The Disclosure and Barring Service, which has replaced CRB checks, has announced details of its new Update Service, which will be launched in June and “save the customer time and money and improve the overall safeguarding landscape".

The Disclosure and Barring Service, formed from the merger of the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority, launched in December last year.

It promised initiatives to improve the current record-checking process, such as portable CRB checks to remove the necessity of repeated checking, and an online service to make it easier for employers to assess individuals.

And now the Update Service has been confirmed for a 17 June launch, with the declaration that it will "put individuals in greater control of their own information and reduce bureaucracy".

Workers can subscribe to the Update Service for £13 per year to keep their DBS certificate current, allowing them to take it with them from role-to-role within the same organisation.

The employer will, with the Update Service-subscribed employees’s permission, be able to go online and immediately carry out a free check to find out if the information released on the DBS certificate is up-to-date.

The Home Office says that consequently "millions of employees and volunteers will no longer have to apply for a new criminal record check each time they apply for a job".

Further detail is available on the government’s website here.