Everyone knows where every DBS check stands
One shared, current view of every volunteer's DBS status, visible to the safeguarding coordinator, to the small-group and ministry leaders who serve alongside them and to the volunteer themselves. No more spreadsheet on someone's laptop. No more “I thought you were tracking that” the week of the kids' residential. A clean, audit-logged, legally defensible record, with the right people seeing the right amount of it.
The problem with how most churches track DBS today
A spreadsheet on the safeguarding lead's laptop. A different spreadsheet on the youth pastor's laptop. A WhatsApp message from January saying “just sent off John's renewal”. A reminder set on someone's phone calendar that fell off when they changed phones.
The information exists; it's just isolated. The coordinator knows John's DBS is up for renewal; the youth pastor who works with John every Sunday doesn't. John himself isn't sure when his expires because he's never seen the church's record of it. And when a Charity Commission audit asks “produce evidence that everyone serving with under-18s on 14 March had a current DBS check”, the answer takes a day of detective work.
That's the legacy state. ChurchLinker replaces it with one shared record that surfaces to each role at the right level of detail.
Who sees what
Four audiences, four different views of the same underlying record. Privacy by design: each surface shows exactly what that role needs to act, and no more.
DBS coordinator
Dashboard → Safeguarding → DBS- •Inbox bucketed by urgency: expired, expiring in 30 days, currently renewing, current.
- •Automated email + push reminders to the named coordinator at 30, 14 and 7 days before each check expires, then once on or after expiry.
- •'Renewal in flight' marker that pauses reminders while the umbrella body processes the new check. No phantom 'expiring' emails to someone who's been waiting six weeks for paperwork.
- •Bulk CSV import with dry-run preview, so historical records from your old spreadsheet land in one upload rather than 200 manual entries.
- •Per-person validity override when a particular role needs a 1-year cycle rather than the default 2-year.
Small-group / ministry leader
Member portal → my groups → Members- •Per-team DBS overview shows each volunteer's status as a colour-coded chip on their row: current, expiring soon, expired or already renewing.
- •An attention banner at the top of the leader's group view counts how many people on their team need a DBS nudge.
- •Status only, no certificate numbers, no raw dates. Leaders see the situation, not the file. The actual record stays with the coordinator.
- •When a leader sees 'expires in 18 days' on a volunteer's row, they can have a quiet word in person before the situation becomes a coordinator-only problem.
- •Every view is audit-logged: who saw what, when, in which group.
The member themselves
Member portal → my profile- •Their own DBS card shows the status and expiry of the check the church holds on file for them.
- •The DBS agency contact card sits next to it: the legitimate umbrella body's name, email, phone and website, recorded centrally by the church.
- •If they get an 'urgent: your DBS is expiring, click here to renew' email from a domain that doesn't match the agency card, it reads as obviously wrong. The card is the church's anti-phishing reference, surfaced exactly where it's useful.
- •They can update their own contact preferences and request data corrections from the same page.
Pastor, senior spiritual leaders & auditors
Dashboard → Audit log + Charity register reports- •Every DBS edit (status change, expiry update, renewal marker, certificate number entry) is logged with who, when, and the previous value.
- •Every leader view of a team's DBS panel is logged, separately from contact-detail views, so the safeguarding paper trail distinguishes 'who knew' from 'who saw whose phone number'.
- •AGM-ready PDF + 'as at date' snapshot reports from the Charity Commission members register cross-reference cleanly with DBS history when the pastor or a senior spiritual leader asks 'how do we know this person was DBS-checked when they served?'
The reminder timeline
Each morning UK time the system walks the DBS table and triggers one nudge at each threshold. Each threshold fires at most once per cycle. The system tracks what's been sent on the person's record, so a re-run can't double-send and saving a new issue date resets the ledger for the next cycle.
30 days before expiry
Coordinator gets email + push. Leader sees an amber chip on the volunteer's row.
14 days before expiry
Coordinator nudge repeats. Leader chip darkens.
7 days before expiry
Final pre-expiry nudge. The 'attention needed' count rises on the leader's group banner.
On or after expiry
Coordinator gets a single 'expired' notification. Leader chip turns red. The volunteer's own profile shows 'expired'.
Renewal in flight
Coordinator ticks 'renewal in flight' on the record. All reminders pause until the new issue date is saved.
Why this beats a spreadsheet
Transparency
The coordinator isn't the only person who can act. Group and ministry leaders see their own team's DBS state and can have an in-person conversation early. The volunteer sees their own check, so they're part of the loop rather than a passive recipient of reminder emails. Spreadsheets concentrate knowledge with whoever owns the file; this distributes it to everyone who legitimately benefits from knowing.
Privacy by role
Leaders see the state of a check (current / expiring / expired / renewing), not the certificate number, not the raw expiry date, not the provider. Coordinators see the full record. The pastor and senior spiritual leaders see the audit history but not the personal data that triggered each entry. Each row of access is logged, separately from contact-detail access, so a safeguarding paper trail distinguishes “who knew the situation” from “who saw the phone number”.
Legal defensibility
Every change is logged with who, when and the previous value. Every view of DBS data is logged. The reminder ledger means you can show that the system did warn the coordinator at 30, 14 and 7 days before any expiry. Not “I forgot”, not “I never got the email”. If a Charity Commission inspection or an insurance claim asks for proof that someone was DBS-checked on a specific date, the answer takes seconds, not a day.
Anti-phishing surface
DBS renewal phishing is real and hits at exactly the moment the legitimate reminder hits. Every member who has a DBS on file sees the church-recorded agency contact card next to their own DBS panel. When a suspicious renewal email arrives, the card is the sanity check: does the sender match? The card sits on the member's own profile, not buried in an admin page they never visit. That's what makes it useful at the moment of risk.
No lock-in on entry
Moving from a spreadsheet of historical DBS records doesn't mean retyping 200 rows. The bulk DBS importer at Safeguarding → DBS → Import takes a CSV of issue dates, expiry dates, providers and umbrella-body references, matches by email or name, runs a dry-run preview so you can spot misalignment before anything writes and skips conflicts rather than overwriting silently.
Setting it up
- Set the DBS agency contact card. Settings → Safeguarding. Record your umbrella body or DBS agency's name, email, phone and website. This is what surfaces on every member's profile next to their DBS panel.
- Designate the coordinator. Settings → Users. On the relevant person's row, tick the DBS coordinator permission flag. Pastor and Admin roles get it automatically; tick it on a Staff or Leader row when a delegated person handles DBS day-to-day.
- Backfill existing records. Safeguarding → DBS → Import. Export your current spreadsheet to CSV (columns: issue date, expiry date, type, provider, umbrella reference, validity override). Run the dry-run preview, fix any mismatched rows, then apply.
- Tell your leaders the chip exists. Members of small groups and ministry teams who are LEADER or above in a group now see a DBS chip on each row of their group's member list. The roll-up banner appears when something needs attention. They don't need any extra permission; visibility comes with the leader role for groups they lead.
- Let the system do the rest. Each morning UK time the daily walk-through fires. The coordinator gets nudged on time. The leader sees the chip change colour. The member sees their own profile update. The audit log accumulates a clean record.
Related
- Roles & permissions reference : how the DBS coordinator flag fits into the wider role + flag system.
- GDPR & data compliance : how subject access, erasure and the audit trail interact with DBS data.
- Blog: stop tracking DBS on a spreadsheet : the longer-form argument for the approach above.
Bring your DBS records into the open
Every plan, including Seed, ships with the full safeguarding stack. No add-on. No per-record charge. The coordinator inbox, the leader chip, the member view, the reminder cron, the bulk importer and the anti-phishing card are all included from day one.