Are Your Cleaners DBS-Checked?

It's a fair question, and one we get asked more than almost any other. When you hand a cleaning company a key to your building and an alarm code, you're trusting people you've probably never met to be in your premises alone, often at 6am or after everyone's gone home at night. So before we tell you our staff are DBS-checked, it's worth explaining what that actually means, what it doesn't cover, and why it's only one part of vetting a cleaning team properly.

The short version: yes, our cleaners are DBS-checked, and we can show you the certificates. The longer version is more useful, because a lot of cleaning companies say "DBS-checked" the way they say "fully insured" — as a two-word reassurance that falls apart the moment you ask a follow-up question.

What a DBS check actually is

DBS stands for the Disclosure and Barring Service, the government body that replaced the old CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) back in 2012. A DBS check is a formal disclosure of a person's criminal record. It exists so an employer can make a safer, more informed decision about who they take on, particularly for roles that involve access to property, premises, or vulnerable people.

There are three levels, and the difference between them matters a great deal:

Here's the point most cleaning firms gloss over: for standard office and commercial work, a basic DBS check is the correct and legal level. You physically cannot get an enhanced check for someone whose job is hoovering a solicitor's office, because the role isn't eligible. So if a company tells you every one of their office cleaners has an "enhanced DBS", either they don't understand the system or they're stretching the truth. The right question isn't "is it enhanced?" — it's "is it the right level for where my cleaner will be working?"

Why it matters for the buildings we clean

Cleaning is one of the few trades that operates when the building is empty. Your team leaves, the alarm goes on, and a couple of hours later someone is walking through unsupervised with access to every desk, every stationery cupboard, and often the server room. That access is the whole reason vetting exists.

Think about what sits on a typical desk overnight: laptops, phones, loose petty cash, signed documents, patient files in a dental practice, client papers in an accountancy firm. In the buildings we look after through our commercial cleaning services, the cleaner frequently has more unsupervised access to sensitive material than most of the client's own junior staff. Trust isn't a nice-to-have in that situation. It's the product.

There's also the reputational side. If something goes missing and it turns out the cleaning contractor never vetted the person they sent, that's a very uncomfortable conversation for the client's facilities manager to have with their own board. Proper vetting protects you as much as it protects us.

Where a DBS check quietly falls short

We'll be honest about the limits, because pretending a DBS check is a magic guarantee helps nobody. A DBS certificate is a snapshot of a single moment in time. It tells you what was on the record the day it was issued. It does not update itself. Someone checked in 2019 could have picked up a conviction in 2023 and the old certificate would show nothing.

That's why the certificate on its own is close to meaningless if it's five years old and gathering dust in a folder. What matters is the process around it: how often checks are refreshed, whether the company subscribes to the DBS Update Service so a certificate can be re-checked online in real time, and what else sits alongside the check. A DBS disclosure also only covers criminal records — it says nothing about someone's right to work in the UK, their employment history, or whether the references they gave actually exist.

So when we vet a new cleaner, the DBS check is one line on a longer list. We also confirm right-to-work documents, take up at least two references and actually phone them, and check for unexplained gaps in employment history. A clean DBS certificate next to two fake references and a six-month gap nobody can account for is not the reassurance it looks like.

How we vet the people we send to your premises

Every person who works on one of our contracts goes through the same process before they set foot in a client's building, whether they're covering a single school or a run of offices across Gloucester and Cheltenham. It runs roughly like this:

That last point matters more than the paperwork. A DBS check tells you about someone's past; a proper key-holding and access system tells you what's happening now. We treat the two as a pair. If a client asks, we can produce both the vetting file for the individual cleaner and the access log for their site.

What to ask any cleaning company before you sign

If you're comparing quotes, the vetting answers separate the serious operators from the rest far more reliably than the price does. We'd suggest asking these, of us or of anyone else you're considering:

That fourth one catches a lot of firms out. Plenty of cleaning "companies" are really a small office subcontracting the actual work to a loose network of self-employed cleaners, none of whom they've vetted at all. The company is insured and DBS-checked on paper; the person in your building is a stranger to them. We directly employ our cleaning staff, which is precisely why we can stand behind their vetting. It's a theme we come back to often across the cleaning industry articles we publish, because it's the single biggest gap between how the industry markets itself and how it actually operates.

Whether you run a busy town-centre office or need reliable overnight office cleaning for a professional practice, the standard should be the same: every cleaner vetted, checks current, access controlled, and the paperwork available to see rather than merely promised. If you'd like to talk it through or see our vetting process in detail, call us on 0800 069 9055 or email [email protected] and we'll walk you through exactly who would be looking after your building and how we've checked them.

Frequently asked questions

Are all Gloucestershire Cleaning Company cleaners DBS-checked?

Yes. Every member of our cleaning staff holds a valid DBS check before they work on any contract. We use a basic check as standard for commercial and office sites, and an enhanced check where a site requires it, such as care homes or settings involving vulnerable people. We're happy to show you the relevant certificate for the person assigned to your premises.

What level of DBS check do commercial cleaners need?

For standard office and commercial cleaning, a basic DBS check is the correct legal level. Standard and enhanced checks are only available for eligible roles, typically those involving unsupervised contact with children or vulnerable adults. Any company claiming all their general office cleaners hold enhanced checks has either misunderstood the system or is overstating things.

How often are DBS checks renewed?

A DBS certificate isn't automatically updated after it's issued, so its value depends on how it's managed. We keep checks current and, where appropriate, use the DBS Update Service so a certificate can be verified online rather than relying on a document that may be years out of date. We'd suggest asking any contractor how recent their checks actually are.

Does a DBS check guarantee a cleaner is trustworthy?

No single check can guarantee that, and we wouldn't claim otherwise. A DBS check only shows a criminal record at one point in time. That's why we pair it with verified references, right-to-work checks, a supervised probation period, and controlled key and alarm access, so trust is built on a full process rather than one certificate.

Do you employ your cleaners directly or use subcontractors?

We directly employ our cleaning staff, which is what allows us to vet them properly and stand behind that vetting. Some firms subcontract the actual cleaning to self-employed individuals they haven't checked. If you're comparing quotes, always ask whether the person in your building is employed and vetted by the company you're paying.

Can I see proof that my cleaner has been checked?

Yes. On request we'll provide the vetting details for the specific cleaner assigned to your site, along with our key-holding and access records. Get in touch on 0800 069 9055 or [email protected] and we'll arrange it as part of setting up your cleaning contract.