Police “Word of advice” and enhanced dbs

[Seeker2]

Looking for clarification.

Relative’s partner who is LD and ASD received visit from police who told him that they were issuing him with “word of advice” due to behaviour he had engaged in that amounted to harassment.

Due to his LD and ASD he did not fully understand what the police were telling him. He is now in a panic about what a police “word of advice” is, and how this impacts on any future dbs needed.

He thought they said it would be on an enhanced dbs for 2 years, but has received conflicting information from other people saying that it’s for life

He was visited at home by police. They recorded themselves telling him that he was being issued with “word of advice”. He did not have an appropriate adult present for all of the time (am unclear whether his mother was there for all or part of it, but she often makes things worse).

As his partner (my relative) also has LD and ASD, along with memory issues they were unable to verify clearly what the police has said either.

Would appreciate any clarification on this as both my relative and her partner are very agitated and it’s not helping their physical/mental wellbeing either currently because they are worrying about this.

If a person has had a word of advice from the police, I would not expect them to be doing a role that requires enhanced DBS. I rub a small charity for vulnerable adults and children. We require enhanced DBS for volunteers plus questions about this sort if thing that may or may not appear on a DBS.

For a basic dbs it won’t be included. For an enhanced dbs, it will go to a decision maker who will decide whether it needs to be included based on the details.
https://police.community/topic/360375-words-of-advice-on-enhanced-dbs/

Disagree strongly with the first answer. Whether someone should be permitted to do a role requiring an enhanced DBS after words of advice is dependent on the nature of the role and the reason for the words of advice.

A word of advice is non-conviction information. It is not automatically included on an enhanced DBS. It is up to the police to decide if this information should be included. There is statutory guidance that they are required by law to follow when making this decision. You can read the guidance at Statutory disclosure guidance - GOV.UK, but in essence the information must be relevant to the role the person wishes to undertake, sufficiently serious, sufficiently credible and sufficiently current. For some roles, the information will not be relevant so cannot be disclosed. However, even for roles where it is disclosable, it is highly unlikely it will be on there for life.

I'm afraid many people continue to believe that all information appears on a DBS for life. That has not been true for over a decade. Some convictions and cautions are there for life, but most are not. Non-conviction information should only be there for life it if is extremely serious.

Could you facilitate a phone call to the police to help the people ask about it?

What did your relatives do to warrant a police visit. Surely they should be acknowledging this first?! I would be more concerned that they are panicking about the visit rather than addressing what they have done.

@1apenny2apenny reading It back I’ve not worded it very well.

My relative’s partner is very aware of what he did, and feels awful about it. I had just focused on the police “word of advice” in my query as they did not fully understand what that meant.

@Luckypoppy thank you for that information. I will look at it and try to explain it to them.

That’s a good suggestion. I may do this, if struggle to explain using the information shared by @Luckypoppy.

They recorded themselves telling him…

This sounds……strange.

Is a "word of advice" what they used to call a caution?

Because cautions also used to appear on DBSs.

Not at all.

Without recording themselves they'd have no evidence of carrying out the "word of advice".

Apologies for the derail, but I've been down the rabbit hole of offences that cannot be filtered off a dbs (I. E. Have to be declared), and Violating female heir to Crown is listed 😳

From what I’ve been able to gleam from looking at info online, it the stage before a caution. More of an informal warning, but can still be logged on enhanced dbs.

I think this is so the police have evidence of the conversation and why “word of advice” was given.