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The government recently published a new Employment Rights Bill, which presents an opportunity to make the existing rights of people with criminal records in recruitment and employment easier to understand and therefore more accessible. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) sets limits on what information potential or current employers can collect and hold about someone’s […]
We recently worked with a large construction company who wanted to stop asking applicants about criminal records. The HR team and the department managers agreed on a new application form. However, they found that historic application forms containing criminal records questions kept being used for new vacancies. This left them with sensitive criminal records data […]
It is perhaps understandable why some employers are tempted to check applicants on social media. It can sometimes seem like the more information available, the better. However, this is rarely actually the case. Often employers will end up with information they don’t want or, even worse, that legally they shouldn’t have. An example is for […]
In 2018, Unlock surveyed 80 well-known national employers’ online application systems to assess their approaches to recruiting people with criminal records. We selected companies based on an in-house poll of large employers. We have now conducted a comparable survey in 2023, to explore whether practice has changed. Read the full report here. We found: Overall, […]
Today Unlock publishes a new briefing, exploring the data we received in a recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). The data highlights some of the ways in which our outdated criminal records system can disproportionately impact women. Read the briefing What does the data tell us? Women are […]
Working Chance is the UK’s only employment charity exclusively for women who have convictions. They help women to develop the confidence, skills, and self-belief to get into work or education. They partner with over 110 employers across England and Wales to match women with the right opportunities. Their latest report, Progress and Prejudice, explored employer […]
Since 2018 when UCAS removed questions about criminal records from their application, universities have had to make their own decisions about whether to ask for most courses. For courses leading to regulated professions, UCAS continue to ask. Universities collect further information about spent and unspent criminal records and conduct their own assessments – often called […]
Earlier this year Alex registered with Transport for London’s National Apprenticeship Fair, hoping for the chance to meet with 15 employers offering vacancies across London. She was surprised to be asked about unspent convictions for a recruitment fair, but ticked the box and looked for the privacy policy to understand how it would be used. […]
In 2018 research by Unlock found that 70% of well-known national employers asked about criminal records on application. Three years on, with increased understanding of data protection, the GDPR and inclusive recruitment, we reviewed those employers to see what, if anything had changed. Key findings in 2018 The 2018 findings were disappointing, though perhaps not […]
“How do you deal with applicants with a criminal record?” That’s a common question we ask of employers. The answer varies; sometimes, they’re quite proactive; other times, they don’t really know. Often, we’re pointed to their ‘policy’. Great, you might think. Unfortunately, a significant proportion of employers with a policy in place have simply copied […]