At Pury Erskine Ltd we offer our clients a bespoke ‘regulatory health check’ service to fit the circumstances of your instruction. Our regulatory health check can be incorporated into your instruction, whether civilian or military, pre or post charge, or as a stand-alone service.
At Pury Erskine Ltd we realise that your instruction does not necessarily end at the successful conclusion of a civilian or military investigation, or proceedings. If an investigation has concluded with ‘No Further Action’ (NFA) or you have been found not guilty at court, there could still be information held about you either locally, or via national databases. We can challenge the retention of certain information, but the law is complex in this area so you will need expert advice.
If you have been convicted of a criminal or service disciplinary offence, or some other form of finding has been made against you, we will advise whether those matters are disclosable. The law is governed by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (RoOA 1974), which provides rehabilitation periods for particular sentences. The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) seeks to help employers to make safer recruitment decisions. There are four types of DBS check that can be requested. Your disclosure obligations will be dependent upon the sentence you received in relation to your conviction and the level of check being requested. Further, in the United Kingdom, government policy requires that staff undergo Security Vetting (SV) in order to gain access to government information. These are even higher levels of checks than those required under the DBS regime.
The law in this area is complex and even non-conviction findings, including e.g. the fact of an arrest, can be recorded on enhanced level DBS checks, or by SV. There are often conflicts between the information an employer may be seeking from you, and what you are actually obliged to disclose. We will walk you through this regulatory minefield and give you tailored advice in relation to your personal circumstances.
