UK Firm Secures Online Criminal Record Check Work

A North Wales company that processes online criminal record checks has secured contracts with two of the UK's biggest corporate names.

Disclosure Services, based in Wrexham, has signed up insurance giant Aviva and telecommunications company Cable and Wireless as customers.

The demand for criminal record disclosures is growing all the time and more than 15 million people have been vetted since 2002. As a result, the Criminal Records Bureau has prevented more than 80,000 job offers being made to those considered unsuitable to work with children or vulnerable adults.

New legislation, the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act, means the number of individuals who need to be checked is set to increase again from July.

Over the next five years, it is estimated 11.5 million people will have to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority under the Vetting and Barring scheme.

Disclosure Services was established by husband and wife team, John and Caroline Clark in July 2002. They started out running a nursing home which led to them setting up a nursing agency. That, in turn, evolved into Independent Living Options, a domiciliary care agency that helps people retain their independence and live in their own homes.

Independent Living Options employs more than 100 staff supporting more than 300 clients in Wrexham, Cheshire and Shropshire.

Mrs Clark said, ìTo comply with regulatory requirements, we were carrying out checks as part of our own rigorous recruitment process.

• Increasingly, we were being asked by all sorts of other organisations if we could process checks for them as well. We recognised the business opportunity - and it just grew.
• When we started we were processing everything manually and John developed a hybrid processing system for our clients which improved the accuracy of application submissions.
• Then, 18 months ago the Criminal Records Bureau, as part of their development strategy, announced they would work towards launching an e-application process called E-Bulk which went live last April.
• The Criminal Records Bureau invited organisations that met strict eligibility criteria to take part in the development and launch of that process.

"We were one of the first organisations to be invited to be part of that - it was a huge feather in our cap."

Disclosure Services has invested more than £60,000 in developing the technology, security and quality assurance systems.

Mr Clark said, "We're developing a new suite of services that will support employers' recruitment and selection decisions and complement the criminal record checking process."

"The most noticeable advantage of online criminal record checking is the vastly improved speed of disclosure results and accuracy of the e-application process."

"The technology is bespoke to us and the investment is paying off. The whole system has been set up so we can continue to develop and grow."

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