An unspent conviction is when you have not completed your rehabilitation period. The rehabilitation period applicable to a conviction is based on the sentence you receive at court and whether you are made subject to a ‘relevant court order’.

If you have an unspent conviction:

• you must by law disclose your criminal record if asked
• it will show up on Basic, Standard and Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks
• you may face dismissal or prosecution if you are asked and fail to disclose the conviction

You do not have to voluntarily self-disclose. You only need to disclose if you’re asked, for example verbally or on an application form.

If the role involves a Basic DBS check and you have a spent conviction, you do not legally have to declare that spent conviction on the application form.

Criminal record checks when you apply for a role (GOV.UK)

Find out when your criminal record becomes ‘spent’, and whether you need to disclose it to employers and others.

Disclosure calculator (Unlock)

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 aims to ensure that people with a conviction are not unfairly penalised by employers when applying for a job.

Basic DBS check (Unlock)

If you are required to complete a Standard DBS check, you must disclose any:

• unspent convictions
• spent convictions that are not protected
• cautions, reprimands and final warnings that are not protected

Standard DBS check (Unlock)

If the job you are applying for requires an Enhanced DBS check, you must disclose by law:

• spent convictions that are not protected
• cautions, reprimands and final warnings that are not protected

You can apply for any role with a criminal record, as long as you are not on the:

• Children’s Barred list
• Adult Barred list

You can be on one list or both.

If your conviction is unprotected

Offences which include many violent crimes and most sexual offences will appear on your Standard or Enhanced criminal records check indefinitely. You must disclose these in the following occupations:

• those regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority
• working as a solicitor or barrister
• positions working with children and vulnerable adults
• working in the licensed security industry (SIA licences)
• working in health and social care

You can apply for any role that requires a Basic, Standard or Enhanced DBS check. Having an unprotected conviction is not a bar to working in these roles.

The only exception is where you are barred from regulated activity. You would be notified about this separately by the DBS. In these circumstances, you should not apply for any Enhanced with Barred List(s) DBS check.

If your convictions are not spent or protected

You would need to disclose your conviction when an employer asks.

When you disclose, a good employer will do a risk assessment and speak to you about your convictions before they make a decision. But some may withdraw your application.

A small number of employers are known to operate a 'clean DBS' policy. This is a breach of the DBS Code of Practice. However, it can be difficult to challenge this as an employer is legally entitled to reject an applicant with an unspent conviction.

Protected convictions are automatically removed from Standard and Enhanced DBS checks after 11 years. You do not need to do anything for this process to occur. This is called ‘filtering off’.

Filtering (Unlock)

There is a list of offences that can never be filtered from Standard or Enhanced DBS checks. If you have a conviction for one of these offences it may still become spent, depending on the rehabilitation period applicable, but it cannot become protected.

List of offences that will never be filtered from a DBS certificate (GOV.UK)

Enhanced DBS check (Unlock)

A pending conviction (or 'impending prosecution') is when a person has been charged with a crime but has not been found or pled guilty.

If you have a pending prosecution, it will not show up on a Basic or Standard check. 

If the police feel the matter is relevant to the role you’re applying for and should be disclosed for a safeguarding purpose, it may be disclosed as 'police information' on an Enhanced DBS check.

If you are found guilty of a crime or plead guilty, you will need to:

• disclose this in future job applications
• check your employment contract to see if you need to tell your current employer

Every company’s recruitment process varies.

It is worth researching employers' policies on recruiting ex-offenders and which checks they use.

Use your CV or cover letter to show your skills and work experience and why you are a good match for the role.

To address employment gaps in your CV, you could write ‘unavailable for work’ and specify when you were unemployed. 

It is not recommended you declare your criminal record on a CV or cover letter.

If you took part in education or training while out of work or in prison, include this in your CV. You can ask your probation officer to help with this.

Writing a CV

Writing cover letters

If you must disclose by law, there are many ways of approaching this.

Application form

Application forms often have a section asking for disclosure of convictions. You could:

• declare your conviction on the form and add a disclosure statement
• or acknowledge you have a conviction and agree to provide more details if invited to interview

Disclosure statement

If you must declare your conviction by law, you should start to think about how you will discuss it at interview. Bring a written statement as evidence of your disclosure. You should be prepared for an employer to ask questions.

Disclosure statements (Unlock)

Contact Unlock, an independent charity offering free information and advice for people with criminal records.

Contact Nacro for free criminal record advice, information and guidance for individuals and employers.