Details of the latest updates that we’ve made to the information on this site
Approximately 1 in 10 of the working population work in the health and social care sector with the NHS being the biggest employer in the UK with 1.7 million staff. With increasing pressure on the NHS and a constant demand for more skilled workers, maybe a career in healthcare is something you are considering? Individuals […]
From March 2013 to March 2020, the number of sexual offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales almost tripled with 154,113 recorded between April 2019 and March 2020. Being accused, charged and possibly convicted of a sexual offence will often leave individuals feeling ashamed, victimised and very alone and the stigma behind these […]
Today (28 November 2020) the long awaited changes to the rules on what is disclosed on (and removed from) standard and enhanced criminal record checks come into effect. This is something Unlock has campaigned for over seven years. Today we’ve published updated guidance which explains the new rules. You can: Read this brief guide that explains […]
Spent? Filtered? Basic DBS check? Standard or enhanced? If you’ve got a criminal record and you’re applying for a new job or volunteering role, it’s important to know if and what you need to disclose and what will show-up if an employer does a DBS check. Make the mistake of over or under-disclosing and you […]
If you want to find the best way of disclosing your criminal record to an employer, then a quick internet search will give you pages of results. With your career and financial security potentially dependent on getting it right, it’s good that there’s so much information and advice available. But if you’re trying to find […]
In 2015 the Ministry of Justice introduced the Single Justice Procedure Notice (SJPN) to speed up the processing of less serious offences such as rail fare avoidance and minor driving offences. We’ve produced some new information on the SJPN process. While the process streamlines the court process at an administrative level there are some concerns […]
On the 30 January 2019, the Supreme Court directed the government to fix the broken Disclosure and Barring Service system. The Supreme Court ruled that two aspects of the filtering regime – as it applied to multiple convictions and childhood cautions – was disproportionate and in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on […]
As the UK went into lock-down in March 2020, Unlock came to the end of another financial year. In the year April 2019 to March 2020, our helpline was contacted by 7,803 people, 87% of whom had a criminal record. Our information hub was visited by 1,132,371 and 45,761 people used our disclosure calculator. Have […]
In many cases, somebody who has been wrongly or unfairly treated by their employer can make a claim at an employment tribunal where a Tribunal Panel will make a decision on what settlement, if any, you should receive. However, since 2017 employment tribunal decisions have been published online which means that the names of anyone […]
Covid-19 and the social distancing measures introduced to help control it are creating challenges for all of us. For people with criminal records, these challenges can be particularly difficult to overcome. Since the UK went into lock-down, we’ve been contacted by many people with criminal records – those with criminal records in the community, people […]
In 2020/21 our helpline assisted over 8,000 individuals and over 1.1 million people visited our InformationHub site.
As an independent charity we do not seek or accept government funding enabling us to hold government, agencies and others to account.
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