The Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) carries out checks for people applying to work with unsupervised access to children and vulnerable adults, for example Taxi drivers, Teachers and Doctors, and they also do recruitment checks for police officers and Special Constables.

The majority of the checks are conducted in the same way.

Here is a brief breakdown of what happens.

• Local crime systems are scanned to check if you have come to the attention of the authorities in the past. These systems will show everything from speeding tickets to serious crimes committed, if for whatever reason your name is spelt differently on the form from on the systems then it will be sent back to your force for clarification causing some delay, same goes for your date of birth, address etc. So if you ever used an alias or gave false details to the police, this is where it will come back to bite you!
• The check will also get passed to all forces you have lived in, for example if you have lived in London, Manchester and Liverpool it will get passed to all these forces who will do similar checks on their local crime systems. The main CRB is based in Liverpool and all checks are sent to them for normal jobs from registered bodies like police forces. CRB Liverpool then send out the applications electronically to the relevant forces the candidate has lived in, and once checks have been completed by the force the information is sent back to CRB Liverpool who send out the disclosure certificates.
• Various other systems are checked including the voters roll to find out what people are living at your address. Some people think "if I don’t write it down they wont find out" but this is one way you could get found out if you're trying to "hide" someone from your application form. Again if someone is found that hasn't been declared then the check is sent back to force for clarification causing more delay.
• Systems such as PNC are checked against you and the other people you have declared or have been found, to check what recordable offences you have on PNC, if for example you had committed an assault of which no further action was taken (NFA), we will still create the report and request the crime files to check exactly what happened, there was a case where some one had got arrested for a breach of the peace, but on closer inspection the CRB found they had threatened people with a knife!!
• If something is outdated on PNC, for example a caution that has been on longer for 5 years then it will be weeded off, if something is found on your family members then the same procedure applies of requesting crime files etc.
• If something is found on you or a third party all the information is collected and passed over to the decision makers (people who decide whether to disclose the information or not), it will go on a big pile this is where the delay is mainly, just to point out the CRB receives requests to carry out many thousands of checks a month and most have a significant backlog.
• If nothing is found on you or anyone in your family then you will be sent out as a 'no trace' from CRB and you will be passed over the force's Special Branch. They will carry out further checks which CRB does not have access to, for example contact with Mi5/Mi6 to see if you are of interest to them. Special Branch usually take their time with this and will not even be chased up for this part by the CRB!
• If you or anyone in your family were born outside the UK then checks with Interpol will be made, again this is a stage that causes long delays.

More information:

• The Government's website about the CRB (disclosure service).