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:

• Financial background employment screening
• BS7858 vetting
• FSA background checks
• Bespoke employment background checks

During December 2009 we focused on one sector in the small business market, public houses.  Almost all transactions are in cash, so within this employment sector you would expect to find that employers are particular about who they check?

Our small survey covered 20 public houses taken at random from Yellow.  We called and asked to speak with the pub owner or manager.  After introducing ourselves we asked the following questions:

1 – Do you employ staff to work in your pub?

2 – If yes, then do you carry out any type of financial background checks or identity checks?

The response was in line with what we expected but nonetheless quite shocking when you think of the potential consequences.

Out of the 20 pubs we randomly surveyed we found that all employed part-time or full-time staff who had access to the till, and only 2 (two) of those we surveyed carried out financial screening of their employees.

At Credit Check Services we find around 10% of those checked have a CCJ or Court Decree and in some cases we even find that the identity does not exist.  Based on these averages this would suggest two of the pubs we surveyed are employing staff to handle cash that have outstanding court-enforced debts.