Disclosure of Criminal Convictions

If you are succesful at interview for a role at The Open University you must tell us about any unspent criminal convictions you have.

You will also need to declare spent criminal convictions, pending charges/current police investigations, bind overs, warnings and cautions or reprimands. (See item 2 below)

The information you provide will be treated as strictly confidential and will be considered only in relation to the job for which you are applying.

If you disclose a conviction, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we will not consider and appoint you. Our main consideration will be whether the offence would make you unsuitable for the type of work you are applying for.

1. Please read carefully the notes in this section and enter any unspent convictions as part of your offer acceptance.
2. Certain jobs are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. This means that you must also state ‘spent’ criminal convictions, pending charges/current police investigations, bind overs,  warnings and cautions or reprimands if you are applying for a job where there is likely be regular contact with under 18 year olds and other vulnerable groups. There may be other specified jobs that are also exempt from the Act – where this is applicable it will be indicated in the job advert and/or the accompanying recruitment information. A Disclosure and Barring Service disclosure will be required for all these posts that fall into this category where an applicant is offered the position.

For roles based in England and Wales – please refer to the details below for reference.

For roles based in Scotland and Northern Ireland – these areas have different periods of rehabilitation.  Please see Appendix A for reference.

Details of relevant convictions and time periods are as follows:

Rehabilitation periods for community orders and custodial sentences now comprise of the period of the sentence plus an additional specified period or ‘buffer’ period.

For custodial sentences:

For non-custodial sentences:

Further notes:

If you were under 18 years of age on the date of your conviction, please halve the period shown in the right-hand column.  This does not apply to sentence under the heading ‘custodial sentences' unless the sentence was six months or less, when the ‘buffer’ period is 18 months.

For the purpose of calculating a 'spent' conviction, it does not matter whether a sentence was suspended.

When applying for some jobs you must also declare spent convictions, pending charges/current Police investigations, bind overs, warnings/ cautions or reprimands.  If you are employed, failure to declare or falsification of information will result in your dismissal without notice.

Appendix A

Periods of rehabilitation following conviction for roles in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Details of relevant convictions and time periods are as follows:

If you were under 17 years of age on the date of your conviction, please halve the period shown in the right hand column.  This does not apply to sentences under the heading ‘Detention by direction of the Home Secretary’.