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Criminal Convictions Declaration

Before becoming eligible to enrol, you’ll need to complete a criminal conviction declaration questionnaire. Although it is our policy to request information on unspent criminal convictions from our offer holders, declaring one will not automatically prevent you from enrolling onto a course at LSBU.

Why do we ask for this information?

  • To ensure that the admissions process is fair, inclusive and transparent;
  • To help to identify and minimise any risk to the safety of staff, students and visitors;
  • To protect the University’s property;
  • To enable the University to assess eligibility for admission to, and ability to complete, courses.

Before completing the questionnaire, please read through the information below. The deadline to complete the task is four weeks from receiving your offer email. A personalised link to the questionnaire will be included in your offer email.

This info is only for Health And Social Care Applicants

All Health and Social Care Applicants are not entitled to withhold information about any convictions, cautions, reprimands or warnings, including those relating to juvenile offences. Posts entailing contact with patients are exempt from the provisions of Section 4 (2) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975.

Students with cautions or criminal convictions may not be able to undertake work or placements, depending on the convictions or cautions in question and as a result may not be able to complete the course, register or practise. It is for this reason that criminal convictions information is requested from applicants at this stage.  The School of Health and Social Care may decline an application where an applicant’s record is deemed unsuitable for admission to pre-registration programmes.

Please note that the School of Health and Social Care is unlikely to be able to accept your application where your conviction(s) relate to:

-         sexual, violent and serious drug or drink offences;

-         a series of offences over a period of time;

-         a custodial sentence of more than 12 months; or

-         any other offence that might pose a threat to staff, students or others;

Where this is the case, you may choose not to provide further details other than nature of the offence(s) and the date on which the offence(s) took place.

Successful applicants will be required to undergo a DBS check upon enrolment to their chosen pre-registration course to ensure that they are not barred from working within allied health.

Before enrolling onto your course you will be asked to provide information relating to fitness to practise requirements, within the allied health professions and suitability for social work, on the basis that LSBU will not accept students on to courses which they will be unable to complete due to the fitness to practise or good character requirements of their chosen regulated profession.

What if I don’t have a criminal conviction?

You should still log into the questionnaire and let us know. You simply need to fill in your name, date of birth and student ID (which can be found on your offer email). The first question asks whether you have any unspent criminal convictions. If you don’t, you only need to tick ‘no’ and submit.

What is an ‘unspent’ and ‘relevant’ criminal conviction?

The info below is for all applicants except Health And Social Care.

The law surrounding spent and unspent criminal convictions is complex and you may wish to seek advice from charities Unlock or Nacro on whether your conviction should be disclosed. It is important to note that a failure to declare a relevant unspent conviction must be taken very seriously and you should ask for confidential support before completing the questionnaire if you are unsure.

We will give you more advice on how to determine whether your conviction is spent at the beginning of the questionnaire, but there is also some useful information on the Ask the Police Website.

When declaring a conviction, you will only need to let us know about relevant offences:

  • Any kind of violence including (but not limited to) threatening behaviour, offences concerning the intention to harm or offences which resulted in actual bodily harm;
  • Sexual offences, including those listed in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (or similar legislation where conviction obtained outside the UK);
  • The unlawful supply of controlled drugs or substances where the conviction concerns commercial drug dealing or trafficking (drug offences only involving possession are not relevant offences);
  • Offences involving firearms;
  • Offences involving arson;
  • Offences involving terrorism;
  • Specific unspent convictions which may be a barrier to completing specified courses.

What if I do have an unspent criminal conviction?

If you declare a criminal conviction, the questionnaire will ask you a few more questions. Here is the process:

  • We need to know who you are, so we will ask for your name, date of birth and student ID (which is on your offer email)
  • If you have unspent/relevant convictions, you’ll be asked for more details about these
  • Once you’ve submitted the questionnaire, we’ll update your student record
  • We may write to you via email to ask for additional information if required, e.g. a probation officer’s report, pre-sentencing report, employer reference.
  • A nominated member of the Admissions Management Team will usually determine whether to admit an applicant with criminal convictions in the light of a risk assessment, which is separate to and will not influence a decision relating to an applicant’s academic eligibility to be admitted to the University.
  • Where the nominated member of the Admissions Team considers that the matter is complex, a panel, which is made up of senior University staff will assess the information you have provided.
  • The only staff who will see the details of your conviction will be a member of the Admissions Management, and the assessment panel
  • If your offer is approved by the panel, we will send you an email to let you know
  • If your offer is not approved, the Head of Admissions (or nominee) will write to inform you of the decision

What do we take into account when assessing your case?

The following factors will be taken into account when considering the relevance of convictions:

  • the nature of the offence(s);
  • the nature of the course applied to and the relevance of the offence if any to the course;
  • the seriousness of the offence(s);
  • the date(s) on which the offence(s) occurred;
  • the frequency of offence(s) and any pattern of offending;
  • any changes since the conviction e.g. treatment received by the applicant;
  • any additional relevant information e.g. probation officer’s report, pre-sentencing report and/or details of the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offence.

Will a conviction affect my employability after graduating?

There are certain professions which may have rules surrounding criminal convictions. It is worth taking a look at Unlock’s Guidance on occupations to make yourself aware of any challenges you may face in the future.

How we store your data

Information relating to criminal convictions will be stored separately from your other application-related information and will only be made available to those who need to consider it as part of our risk assessment and admissions process.  The information will be anonymised where reasonably possible and appropriate. Information will usually be retained in a form (PDF File 863 KB) that identifies the applicant for no longer than is necessary.

Full details on our Criminal Convictions process can be found in section 2.40 of our Admissions and Enrolment Procedure (PDF File 1,043 KB).

Right to Study Check

At Enrolment, all enrolling students will need to complete a Right to Study check. In preparation for this, we would like to give you some more information on what this involves and what you will need to do when you come to enrol. Please note, you do not need to do anything now, except familiarise yourself with the information below, and the Right to Study (PDF File 1,008 KB) document.

Who needs a right to study check?

  • Anyone who wants to commence the enrolment process in order to study a course and/or attend classes/lectures at LSBU
  • Anyone who is currently enrolled as a student in order to study a course and/or attend classes/lectures at LSBU

What is the ‘right to study’?

  • The ‘right to study’ means you have permission to remain in the UK and this permission does not restrict you from study at LSBU.
  • 'Permission’ could be a visa or endorsement, or you may be entitled to remain in the UK because you are the family member of someone who has permission to remain in the UK

Why do we need to do checks?

LSBU holds a Tier 4 Sponsor Licence as part of our status as a Tier 4 sponsor. We are required by the Home Office to take steps to ensure that every student studying at the institution has permission to study in the UK throughout the whole period of their study. Failure to do so is a breach of our duties as a Tier 4 Sponsor and can result in compliance action against us or the revocation of our licence.

What you must do:

Please ensure that you read our Right to Study (PDF File 1,008 KB) document, and refer to Appendix A and B which gives examples of visas and immigration status. As an offer holder It is important that you understand if you have the right to study prior to commencing enrolment as a student at LSBU.

Fees and Funding

Once you have accepted your place to study at LSBU, it’s a good time to apply for financial support. Your status for fees and funding purposes will be assessed by our team when you come to enrol at LSBU and you will be asked to bring along details of how you will pay your fees. For more information in relation to fees and funding, and the different options available to you, please see our Fees and Funding page.

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