When an ACS assessor, a client auditor or an insurer tests your BS 7858 compliance, they do one thing: pull a screening file and check what is inside it. This checklist is everything a complete file contains, in the order an auditor looks for it, plus the gaps that cause most failures. New to the standard? Read BS 7858:2019 explained in plain English first.
The complete file, item by item
Section A · Before anything else
- Signed screening consent, naming the checks and the data processing involved.
- Completed application or screening questionnaire, signed and dated by the applicant.
- Named screening decision-maker recorded for the file.
- Identity documents: certified copies, checked against the person, with the checker's name and date.
- Right to work evidence: the statutory check, done before day one, copy retained.
- Address history covering the required period, with documentary support.
- Continuous employment and education history with no unexplained gaps.
- Written verification from each employer in the period (dates, role, reason for leaving), or documented evidence of genuine attempts and an alternative check.
- Gap evidence: every break accounted for and supported (benefits letters, travel stamps, self-employment records, a statutory declaration where nothing else exists).
- Character referee responses, independent of family, recorded with contact details and dates.
- Financial probity result (CCJs, insolvency), with the applicant's explanation recorded for any adverse finding.
- Criminal record declaration consistent with the role, and a basic disclosure where used.
- Screening decision: pass, fail or incomplete, signed and dated by the named decision-maker, with reasons.
- Conditional employment record where used: preliminary checks evidence, start date, supervision arrangements, and completion inside the 12 week limit.
- Training evidence for the screener and the subject where required, ideally certificates that can be verified online.
- Retention note: what will be kept, for how long, under which lawful basis.
The five gaps that fail audits
- Unexplained history gaps. Three missing weeks is a finding. Chase every gap to evidence or a signed declaration.
- Conditional employment with no clock. Someone started "temporarily" a year ago and screening never finished. Diary the 12 week limit the day they start.
- Referee attempts not documented. Trying twice and giving up is defensible only if the attempts are in the file.
- Subcontractor blind spots. If subcontracted staff work your contracts, your file duty follows them. Hold confirmation of their screening or do it yourself.
- Files kept forever. Over-retention is a UK GDPR breach sitting inside your compliance evidence. Set retention and honour it.
Free template and worked examples
The free BS 7858 study guide PDF includes the six key screening forms as worked examples: consent, questionnaire, employer verification, referee request, gap declaration and the screening decision record. Print them, adapt them, use them.
Make the evidence self-serve
Half of audit pain is retrieval. Put training on a live training matrix so assigned, completed and refresher-due dates are one screen, and use certificates with public verification links so nobody has to trust a photocopy. Your screening files stay in the cabinet; everything around them becomes a link.