Background check / unemployment check

[Tummy]

...

Its just getting silly now. I will be working for the same company i worked for last year but through a different supplier. This time they wont accept what the accepte dthe last time, basically a letter from a lawyer saying 'yep, he was unemployed'. So meantime, I'm getting paid to play angry birds and walk the dog as i cant get access to do my job. Ultimately , these background checks are an FCA requirement. What happens though , is that underperforming staff are allocated the task of collating the information and from what i can see so far, I wouldnt have faith in them to clean my toilets. Somethings gone far wrong in IT over the last few years. Far wrong.

[uk contractor]

Its just getting silly now. I will be working for the same company i worked for last year but through a different supplier. This time they wont accept what the accepte dthe last time, basically a letter from a lawyer saying 'yep, he was unemployed'. So meantime, I'm getting paid to play angry birds and walk the dog as i cant get access to do my job. Ultimately , these background checks are an FCA requirement. What happens though , is that underperforming staff are allocated the task of collating the information and from what i can see so far, I wouldnt have faith in them to clean my toilets. Somethings gone far wrong in IT over the last few years. Far wrong.

If your only a contractor not an IT director & or in another very senior position FCA requirement is BS a lot of the time. I have worked at many different banks most do not bother with these futile checks. I am not going to name those banks but they are some of the biggest names you would have heard of them.

If the auditors have been called into a bank & or its part state owned like RBS/Lloyds perhaps you will need to go through all of this but most of the other FCA regulated financial services companies take you on face value most of the time the agent will just file your references where the sun nevers shines how many of them would stop you starting a contract you just won in a highly competitve field just because someone would not give you a reference as they do not wish to break their internal company policy on not giving personal references

IMO no longer work with agencies who insist on these checks a lot of the checking is not even very thorough you give them the info they do not double check just file it away mate of mine forged something to cover a 1 month gap they did not bother checking he has been there several years last time I checked in with him everything was going better than ever.

Police & Credit reference checks will demonstrate your character & should be more than enough if its not then move onto another opportunity

[BolshieBastard]

Its just getting silly now. I will be working for the same company i worked for last year but through a different supplier. This time they wont accept what the accepte dthe last time, basically a letter from a lawyer saying 'yep, he was unemployed'. So meantime, I'm getting paid to play angry birds and walk the dog as i cant get access to do my job. Ultimately , these background checks are an FCA requirement. What happens though , is that underperforming staff are allocated the task of collating the information and from what i can see so far, I wouldnt have faith in them to clean my toilets. Somethings gone far wrong in IT over the last few years. Far wrong.

Yep, welcome to the club!

[SueEllen]

If the auditors have been called into a bank & or its part state owned like RBS/Lloyds perhaps you will need to go through all of this but most of the other FCA regulated financial services companies take you on face value most of the time the agent will just file your references where the sun nevers shines how many of them would stop you starting a contract you just won in a highly competitve field just because someone would not give you a reference as they do not wish to break their internal company policy on not giving personal references

Sorry you are an idiot if you haven't realised within the last 10 years that unless someone runs the company or is another contractor they aren't allowed to give you personal reference vouching that you worked at a particular company. Companies have been sued and had to pay out damages due to employees doing just that. All companies will do is confirm the dates.

IMO no longer work with agencies who insist on these checks a lot of the checking is not even very thorough you give them the info they do not double check just file it away mate of mine forged something to cover a 1 month gap they did not bother checking he has been there several years last time I checked in with him everything was going better than ever.

Last time I was checked I pointed this out and the person collecting the details agreed with me. Anyway I got around it as I wrote a statement covering all my "gaps" pointing out that as I was on PAYE I wasn't unemployed and so had no gaps which the accountants I used could confirm.

I think they just want you to state that you aren't a terrorist or waiting on bail, which if you were you wouldn't state anyway.....

[djf]

I just went through this getting my last contract

Basically I had been self-employed for the previous three years writing Mobile Apps. It took about seven weeks trying to prove that I'd not been "up to no good" and in the UK. It went something like this:-

1. Name of employers and dates for past three years? Err I was self-employed.
2. Name my accountant ... to which I pointed out that I didn't use a an accountant
3. Not having an accountant they want to look at my incorporation documents to which I replied that I wasn't incorporated but was self-employed.
4. In that case they wanted details of my business solicitors or lawyer - yep not needed any of those.
5. Doctors, Priests came next WTF!
6. Then they asked for my business Bank Account ... however Google, Apple and Amazon just paid directly into my personal bank account.
7. Next came a request for a list of "clients" ... to which I point out that my "clients" are individual *customers* who bought a £5 program off their phone and I was only provided with partial address (Basically a postcode and country) and no name. I'm not sure how much of a references I'd have got from one of my customers even if I had a full name and address.
7. Next I had to send a letter off to HMRC asking them to send a letter to myself and the agency stating that I've been self-employed since I left my previous job - yep you've guessed it, we had to give up on HMRC because they hadn't responded after 6 weeks ... I did eventually get a response saying sorry it took so long (It took nearly 3 months for a response) and that they can confirm I'd been registered as self-employed.

I eventually managed to get them to take a reference from a long time personal friend who was a head of directorate at the local county council - and that was touch and go because he had retired (they really wanted someone who was in employment). As he had retired, he had lapsed his membership of the professional association he was in and it turned out the agency really wanted someone with letters after their name.

The stupid thing is that if I had registered as unemployed for the previous three years (I was writing Apps and wasn't looking for another job), then they would have been happy with a letter from the unemployment office. No doubt they would have been happy with a letter from the prison governor if I'd been in the nick. They just seemed to be trying to prove that I had been in the UK.

Incidentally, If I had have been up to no good, been a terrorists or had been untrustworthy then I would have had no problems finding references - hell I'm offered 5* reviews, xxx number of Facebook likes, yyy number of twitter followers (etc.) from various companies in the east weekly - I'm sure they would have been more than happy to provide references.

So there you have it, a UK based self-employed developer with 30+ years experience has a lower status in society than a loafer or criminal.

Strangely as I write this I realise I should have just told them to get stuffed.