Who should be subject to pre employment screening?

January 6th, 2011 by admin No comments »

We are often asked to advise companies on the most suitable type of screening and also the level of staff and executives to screen.

There is no one solution for every company, a key factor is any regulatory compliance required as part of business operations.  For example, for companies regulated by the FSA it may be necessary to screen staff at every level including members of the board.

Credit Check Services has carried out criminal and financial screening of personnel holding distinguished titles such as Lord and Major General; no one is immune to employment screening requirements where regulatory compliance applies.

If you have any questions about which staff to screen and the level of pre employment screening required then contact Credit Check Services on 01992 719 234.

No comments »

Posted in Employment Screening

Tags:

Employee background check – 10 areas to consider

December 22nd, 2010 by admin No comments »

Increasingly employers are seeking to carry out more detailed background checks on new recruits.  The problem for many employers is knowing what type of employee background check to carry out.  To help we have listed 10 employment screening options to consider:

1              Financial background check.  This can cover the basic CCJ, IVA and bankruptcy checks through to more comprehensive checks including money laundering.  Credit Check Services provides financial background checks online, with reports completed in one working day.

2              Criminal records check (CRB).  These can be Basic, Standard, or Enhanced.  The Basic disclosure is the most commonly purchased, this cover unspent criminal offences.  You can read more about the types of CRB check here

3              UK right to work.  For most non UK (or non EU) nationals the right to work in the UK is subject to restrictions.  As an employer there are large fines for employing someone that does not have the right to work in the UK.

4              Employment history.  Verifying the past employment history for accuracy.

5              Personal and character references.

6              Qualifications.  Verifying accuracy.

7              Professional memberships.  Verifying accuracy.

8              Company appointments.  Any existing appointments and also disqualifications from acting as a company director.

9              Sanctions.  Examples are HM Treasury and OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Control).

10           Industry specific screening such as BPSS, BS7858 and the FSA Fit and Proper Persons Test.

The options selected will in some cases be industry sector mandated, such as BS 7858, however for most employers a financial background check is becoming the minimum level of screening, often in combination with a Basic CRB disclosure.

If you would like to discuss screening options please contact Credit Check Services on 01992 719 234.  Or visit our main website Credit-Check-Services.co.uk for more information.

No comments »

Posted in Background Screening, Employment Screening

Tags:

FSA Employment Screening

December 20th, 2010 by admin No comments »

The FSA maintain a register of approved persons where an individual has been screened and approved in accordance with the principles of honesty, reputation and integrity, along with other competency and capability requirements.  The relevant screening is more commonly known as The Fit and Proper test for Approved Persons.

The FSA provides fairly comprehensive guidelines on how a person may be assessed but the end decision on whether an individual will be accepted as an Approved Person lies with the FSA.  No third party company can provide such approval, they can only conduct employment screening in support of an individual’s application to become an approved person.

A summary of the guidelines for assessing a person for “honesty, integrity and reputation” may include:

1 – Criminal records history.

2 – Any civil actions such as CCJs, Court Decrees, Bankruptcy or Sequestrations.

3 – Subject of any FSA investigations or disciplinary proceedings.

4 – Any justified complaints of misconduct against the individual which relate to regulated activities.

5 – Whether the individual has been a director or partner of a firm subject to involvement or investigation by a regulator or professional body.

6 – Whether the individual has been dismissed or asked to resign from an employment.

7 – Whether the individual has been disqualified from acting as a director or other managerial capacity.

 

With regard to an individual’s competence and capability the assessment may include:

1 – The individual has the relevant training (FSA’s Training and Competence sourcebook) for the controlled function they are to perform.

2 – The individual has the required experience for the controlled function they are to perform.

If you would like to know more about FSA employment screening please call Credit Check Services on 01992 719 234

No comments »

Posted in Employment Screening

Tags:

Sharp fall in court debt proceedings

December 15th, 2010 by admin No comments »

There has been a sharp fall in the number of court proceedings for money claims despite the poor financial climate. Figures published by the Ministry of Justice show a sharp decline from 2008 to 2010.

The actual figure for court proceedings initiated (all claims including money, land, and goods) show the following:

2008 (Q1 to Q3)                 1.562 million

2009 (Q1 to Q3)                 1.439 million

2010 (Q1 to Q3)                 1.222 million

In percentage terms there was a fall of 21.8% in proceedings initiated through civil courts.  The fall is slightly more when looking at money claims only which fell from 1.192 to 0.928 million, a fall of 22.2%.

At first glance the figures seem at odds with the current economic climate which would suggest that more people are experiencing financial hardship post “credit crunch”, in which case it may seem reasonable to expect an increase in claims made via the civil courts.

The probable explanation for the sharp fall in court proceedings could be partly explained by the more prudent lending in the last 2 years which will have resulted in less people taking on financial commitments that they are unable to afford.

That said with claims still averaging over 135,000 per month for 2010 (January to October) it is still around 1 civil court proceeding for every 20 adults each year.  Over a 6 year period (the life of the credit file data stored against individuals) this would equate to 1 civil court proceeding for every 3 adults in the England & Wales jurisdiction.

Credit Check Services specilaises in background screening of individuals, if you would like to find out more visit the main website at credit-check-services.co.uk

No comments »

Posted in Credit Check Services - other

Tags:

Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

December 14th, 2010 by admin No comments »

A brief overview of the BPSS requirement for employment screening.

BPSS is a set of guidelines defined by the UK Government Cabinet Office.  The BPSS requirements are applied for screening any employee who may have access to information classified as PROTECT, which is largely RESTRICTED or CONFIDENTIAL assets of UK origin.

The BPSS employment screening requirement is also the baseline applied prior to more enhanced security screening, namely; Counter-Terrorist-Check (CTC), Security Check (SC), and Developed Vetting (DV).

There are four specific areas covered by BPSS screening, these are:

  1. Verification of the individual’s identity.
  2. Confirmation of the individual’s immigration status and their right to work in the UK.
  3. Verification of the past 3 years employment history.
  4. Criminal Records – basic level of disclosure covering unspent offences.

BPSS is applied to employees in the public sector, and also in the private sector where an individual may have access to information classified as PROTECT.  Often a company that contracts to a UK Government department will be required to confirm that any relevant personnel are screened to the BPSS standard.

If you would like to know how Credit Check Services can support your BPSS employment screening requirements please call us on 01992 719 234.

No comments »

Posted in Employment Screening

Tags:

Tenant Credit Checks are not all the same

November 8th, 2010 by admin No comments »

Landlords and letting agents are increasingly carrying out credit checks on prospective tenants, however some caution is required.  It is essential that the correct type of tenant credit checks are carried out, it is not a case of just buying on price. 

Background credit checks need to be performed thoroughly, if a company only carries out the minimum level of searching then it is likely that adverse financial history will not be found even when it exists.  For example it is not a simple case of providing a person’s identity and searching databases to see the results, a more thorough search would include:

1 – Date of birth validation

2 – Address validation

3 – Linked address searches

Often it is found that an address provided is not valid in credit databases, this maybe because there are multiple versions of the same address, or maybe the postcode is incorrect, or maybe the registered address is Flat A and not Flat 1.  If the address is not correct then it is likely that any searches for adverse financial data will be ineffective.

Given a valid address it is also possible that adverse data may not be found, this is because the adverse data can take a period of time before it is directly associated with the tenant’s most recent address. Take for example a tenant who has been at their address for 6 months, it is highly likely that any court data such as a CCJ or bankruptcy may not yet point to the current address, this is where a linked address search becomes important.  A linked address search will look for other addresses and then check each of these for adverse financial data linked to the tenant.

The bottom line is that you really need to ensure that the company carrying out the searches understands what is involved and performs searches with accuracy.

At Credit Check Services we carry out the necessary Date of Birth validation, address validation, and linked address searches in all of our screening reports, please feel free to call if you would like to know more.

No comments »

Posted in Tenant Checks

Tags:

The Bribery Act 2010, employers may be held liable!

October 25th, 2010 by admin No comments »

The new Bribery Act 2010, which is expected to become law in Spring 2011, will see a range of offences to criminalise bribery.  This is of particular note to employers who can be held liable and prosecuted for negligence if it is determined there was a failure to prevent bribery.

The new Bribery Act 2010 comes into effect as industry experts warn of the continued fraud highs. A partner of KPMG, Hitesh Patel, warns that fraud in 2010 is likely to see the continued fraud highs of 2009. One of the key areas highlighted for 2010 is supply chain and accounting fraud.  It is also expected that employee bribery and corruption offences will become an increasing issue for employers. 

Key for employers is not only to familiarise themselves with the new Bribery Act 2010 but also to develop procedures to safeguard against fraud and bribery.  Such safeguards not only include business processes to identify where a risk to the business may exist, but also screening employees to identify an individual’s potential risk. Specifically the Bribery Act will create a new offence for a “failure of a commercial organisation to prevent a bribe being paid for on its behalf” – it will be a defence if the organisation has adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery.

Credit Check Services is a leading UK company that specialises in screening people, for more information on employment screening services visit the website at Credit-Check-Services.co.uk

No comments »

Posted in Employment Screening

Tags:

Employee screening – an overview

October 19th, 2010 by admin No comments »

We are often asked to recommend an appropriate level of screening for employers and thought it would be useful to publish more information about the level and type of screening.  In broad terms screening can be classified into seven main categories which we have outlined below.  These are not exclusive categories.

Financial background checks.  This covers data such as history of CCJs, Court Decrees, Bankruptcy, Sequestrations, and Insolvency.  It can also include lists such as HM Treasury  and OFAC to identify if an individual is listed on any databases for sanctions, fraud, etc.

Employment history.  This covers the employee / applicant’s previous stated employment to verify that they were employed, dates employed, etc.  Also this can include any adverse information that a past employer is willing to provide, for example if an employee was dismissed from a company.

Qualifications and professional memberships.  Any qualifications or professional memberships that an employee or applicant has can be verified to confirm authenticity.

Criminal record checks.  There are essentially 3 levels of CRB checks, these are Basic, Standard, and Enhanced.  As an employer you must adhere to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and not obtain a CRB check inappropriate for the type of employment.  You can read more about CRB checks on our main website here.

Personal / character references.  References can be obtained from personal friends of the employee or applicant, and also professional references to attest an individual’s character.

Identity verifications.  These are in two forms, one is the physical photo ID verification against a physical document such as a passport.  The other is from searches of databases to confirm an identity exists linked to a given address, etc.

Industry specific screening.  This varies by sector, for the Financial Services there is the FSA “fit and proper persons test”, for many Government departments there is the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) and for more classified areas such as the MoD there are CTC, SC and DV for increased levels of security vetting.  Within the Security Industry (e.g. guarding, alarm installation etc) there is BS7858:2006 which details how screening must be conducted to meet with regulated compliance.

You can read more about our employee screening services here:

No comments »

Posted in Employment Screening

Tags:

6 steps to check you have the right tenant

October 18th, 2010 by admin No comments »

Finding the right tenant for a property is not easy, all too often novice landlords (and even some more established landlords) fail to carry out sufficient checks before letting their property.  Below are listed some guidelines to help.

1 – Assess tenant affordability.  We all have different motivations on spending our hard earned money but there are some simple ratios to guide what is affordable.  Typically a ratio of around one third of disposable income spent on rent is reasonable.  If the ratio increases to 50% or more of disposable income spent on rent then the risk of a tenant not being able to afford the rent increases significantly.  If there is doubt about affordability and the tenant meets all other suitability criteria then get a guarantor.

2 – Check tenant identity.  It is essential to verify the tenant’s identity.  This involves checking an original official identity document such as a passport (much preferred) or a photo driving licence, or other official document.  You need to know the person “stood in front of you” is the identity you are letting the property to.

3 – Check the tenant’s financial background.  You need to establish the tenant’s history, and this is where a company such as Credit Check Services is required.  A range of report options are available, you can read more here; tenant screening reports

4 – Other document checks. Obtain sight of further original documents from the tenant to help establish their suitability:

  • Copy of the most recent current account bank statement, ideally the last 3 months to see how they manage their finances.
  •  At least one copy of a utility bill, such as a mobile phone monthly bill or water, gas, or electricity bill.  Note the name and address as well as no arrears shown.
  • A copy of the most recent pay statement and / or benefits statement.

If none of these documents are able to be provided there would have to be a very compelling reason.

5 – Tenant references.  Clearly the more you have the better however as a minimum you should take the previous landlord or letting agent reference.  An employer’s reference is also helpful but if you have all of the above (including copies of pay statements) you are almost there regards screening.

6 – The feel good factor.  All too often this is the only type of “tenant check” carried out by a landlord.  Whilst intuition helps there are far too many clever fraudsters who will appear as the model tenant, so this can only ever be complimentary and in addition to the steps outlined above.

No comments »

Posted in Tenant Checks

Tags:

Employee fraud – CIFAS and prevention

October 1st, 2010 by admin No comments »

Research conducted by CIFAS, the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service found that only 2 organisations had not experienced employee fraud. 

Typical examples of employee fraud identified by CIFAS included falsifying CVs with “material falsehoods”, selling confidential company documents,  and passing on details of company clients for financial gain. Other types of fraud uncovered have included:

  • Misappropriating company funds.
  • Stealing cheques
  • Inflating expenses claimed
  • Forging signatures
  • Falsely claiming family bereavement to obtain time off work.
  • Forging signatures
  • Falsifying documents
  • Selling company assets for personal gain

CIFAS maintains a register to help employers identify applicants at risk of fraud.  Additionally CIFAS research has identified the following best practice to minimise exposure to employee fraud:

  1. Verifying employment history
  2. Confirmation of qualifications
  3. Confirmation of the employee’s identity
  4. Credit reference checks
  5. Taking up references

Credit Check Services provides screening for employers covering all of these aspects including regulatory standards and Government standards such as BS7858:2006 and BPSS.  For more information on employment screening visit the website.

No comments »

Posted in Employment Screening

Tags: