Challenge 

The two London Borough Councils followed the same identity check, right to work and DBS checking processes. An internal audit found serious shortcomings in these processes, to the point of non-compliance, and potentially serious risks. There were many manual processes, and paper copies of scanned identity documents were being stored insecurely. Additionally, with little-to-no automation, some DBS checks were expiring as the Councils required checks to be completed at least every three years. A lapsed check meant that an individual worker would need to be removed from front-line duties, whilst a risk assessment was carried out. The worker would then typically have to wait several weeks until deemed safe to return to duties (often a change of duties), and until a new DBS check had been completed.  

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Solution 

The Talent Clouds platform requires very little input from the central HR team, being highly-automated. Once provided with a few details, the system takes care of contacting the individual applicant, collecting all of their details, sending chaser emails, validating and passing all of the correct information to the DBS for check completion. The identification check is carried out digitally within minutes. Any checks that will be expiring in the near future will result in an automated check renewal being completed – again, with all of the applicant contact, data collections and validation , and any chasing done fully-automatically. 

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Results

The new platform is just being rolled out (March 2024), so it is early days. However, as well as solving all of the non-compliance and risk issues, time and effort savings were calculated. These were estimated to be in the region of 3500-4000 hours per annum, per Council