HO View or share your DBS result beta reassessment report
HO View or share your DBS result beta reassessment report
View or share your DBS result
| Assessment date | 31/07/2026 |
| Assessment stage | Beta |
| Assessment type | Red Re-assessment |
| Service provider | Disclosure and Barring Service |
| Result | Amber |
Previous assessment reports
• Beta 23/03/26
• Alpha 04/10/22 View My DBS Result alpha assessment - GOV.UK
Service description
This service removes reliance on paper DBS certificates by giving applicants faster, digital access to their DBS result. Applicants can track application progress, view their result securely, and share with a 3rd party (usually an employer).
This replaces paper-based processes, allows employers to view results promptly, and helps reduce delays between job offers and onboarding, supporting quicker, safer and more efficient recruitment decisions.
Service users
Primary Users
• People applying for jobs or volunteering roles that require a DBS check
• Employers or organisations who are recruiting roles that require a DBS check
Things the service team has done well:
● See initial beta assessment.
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 1 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
This is amber because:
● The team has a significant research gap around users with previous convictions who cannot view their DBS result online. Although this group represents only around 4% of total applicants, the impact is high as this still equates to 180,000 applicants. The lack of visibility may increase anxiety and confusion. The team reflected that legacy technology constraints prevent a digital journey for these users but more research is needed to understand this cohort’s needs and to ensure content / messaging does not unintentionally increase worry or create a sense of unequal treatment.
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service was rated green for point 2 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
● Consider if gender needs to be on the DBS results. While it might be required for the request part of the journey, it is not clear if gender is a requirement for the results for either the organisation or the individual.
● The team should continue working with the wider programme to make DBS status available to all users. In the current service, legacy constraints mean that some checks with additional information are not available online. A wider transformation programme in DBS is underway to address this and in the meantime the service has identified a way forward that makes status available online for 95%+ of users.
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
● The team should explore alternative designs to sharing DBS status with an organisation requiring both an email and an SMS share code, reflecting on user feedback that applicants do not do this. The approach was introduced as a multifactor security control but adds complexity for users that will often be circumvented by users emailing both to organisations against guidance. The panel would encourage the service team to see if there are other ways to ensure that both the service is secure and the users’ experience straightforward.
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service was rated green for point 4 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 5 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
This is amber because:
● The team should test the Welsh language version of the service with Welsh language users through user research to ensure the content meets equivalent standards for clarity and simplicity to the English language journey.
● The team should document and test the full assisted digital journey. Where other organisations are providing this, the service should consider what guidance content is required.
● The team should consider what content is necessary for expectation management to reduce the number of times users are coming into the service to refresh and check their status.
● The team should also change the nightly content around the service being down for maintenance to be a more accurate reflection of why the service is unavailable. The panel is concerned that while the sustainability choice of a non 24/7 service is admirable, the content that implies a nightly maintenance could cause distrust in the service.
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service was rated green for point 6 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
● Progress existing plans to adopt an enduring support and incident management process using existing DBS helplines and platforms to align with the wider user experience for Standard & Enhanced checks.
● Explore if additional service/interaction design expertise can be drawn into the service team to support design iteration and alignment to the GOV.UK Design System.
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 7 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
This is amber because:
● The team did not present a clear plan for how organisations will be onboarded to the digital service incrementally. The team reflected that this will be dependent on the wider Standard & Enhanced programme. The team should prepare an onboarding roadmap setting out how organisations will be onboarded in a controlled way with mechanisms for review and iteration.
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service was rated green for point 8 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
● Review how feedback is collected from users during the Beta phase and applied to new iterations of the service.
● Ensure the rollout plan is incremental and allows the service to be improved based on feedback from new organisations and users, particularly where they differ from the existing userbase such as new sectors.
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 9 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
This is amber because:
● The service makes use of One Login for Government, but this has been restricted to authentication and not identity verification. While the panel accepts that ID verification is outside the immediate responsibility of the View and Share service, we did not see evidence of how the user journey could be improved through the use of re-using the digital identity verification provided by One Login for Government.
● The service requires the user to provide information on their sex at birth, due to dependencies with legacy backend systems. While the panel accepts that this is a limitation of the technology, there was no evidence on why this needs to be presented back to the user or the potential employer. The team should provide further evidence on the need to sex at birth or gender to be shared back to users of the service.
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 10 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
This is amber because:
● The service team needs to investigate suitable dashboarding tool(s) for sharing and displaying key performance indicators and metrics with stakeholders. A secure sharing solution needs to be in place for ensuring analytics can be viewed by stakeholders and peers in a way that ensures GDPR compliance and protects personal information.
● Objectives of the service need to be linked to the KPIs and metrics – through a performance framework or similar. This includes identifying key service metrics outside the 4 mandatory KPIs set in the service manual.
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service was rated green for point 11 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 12 of the Standard at the red reassessment.
To be reviewed: within 6 months (31/01/27).
Recommendations:
• Move from manual to automated deployment of code changes when updating Main on GitLab to avoid stale code on GitHub.
• Consider coding in the open for future repos to be open sourced.
• Provide an update on the paternal to release further repos, such as the data structure or secure sharing feature which were mentioned.
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service was rated green for point 13 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service was rated amber for point 14 of the Standard at the initial beta assessment.
This is amber because:
● Review content on the maintenance page which is currently being used for when the service is unavailable due to planned maintenance and the daily out-of-hours period. The current page does not clearly set out that the service is unavailable daily from 23:30 to 08:00 for cost and environmental reasons. The team should explore having distinct pages for maintenance and out-of-hours with clear, user-centred content. This will give users of the service greater clarity on why the service is unavailable out-of-hours and increase trust.
Next Steps
This service can now move into a public beta phase, subject to addressing the amber points within three months’ time (or six months for point 12), and GDS spend approval.
This service now has permission to launch on a GOV.UK service domain with a beta banner. These instructions explain how to set up your *.service.gov.uk domain.