@caned_monkey 432328 wrote:

Yeah it does very much depend on the employer, but i believe that the vast majority wouldnt give a second thought to over looking someone with a record for someone without. It also depends how much your heart is set on the job and what hoops youre prepared to jump through to get it.

This is true, for instance having served even a short sentence in prison reduces your chances of employment to 33% (I remember getting that info from the NACRO charity) but ironically the more prejudiced employers often tend to be in private businesses where they don’t even have the right to get enhanced CRB.

To be fair I’ve not got a issue with employers rejecting people who have been done for repeated crimes of dishonesty or violence – especially round here in East London / Essex / Suffolk where sadly people try and ape the “dodgy dealer / hard man ” image off telly and movies… but not for a single non violent offence committed years ago or non-problematic drug use (such as in Poly’s case).

However I work in healthcare where by necessity people are relatively tolerant and less judgemental especially in management, plus its not seen a a particularly popular occupation so there is less competition for staff. For some jobs the employers have a Hobsons choice of taking local people who might have minor criminal records, or incurring the extra expense of recruiting from out of area or foreigners – I’m not being racist here (I’m British Asian after all!) – but pointing out that businesses employing a significant amount of foreign staff are made to do extra admin work for Border Agency at their expense to keep track of them, and time is money. (and these staff still need CRB as well, which takes even longer to arrive as they have to get the info from feds in some other country…)

Unfortunately for those who don’t have clear CRB a lot of “normal” jobs now require it, especially field based engineers for mundane things like lifts and telephone systems as they may need to visit schools / colleges / hospitals…. though CRB is a better system than what we had before where cops passed info “under the table” to local employers and businessmen (a practice which is now illegal!)