DBS Checks for Children's Homes: Enhanced DBS, Barred Lists & Ofsted Requirements

DBS checks are a foundational safeguarding requirement for anyone working in a children's home. They are not a paperwork formality — they are a legal gate between an unsuitable adult and the children in your care.

The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 require the registered person to recruit staff using suitable, safe procedures, and to ensure all employees and others working at the home are appropriately checked before they begin.

What an enhanced DBS check reveals

An enhanced DBS check reveals:

• Spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands, and final warnings.
• Any non-conviction information that the relevant chief police officers reasonably believe to be relevant and consider ought to be disclosed.

For children's home staff the check must also include a check of the children's barred list, which confirms whether the person has been legally prohibited from working with children.

Beyond the legal duty, DBS checks are central to your safer recruitment policy — itself one of the documents Ofsted assesses at registration. A strong DBS process is evidence that you take the protection of children seriously from the recruitment stage onwards.

In the context of Ofsted registration and the ongoing operation of a children's home, the enhanced DBS with barred list check covers a wide group — and it is safer to over-include than to leave a gap.

Who needs the check

• The registered provider (where the provider is an individual) or the responsible individual (where the provider is an organisation) — their checks are required before Ofsted will complete their SC2 fitness assessment.
• The registered manager — a check is a precondition of their fitness assessment.
• All care staff — support workers, senior support workers, key workers, and deputy managers.
• Anyone else living or working on the premises who could have contact with the children — domestic staff, cooks, drivers, and maintenance workers.
• Regular volunteers and students on placement.
• Directors, partners, or trustees of the registered provider with a relevant role.

Agency and bank staff

For agency and bank staff, you must obtain confirmation from the agency that an appropriate enhanced DBS check is held, and verify it — do not simply assume the agency has done it. Record every check on the home's single central record.

A DBS check is one element of safer recruitment, not the whole of it. Ofsted assesses your recruitment process as a connected system at registration, through your safer recruitment policy.

Why the DBS check is not enough on its own

A criminal records check tells you what is on the record. It cannot tell you about an applicant who has never been caught, has moved between settings to avoid scrutiny, or presents a pattern of concern that has not resulted in a conviction. Safer recruitment wraps the DBS check in a wider set of checks designed to deter and detect unsuitable applicants.

What to obtain for every appointment

• Proof of identity to the DBS standard.
• Right to work in the UK.
• A complete employment and education history, with every gap explained.
• At least two references, including one from the most recent employer — and, for anyone who has previously worked with children or vulnerable people, a reference from a relevant previous role.
• Verification of qualifications claimed.
• Where the role requires it, a check of professional registration.

References should be sought directly from the organisation rather than relying on an open testimonial the applicant supplies, and they should ask specifically about the applicant's suitability to work with children and about any disciplinary or safeguarding history. Interviews should explore gaps and any disclosed information openly.

There are three levels of DBS check — basic, standard, and enhanced — and only the highest is acceptable for children's home staff.

Why children's homes need the enhanced check

For a children's home, the correct check is an enhanced DBS check with a check of the children's barred list — and, depending on the role, the adults' barred list may also be appropriate.

The reason is that working or volunteering in a children's home is regulated activity with children under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, and regulated activity is precisely the category for which barred list information is both available and required.

You apply for enhanced DBS checks by routing applications through a registered body — often called an umbrella body — or by registering your organisation directly with the DBS if you meet its criteria and expect sufficient volume. An individual cannot apply for their own enhanced DBS check: enhanced and barred list checks for employment must be requested by an organisation.

The four stages

1. The applicant completes the DBS application with their personal details and address history.
2. You verify their identity in line with the DBS identity-checking guidance — typically three documents from the approved list, including at least one that proves date of birth and at least one showing the current address, and a photographic identity document where possible.
3. The registered body countersigns and submits the application, confirming the role is eligible for an enhanced check with a barred list check.
4. The DBS carries out its checks and issues a certificate. For employment checks the certificate goes to the applicant, so you must arrange to see the original.

Applicants who have lived or worked overseas

An enhanced DBS check only draws on UK records. Where a person has lived or worked outside the UK for twelve months or more in the last five years, the enhanced DBS alone is not sufficient: Ofsted expects an equivalent criminal record check from each relevant country, usually with an official English translation, in addition to the UK enhanced check. Research the process for each country early — some overseas certificates take months to obtain, cannot be substituted with a self-declaration, and a single missing one holds up the whole assessment.

Plan for the turnaround

Turnaround is commonly in the region of two to eight weeks, but it can be longer where police forces need to consider whether to disclose non-conviction information, or where address history requires checks across multiple force areas.

The DBS Update Service is an online subscription that lets an individual keep a single enhanced DBS certificate live and portable. For a children's home recruiting steadily, it is worth building into your process.

How it works

The individual subscribes shortly after applying for, or receiving, their certificate. Once subscribed, their certificate can be reused: a new employer, with the individual's consent and using the certificate details, runs a free online status check that confirms whether the certificate is still current and whether any new information has since been added.

If the status check shows no change and the certificate is at the right level and type for the role, you may be able to rely on it rather than applying for a fresh check — saving both the fee and the processing time.

Where it helps most

The Update Service is particularly valuable for agency and bank workers who move between settings, and for staff progressing within the residential childcare sector. Encourage every member of staff to subscribe when they receive their certificate, and record the subscription and the dates of your status checks on the single central record.

A criminal record does not automatically disqualify someone from working in a children's home — and assuming it does can mean unfairly rejecting a suitable candidate. But there is one absolute bar.

Why spent convictions still appear — and must be disclosed

Working in a children's home is an exempted position under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. The ordinary rehabilitation periods that let most convictions and cautions become "spent" do not apply, so an enhanced check discloses spent matters — and the applicant must disclose them too, including on their SC2 form. Disclose candidly: Ofsted cross-references the SC2 against the DBS certificate, and a discrepancy between the two is treated as a candour problem that bears directly on fitness, separately from the disclosed matter itself.

The absolute bar

If the barred list check shows the person is included on the children's barred list, they are legally prohibited from working in regulated activity with children. The decision is taken out of your hands.

Where the person is not barred

Where the certificate shows convictions, cautions, or other information but the person is not barred, you must make a reasoned, recorded recruitment decision through a risk assessment. Weigh:

• The nature and seriousness of the offence, and its relevance to working with children.
• How long ago it occurred.
• The person's age and circumstances at the time.
• Whether there is a single incident or a pattern of behaviour.
• Whether the offence is directly relevant to the safety of children.
• The person's own account, including any evidence of rehabilitation and changed circumstances.

The risk assessment must be conducted before the person starts and must be documented properly — not as a tick-box, but as a genuine, evidenced rationale. Ofsted, and any subsequent inspection, will want to see that the registered person considered the disclosed information and made an informed, defensible decision.

You maintain ongoing monitoring through Update Service status checks, a contractual duty on staff to self-declare, the single central record, and vetting built into governance — because a DBS check is only a snapshot in time. It tells you about the person's history up to the date of the check and nothing about what has happened since, so safer recruitment does not end once a certificate is on file.

Four elements of ongoing monitoring

1. Update Service status checks. Encourage every member of staff to join the DBS Update Service and carry out status checks at sensible intervals, so newly added information can come to light.
2. A duty to self-declare. Maintain a clear contractual and policy expectation that staff self-declare promptly any new convictions, cautions, charges, police investigations, or other relevant matters that arise during their employment — and make clear that failing to do so is a disciplinary matter.
3. The single central record. Maintain it for every person working at the home, recording the DBS certificate date and number, the level and type of check, the date and outcome of any Update Service checks, references, identity verification, right to work, qualifications, and health declarations.
4. Vetting built into governance. Review the single central record regularly, act on any new information through a recorded risk assessment, and treat ongoing suitability as part of supervision and appraisal rather than a one-off recruitment task.

Taken together, these four elements turn the DBS check from a single recruitment hurdle into a continuous safeguarding control — which is exactly how Ofsted expects a well-run children's home to treat it.