News of the sacking of England women’s football team manager Mark Sampson has featured across the media and it and has put recruitment practices under the spotlight.  Mark Sampson was sacked for blurring the "boundaries between coach and player”, i.e. having a 6 month relationship with one of the academy players whilst he managed Bristol Women which occurred some 4 years before his appointment as England coach.

It has brought into the fore, the reality that most employers will want to ask candidates about any previous wrongdoing at historic employment.  This is clearly something that would be queried if it has been revealed in a reference from a former employer, however with a growing trend of bland references how much can a prospective employer really find out.  Often the answer is: quite little!  

To counter the trend, larger employers are often now making their recruitment process more robust and it is not uncommon for candidates to be asked to complete a detailed questionnaire in an attempt to reveal more information.  It should be noted that if a prospective employee lies, gets the job and the mistruth is later discovered, this is often grounds for fair dismissal.  Employers are also seeking more detail from ex employers and it is not unusual for prospective employers to seek more information about why an employee left and their conduct whilst employed, that said, many employers simply have a recruitment policy that supplies only name, date and job title and no amount of correspondence will sway them from this policy.

Moreover, questions about criminal records are often not discloseable, unless an applicant is working with children, vulnerable adults, or they belong to certain professions, there is no obligation to disclose historical convictions that are ‘spent’. Whether the conviction is spent will depend on the original sentence and the length of time that has passed since the applicant was convicted. The more severe the sentence the longer it will take before it becomes spent and where it was a custodial sentence of over four years it will never be spent.  An employer may decide not to employ an applicant who has an unspent conviction. On the other hand if a conviction is spent, the employer would not normally be aware of it as the applicant does not have to reveal it.

In short, it is worth assessing your recruitment policy and approach in an attempt to reveal misconduct issues at the earliest opportunity but it must be borne in mind that the reality is, often an employee is not obliged to disclose the information and ex employers don’t want to get involved!  Employing staff is never without risk.