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Category: Misleading questions

Almost three-quarters of national companies continue to ask about criminal records at job application stage, new research shows

Unlock has today published new research that shows the vast majority of national companies continuing to have criminal record declarations as a core part of their initial job application forms.

Marking the 5-year anniversary of the Ban the Box campaign, the findings reveal the extent to which national employers have failed to recognise the negative consequences of criminal record tick-boxes on application forms.

 

Commenting on the report, A question of fairness, co-director of Unlock Christopher Stacey said:

“We’re proud to have co-founded the Ban the Box campaign and it’s really positive that over 110 companies – including Barclays, Boots, the Civil Service, and Virgin Trains – have signed up so far, but this new research shows that it remains the case that asking about criminal records at application stage is the default approach for almost three-quarters of national, big name companies. It’s also worrying that around 1 in 5 of them are asking for information they are not legally entitled to.

 

“These findings are unsurprising – employers are asking about criminal records at application stage as a way of deselecting applicants. We know this approach has a chilling effect on talented applicants with a criminal record, many of whom never apply because they think they don’t stand a chance. In fact, evidence from employers who do recruit people with criminal records shows that they make reliable, hardworking and loyal employees. Employers who are open about their inclusive recruitment practices report a positive impact on their reputation.

 

“Yet the numbers of employers removing criminal record questions from their application forms is not increasing fast enough. Earlier this month Unlock published new guidance for employers which showed that collecting criminal records data at the job application stage is unlikely to be compliant with the GDPR and data protection legislation. Government, business and charities need to seriously consider how to accelerate the changes in employer behaviour that Ban the Box encourages. Unless significant progress is made, increasingly it seems that the only way to make sure employers remove the tick-box is by looking to put Ban the Box on a statutory footing.”

 

Responding to the findings, Jessica Rose, Ban the Box campaign manager at Business in the Community, said:

“Unlock’s work to unearth the recruitment practices of some of the country’s biggest private sector employers paints a stark picture of confusion and inconsistency when it comes to managing risk around criminal convictions. This results in people being unfairly excluded from work and many more believing that no one is willing to give them a chance. Employers need to grasp the nettle and implement Ban the Box, not just because it’s the right thing to do but because it will benefit their businesses and their communities.

 

“Some of the employers cited in this report already work with Business in the Community and other charities to support individuals into employment. This should give them the positive evidence they need to make the business case for changing their mainstream practices. We want to work with these businesses, alongside Unlock, to support them to put robust, fair and inclusive practices into place.”

 

We surveyed 80 large, national employers across eight sectors – supermarkets, retail, hotels, food and drink, construction, car manufacturing, utilities and communications and found that:

  1. 77 out of 80 employers had online application forms.
  2. Of those 77, 54 employers (70%) asked about criminal records on their application form.
  3. 80% of employers who asked about criminal records provided no guidance to applicants.
  4. 22% of employers asked about criminal records in a way that was either potentially unlawful or misleading. 
  5. Collecting criminal records data at application stage is unlikely to be compliant with data protection legislation.
  6. None of the employers surveyed provided information to applicants on why they collect criminal records data, or for how long it will be retained. Under the GDPR, employers who fail to provide this information are likely to be in breach of the law.
  7. None of the construction companies and only around half the car manufacturers in our survey asked about criminal records at application stage.

 

The findings of this report show that there is still a long way to go in encouraging employers to stop asking about criminal records on application forms. In the conclusion we explore the broader implications of this report, but to achieve a fundamental shift in recruitment practice and seeing Ban the Box as business-as-usual, we believe there are steps that both government and employers should take. That is why we make a number of recommendations to both government and employers, which can be found on pages 4 and 5 of the report.

 

Notes

  1. Unlock is an independent, award-winning national charity that provides a voice and support for people with convictions who are facing stigma and obstacles because of their criminal record, often long after they have served their sentence.
  2. There are over 11 million people in the UK that have a criminal record.
  3. The report can be downloaded here. A summary of the report can be downloaded here. The full list of employers we surveyed, along with the questions they ask, can be found in the Annex.
  4. The report has been produced as part of Unlock’s Fair Access to Employment project, supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
  5. Unlock runs the website Recruit! – providing advice and support for employers on recruiting people with convictions and dealing with criminal records fairly. Employers looking for further advice about this guidance can contact recruit@unlock.org.uk.
  6. For employers that want to sign up as a Ban the Box employer, please see bitc.org.uk/banthebox.

 

Insurers are not following good practice when dealing with criminal records

Last month, the Financial Conduct Authority published an occasional paper on access to financial services. I fed into this work, particularly focusing on the issues people with convictions face in accessing insurance. So it was good to see the authors include an especially challenging section of the report focused at a lack of buy-in to industry guidance.

There was heavy reference to the work that Unlock has done with the Association of British Insurers (ABI), including developing good practice, but highlighted how:

“it is still commonplace for proposal forms to have questions such as “have you ever been convicted””

The ABI guidance states that it is good practice to refer only to ‘unspent’ convictions, so clearly insurers are not doing this.

guidance
Extract from the FCA occasional paper

Although it didn’t name the companies involved, the FCA paper included two anonymous examples of current questions by home insurers and motor insurers.

question
Extract from the FCA occasional paper

The poor wording of questions by insurers is a major problem. Unlock’s helpline regularly gets contacted by people using insurance websites and asking us for clarity about what they do and don’t need to disclose. Very often, this is because the insurance company hasn’t made it clear that they don’t need to disclose convictions that are now spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

This is something we’re looking at. We’ve had one our helpline advisors do some research into the questions asked by insurers, and we’re in the process of pulling this together and analysing the findings.

As an aside, it was good to see a number of other issues featured in the occasional paper, including:

  1. The numbers of people affected – In the infographic that the FCA used, they said that 750,000 people with unspent convictions and their families can struggle. This comes from a figure we presented a couple of years ago, and this is a conservative estimate of the numbers with unspent convictions. Although this figure is an underestimate for another reason – it doesn’t include those that are potentially covered by some of the misleading questions that insurers ask (see below). When this is taken into account, the numbers affected by the practice of insurers runs into the millions, given there’s over 10.5 million people in the UK with a criminal record.
  2. The lack of insurance products for people with unspent convictions
  3. How people with convictions can be good customers

More information

  1. You can find out more about the FCA occasional paper.
  2. There are details of our policy work on fair access to insurance and dealing with misleading questions.
  3. For practical self-help information on insurance, visit the information section on our website.
  4. There is practical guidance for insurers

DBS say that employers need to use the new DBS application forms

We’re pleased to hear that the DBS has today sent out a news update about their application forms, following Unlock’s complaint to the ICO.

In March 2014, the DBS announced that they were changing the question on their application form after a complaint by Unlock to the ICO. The complaint was about the DBS’s failure to promptly update their application form after ‘filtering’ came into force in May 2013.

In response to the complaint, the DBS updated the question they asked about criminal records, so that it made reference to ‘filtering‘, meaning that people with cautions and convictions didn’t need to disclose a caution or conviction when applying for a DBS check if it would be filtered.

Unfortunately, even after they took this action, we were still receiving calls to our Helpline from individuals who were applying for jobs, volunteering and university courses where they’d been given an old DBS form. This old form asked about “all convictions and cautions”. In one example we dealt with, a University was insisting that the individual disclose her conviction from 15 years ago, even though it was now filtered and so didn’t need to be disclosed. Although we eventually managed to resolve this issue, there were clearly still problems.

The main problem was that, although in March 2014 the DBS updated their form, they didn’t require registered bodies to use the new forms. This meant that many were still using the old form, causing lots of confusion about what individuals should and shouldn’t disclosed.

We raised this issue with the DBS, and the ICO, following our original complaint, and we are pleased that the DBS has now responded by making it clear that registered bodies need to use the new form, as well as sending these new forms to registered bodies for them to use.

The DBS has also produced an “Application form insert” which should be given to applicants who are doing DBS checks. This helps to explain to individuals what ‘filtering’ means, and helps to make it clear what individuals do and don’t have to disclose when applying for a role that involves a DBS check.

 

If you’re an employer, find out more useful information here.

If you’re an individual, find out more useful information here.

 

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