with an unresolved gap has not met the standard however complete the rest of it is.
Screening records have a retention requirement, and they are the first thing a client audit or an ACS assessment samples. A firm that screens well but files badly fails the same audits as one that does not screen.
In practice
An ACS assessment, sampling six personnel files.
Five are complete. The sixth has an employment history with a period the applicant described as travelling, and the file closes the gap by widening the dates on the job either side of it.
The gap itself was never the problem. An unexplained period is something to explore and record an explanation for, and a documented gap with a reasonable account against it passes. A gap papered over by adjusting dates is a file somebody has altered.
The other recurring finding is a reference that arrived by email from an address nobody checked, signed off as verified because it was on headed paper.
What goes wrong in practice
- Gaps in employment history noted and left unresolved.
- References accepted from personal contacts where the standard requires otherwise.
- Officers deployed before screening completes, with the file finished afterwards.
- Records retained inconsistently, so an audit sample finds missing files rather than missing checks.