Are Your Cleaners DBS-Checked and Insured? What to Verify

Here is a question we wish more people asked before signing a cleaning contract: who is actually holding the keys to your building at 5am, and what happens if they drop a laptop, flood a server cupboard, or turn out to have a history nobody bothered to check? Vetting and insurance are the two things that separate a proper commercial cleaning company from a bloke with a van and a mop. They are also the two things easiest to fudge on a website. We DBS-check every cleaner on our team and we carry full commercial insurance, and in this guide we will show you exactly what that means in practice, why it matters for your business, and the specific questions to put to any contractor before you let them in.

Why vetting and insurance are two separate promises

People tend to lump these together, but they protect you against completely different risks. A DBS check tells you about the person. Insurance tells you what happens when something physical goes wrong. You need both, and a company that has one but not the other has left a hole in your protection.

Think about how a cleaning contract actually works. Most commercial cleaning happens out of hours, when the building is empty. Our teams let themselves in with keys or fobs, move through every room including the ones the day staff keep locked, and leave before anyone arrives. Nobody is watching. That arrangement only works if you trust the people involved, and trust that is not backed by a background check is just hope. On the other side, even the most careful, longest-serving cleaner can knock a monitor off a desk or catch a radiator pipe with a floor scrubber. When that happens you want a policy behind it, not an awkward conversation about who pays.

So when you ask "are your cleaners DBS-checked and insured", you are really asking two things: can I trust the individuals, and am I covered if the work causes damage or injury. We treat them as two separate standards because they are.

What a DBS check actually covers (and what it does not)

DBS stands for the Disclosure and Barring Service, the government body that replaced the old Criminal Records Bureau in 2012. A DBS check pulls an individual's criminal record so an employer can make an informed decision about hiring them. There are three levels, and the differences matter more than most cleaning companies admit.

A Basic check shows unspent convictions and conditional cautions only. Anyone can apply for one about themselves, and it is the level most relevant to general commercial cleaning of offices, warehouses and shops. A Standard check adds spent convictions, cautions, reprimands and final warnings. An Enhanced check goes further again, adding any additional information a local police force considers relevant, and it is the level used for regulated roles working closely with children or vulnerable adults.

Here is the honest bit a lot of firms leave out: a cleaner mopping an accountancy office does not legally require an Enhanced check, and claiming everyone holds one is usually a sign the company does not understand the system. What matters is that the check level fits the environment. For standard commercial premises we run appropriate DBS checks as part of vetting. For sensitive settings such as schools, GP surgeries and care homes, we match the higher level of check the setting demands, because a care home cleaning contract carries safeguarding obligations an ordinary office simply does not.

One more thing worth knowing: a DBS certificate is a snapshot from the day it was issued. It does not automatically update. A company that ran a check in 2019 and never looked again is technically telling the truth when they say their staff are "DBS-checked", while the information could be years out of date. That gap is exactly where sloppy operators hide.

How we vet the people who hold your keys

A DBS check is one layer, not the whole thing. A criminal record search tells you what someone has been convicted of. It tells you nothing about whether they turn up, whether they are careful, or whether the address and identity on the application are even real. Our vetting runs wider than the certificate.

Before anyone is put on a client site we confirm their identity against original documents, verify their right to work in the UK, and take up references we actually phone rather than email into a void. We check employment history for unexplained gaps and follow them up. For key-holding roles we go further, because handing someone a master fob to an office at 4am is a different level of trust than a daytime shift with the client present.

Then there is what happens after hiring, which is where most of the real risk lives. New cleaners are trained on-site and supervised before they work unaccompanied. We keep a stable, directly employed team rather than churning through agency staff, because the person who cleaned your reception last month knowing where everything goes is worth more than a stranger every week, and it means the people in your building are people we know. Where a role warrants it, we ask staff to sign up to the DBS Update Service, which lets a certificate be re-checked online rather than sitting frozen from the day it was printed. Vetting is a process we maintain, not a box we ticked once.

The insurance that sits behind the work

Insurance is where the vague answers really pile up, so let us be specific about what a commercial cleaning contractor should carry and what each policy is actually for.

Public liability is the big one. It covers injury to third parties or damage to their property caused by our work. Real examples: a client's employee slips on a floor we have just mopped and left without a wet-floor sign, or a cleaner catches a framed print with a vacuum and it comes off the wall. Public liability is what pays for that. Ours is held at a level appropriate to commercial premises, and we can confirm the figure in writing before you sign.

Employers' liability is a legal requirement in the UK for almost any business with staff, us included. It covers our own cleaners if they are hurt at work. You might think that is our problem not yours, and it mostly is, but a contractor without it is breaking the law and cutting corners, and a company that cuts that corner is cutting others you cannot see.

Treatment or "damage to goods being worked on" cover is the one people forget. Standard public liability sometimes excludes the specific item you were cleaning at the moment it was damaged. If a cleaning solution reacts badly with a delicate surface, or a machine marks a floor we were treating, this is the cover that responds. It is genuinely relevant to work like deep cleaning and specialist surface work, and its absence is a common gap in cheap policies.

Key-holding and loss-of-keys cover matters if we hold keys or fobs, which for out-of-hours contracts we usually do. Losing a set of master keys to a building can mean re-keying or replacing an access system, and that runs into real money. This cover deals with it.

The point is not to drown you in policy names. It is that "we're insured" is not an answer. Insured for what, to what level, and does the certificate actually cover the job you are hiring us to do. A real contractor will hand you the certificate. We do.

How to check a cleaning company is telling the truth

Anyone can type "fully insured and DBS-checked" onto a homepage. Verifying it takes about ten minutes and is worth every one. Here is what we would do if we were hiring us.

Ask for the insurance certificate, not a promise. A genuine one names the insurer, the policy number, the cover levels and the expiry date. Check the expiry has not passed. If public liability is quoted at a level that looks thin for your premises, ask why. Ask which level of DBS check the staff on your site hold and whether it suits your environment, because a school or surgery should expect a different answer to a warehouse. Ask who is actually employed versus subcontracted, because vetting promises mean little if the work is passed to agency staff the contractor never checked. Ask for references from clients in a similar sector to yours and phone one. And ask what happens after an accident: is there a documented process, a named contact, a claims route, or just a shrug.

A confident contractor welcomes every one of these questions because the answers are their advantage. Evasiveness is the answer. If you would like ours in writing, that is the fastest way to see the difference. Call us on 0800 069 9055 or email [email protected] and we will send our certificate and vetting policy over before you have committed to anything. You can compare it against whoever else is quoting for your commercial cleaning and see who actually has their paperwork in order.

Frequently asked questions

Are all your cleaners DBS-checked?

Yes. Every member of our cleaning team is vetted with a DBS check at a level appropriate to the sites they work on, alongside identity, right-to-work and reference checks. For standard commercial premises that is typically a Basic or Standard check; for schools, care homes and healthcare settings we match the enhanced level those environments require.

What level of DBS check do cleaners actually need?

It depends entirely on the setting. General office, retail and warehouse cleaning does not legally require an Enhanced check, so a Basic or Standard check is the honest and appropriate level. Enhanced checks with barred-list checks are for regulated work involving close contact with children or vulnerable adults. Be wary of any firm claiming every cleaner holds an Enhanced check regardless of site, as it usually means they do not understand the system.

What insurance should a commercial cleaning company have?

At minimum, public liability to cover damage or injury caused by the work, and employers' liability, which is a legal requirement for any UK business with staff. Depending on the work, treatment cover for goods being cleaned and key-holding cover are also important. Always ask to see the certificate showing the insurer, cover levels and expiry date rather than taking "we're insured" on trust.

Can I see proof of your insurance and vetting?

Absolutely, and you should ask every contractor for it. We provide a copy of our current insurance certificate showing cover levels and expiry, and written confirmation of our vetting and DBS policy. We cannot share individual cleaners' certificates because of data protection, but we can confirm each person on your site has been checked to the appropriate level.

What happens if a cleaner damages something in my building?

Our cleaner reports it to their supervisor straight away rather than leaving you to discover it, we contact you to explain what happened, and where it is our responsibility we resolve it through our public liability insurance. Having a named contact and a documented process is exactly what the insurance is there to support, so the outcome is a repair or replacement, not an argument.

Does a DBS check expire, and how do you keep it current?

A DBS certificate has no formal expiry date, but it only reflects the day it was issued, so an old one can be out of date. We manage this by re-checking on a sensible cycle and, where a role warrants it, enrolling staff on the DBS Update Service so their status can be re-verified online rather than left frozen. A stable, directly employed team means we are not re-vetting strangers every week.

Do you use subcontractors or agency staff?

We work with a directly employed team wherever possible rather than passing contracts to unvetted agency staff. This matters because vetting and insurance promises are only as good as the person actually standing in your building, and subcontracting quietly breaks the chain between the company you hired and the people doing the work.