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The Open University was founded in the UK in 1969 with the aim of widening access to higher education across the UK. The OU is the largest university in the UK by student numbers, with around 185,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The Covid-19 vaccine roll-out is well underway across the UK. Vaccination centres have sprung up in almost every town and city, staffed by both NHS staff and health professionals drawn from other sectors. In addition to the paid staff, volunteers are needed to support the effort. Although there was a big recruitment drive for NHS volunteers at the start of the pandemic, there is still plenty of opportunity to get involved if you’re interested.

In terms of employment, background screening refers to all of the checks which employers carry out before taking on a new member of staff. Technology is revolutionising the way in which this is done, with smart new computer programs taking a lot of the burden away from recruiters.

Having people working in their own homes reduces commuting time and expense for the workers and might allow the employer to downsize their office space and save money on overheads too. Recruitment at a distance is often tricky but checking that you have the right people working for your company is still critical, even if they are going to be working from home.

Strategy documents are, on the whole, somewhat dull. Sometimes however, having a look at a strategy document gives clues about where an organisation might be headed over the next few years. This is certainly the case with the DBS strategy document recently released which lays out the organisation’s plans for the next five years, running up to 2025.

Many of the delays in the DBS system are down to human error. Mistakes which we make completing the form or providing our documents can cause big hold-ups in the certificate arriving, and in the worst-case scenario, can mean your application is rejected outright.

You hear people about passing and failing things all the time – exams, driving tests, credit checks, and DBS checks. You’ll even see it in job adverts, where recruiters say that appointment is conditional on passing a criminal records check. The problem is that this language isn’t really accurate and paints a false picture of how the system operates in practice.

One of the main DBS myths is that only people who are going to be working with children need checks into their criminal record. Although it’s certainly true that most people who will be working with kids will need an enhanced DBS check, there are lots of other groups of workers who need to go through the process too.

It’s common to see jobs advertised which state that applicants need to complete a disclosure check. There are a few steps before you get to that stage though, one of the most important of which is to verify your identity.

The surge of volunteers stepping forward to help the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic came as no surprise to people who work in the UK voluntary sector. Even before the pandemic hit, 20 million of us were giving up time on a regular basis to volunteer for a cause close to their hearts.