Blog

Introduction

Candidate experience is now a strategic priority in talent acquisition, increasingly becoming a board-level metric. CareerBuilder research shows 60 % of applicants abandon a recruitment process if it feels lengthy or confusing. Yet many UK screening providers still rely on a single case owner, limited e-mail support and little audit visibility.

At Verifile, we’ve chosen a different path: a multi-skilled, multi-channel team that shares responsibility for every candidate. This article explains why that choice matters to employers, auditors, compliance professionals, and, most of all, candidates themselves.

The industry norm: one agent, one inbox, long waits

Many vendors market single-agent care as a superior support. It sounds reassuring until that agent is on holiday, off sick, or simply overwhelmed. Work stalls and a new handler must learn the case from scratch, adding delays and error-risk.

In reality, true continuity requires more than one person. Absences inevitably happen, but a team-based model ensures knowledge and responsibility are shared, maintaining constant momentum.

Channel options are also narrow. A surprising number of providers list only an e-mail address, or perhaps web chat. Candidates needing reassurance must wait for replies or wrestle with chatbots. What looks exclusive in brochures often feels frustrating in reality.

The Verifile difference

Let’s examine these advantages more closely.

Continuity you can prove

Verifile assigns candidates to a dedicated team that understands the customer’s screening policy inside-out. When one colleague signs off, work transitions smoothly to another, maintaining momentum and candidate engagement without interruption. No “out-of-office” autoreplies, no candidate churn.

Clear ownership combined with multiple viewpoints consistently delivers the experience candidate’s praise.

Cross-checking for higher accuracy

A 2022 systematic review in Frontiers in Medicine found that peer review and checklist workflows cut error rates by up to 30 % in regulated settings. At Verifile, every data-point is double-checked by another trained colleague. That extra preview prevents simple but impactful data entry errors that might otherwise be overlooked by an isolated agent after hours on the same case.

Multi-channel, human-first support

Voice and empathy still matter significantly in screening. The UK Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), for example, maintains a public telephone helpline for applicants - a clear sign that real conversation remains essential in compliance processes.

Verifile mirrors that approach with phone, live-chat and e-mail, all staffed by UK-based colleagues comprehensively trained across every check type. That depth allows us to deliver fast, informed resolutions without delay.

Crucially, our proactive courtesy calls early in the journey identify candidate uncertainties or frustrations early on. Emotional intelligence, something no AI currently matches, allows our team to quickly understand nuances and resolve complex, sensitive issues with empathy. A quick, proactive human conversation often prompts candidates to complete their forms confidently and without delay.

Prefer self-service? Our public KnowledgeBase hosts step-by-step guides and clear video explainers, accessible 24/7.

A transparent audit trail auditors actually like

Every e-mail, call note and status change are time-stamped inside our ISO-certified, secure platform, visible to customers and auditors. With multiple colleagues contributing to each case, detailed, timestamped notes remain consistently clear. No crucial details buried in an individual’s inbox. External auditors frequently comment that our collaborative, transparent documentation demonstrates fairness, transparency, accountability and risk reduction.

Inclusive service across languages and cultures

The UK talent pool is increasingly global. A single agent may not speak a candidate’s first language; a diverse team typically does. Multilingual support substantially reduces errors such as misspelled names or misunderstood instructions, and boosts candidate confidence, reducing repeat requests.
Resilient decision-making

Consensus decisions are inherently more robust and defensible. When more than one compliance professional reviews and signs off a case, HR teams and regulators gain extra assurance that bias or oversight has been minimised. That aligns with FCA SMCR and NHS frameworks, which prioritise documented, impartial decision making.

Additionally, our approach fully aligns with stringent compliance and data protection standards, including GDPR, Cyber Essentials and ISO 27001, ensuring comprehensive and robust risk management.

What this means for employers

• Faster turnaround – no idle queues when an agent is away.
• Higher first-time pass rate – fewer candidate queries, fewer resubmissions.
• Lower risk – detailed audit trails, consensus-based decisions, comprehensive regulatory compliance and peer-reviewed decisions.
• Better employer brand – candidates feel genuinely supported rather than merely processed.

Conclusion

A lone “case owner” model may sound VIP, but in practice it cannot keep pace with today’s candidate-centric talent market. It risks delays, errors, bias and gaps in service continuity. Verifile’s team-based, multi-channel, human-first, and emotionally intelligent approach delivers faster outcomes, stronger compliance, greater accuracy, and, above all, happier candidates.

That’s why our LinkedIn series focuses on their voices, not ours.

Ready to see the difference? Talk to our team today.

The headline everyone’s talking about

Imagine learning that a single e-mail from your school is quietly killing a former teacher’s career and that a tribunal will trace it back to you. That is the reality Catherine Wood-Hope uncovered when an employment tribunal ruled she had been dismissed for her trade-union activity and then hamstrung by “unfounded, dama- ging” references from her former head-teacher. The award that followed – £370,563 – underlines how post-employment conduct can cost an organisation almost as much as a flawed dismissal itself.

Why does a single school dispute matter to every employer? Because it distils three perennial risks about references:

1. retaliation or discrimination can turn a simple letter into a six-figure liability;
2. even informal emails or phone calls count; and
3. the paper-trail lasts for years – the tribunal traced each rogue reference line by line.

Rental applications, mortgage underwriting, visa sponsorship and even insurance quotes routinely ask for an employer reference or income confirmation. A letting agent’s checklist, for instance, will verify salary and contract length before approving a tenancy. Mortgage providers also phone or e-mail HR teams for written assurances that pay and employment are stable. When those references are late, inaccurate or coloured by bias, the applicant can lose a home purchase or miss out on a flat, multiplying the reputational risk for the employer that supplied the data, or failed to supply it.

What UK law really expects from a reference

Behind the modest request – “Could you confirm their dates and duties?” – sits a tangle of overlapping duties that few managers appreciate until something goes wrong. Four separate regimes converge: the com- mon-law duty of care, equality legislation, trade-union protections and modern data-protection rules. Add any sector-specific code (schools, financial services, healthcare) and the margin for error shrinks fast. The table that follows breaks those strands into plain-English obligations HR can pin to the wall.

Government and ACAS guidance package those duties into plain-English expectations: employers don’t have to give a reference at all, but if they do, it must be true, accurate, and not misleading.

HMRC data and Open Banking: convenient, but not a silver bullet

More recruiters and letting agents now ask applicants to pull a five-year employment-history PDF from their HMRC Personal Tax Account and e-mail it as proof of work dates. It is quick, but it only shows PAYE income that has been processed. Recent starters, zero-hour contractors and overseas assignments may be missing. Over-reliance risks rejecting perfectly qualified hires you want on payroll on incomplete data. HR teams remain liable if they encourage this route without explaining the blind spots.

Important limitation: the HMRC PDF confirms only who paid you and for which tax years. It does not include your job title, duties, or the reason you left, so it cannot stand in for the qualitative detail a recruiter, lender or landlord often needs.

Open banking services can pull live salary feeds straight from an applicant’s bank – a boon for lenders and letting agents – but they do nothing to confirm job title, disciplinary history or regulatory notes. Regulatory standard such as the NHS Employment History and Reference Checks Standard (2024) insists on at least three years of factual references and a documented audit trail. An automated employer-side platform such as WorkPass is the cleanest way to give verifiers both the financial facts and the employment narrative, with a single, tamper-proof audit log.

Employment vs personal (character) references: why the distinction matters

A surprising number of disputes start because a well-meaning line-manager writes on headed paper “in a personal capacity,” not realising that the stationery alone drags the organisation into liability. Employment references are issued on behalf of the company, stored in HR systems and must survive legal scrutiny; personal/character references are private views and should never quote internal data or sit on corporate letter- head. Flagging the difference in policy – and training managers to use personal e-mail addresses if they genuinely want to help – is a five-minute fix that shuts down a long tail of risk.

• Authority - organisation vs individual.
• Content - verified fact vs subjective character opinion.
• Liability - employer bears the first; individual bears the second.
• Data protection exposure – full SAR duties on the first, limited on the second.

Regulators and professional bodies are nudging the bar even higher.

The CIPD’s 2025 Providing References factsheet reminds HR teams that a reference can only be “futu- re-proof” if it is evidence-based, consistent in length and signed off centrally; anything looser “invites negli- gent-misstatement claims.” Meanwhile, the NHS Employers Employment History and Reference Checks Standard (June 2024 update) hard-wires that principle into public-sector recruitment, insisting on a fully auditable chain of references for every clinical and non-clinical hire.

Four pressure-points HR needs to lock down

Legal knowledge is one thing; stopping human nature from derailing it is another. References typically travel outside the visibility of compliance teams, drafted in haste by well-meaning managers or, worse, by someone with an axe to grind. The four bullets below map the weak spots that turn everyday admin into front-page risk.

1. “Off-piste” managers – line-managers who dash off personal opinions on headed paper blur the line between character and employer references. ACAS advises routing every request through HR and using standard wording.
2. Revenge or bias – as Wood-Hope shows, post-employment acts can be discriminatory or victimise union members.
3. Safeguarding / regulatory data – schools must confirm employment history gaps and any substantia- ted safeguarding findings before appointment offers.
4. Subject-access exposure – since 2018 most references are disclosable to the individual, so anything written can – and usually will – be read later.
5. Fake reference houses & forged PDFs – online “reference houses” sell bogus employer letters and doc- tored HMRC statements to applicants desperate for housing or work; Verifile’s 2022 deep-dive explains how “alibi mills” even pose as HR departments on the phone to back up invented careers.

Policy, Process, Proof: the three pillars of a compliant reference framework

Even the most diligent managers slip when policy isn’t paired with structure. The organisations that avoid Wood-Hope-style disasters all follow the same three-pillar model:

• Policy – publish one short, mandatory policy that says all references must route through HR (or an out- sourced gateway such as WorkPass) and must be factual, evidence-based and non-discriminatory. Quote the ACAS ‘Providing a Job Reference’ guidance and the CIPD factsheet so managers see external authority, not just HR diktat.
• Process – give managers a single template that covers dates, role and (if you allow it) final salary, plus an optional narrative box that HR signs off before it leaves the building. That removes ‘off-piste’ e-mails, the root cause in the Wood-Hope case.
• Proof – keep an audit trail. Whether you use a secure folder or a platform like WorkPass, every request, draft and final version should be time-stamped and retrievable. Auditors, regulators and tribunals all ask for that paperchain.

Finally, refresh training annually. A five-minute e-learning clip reminding managers that personal or union bias can cost six figures is usually enough to keep the policy front-of-mind.

If a bad reference has slipped out – the triage list

First, breathe – then follow a playbook. Speed and honesty contain the fallout, while silence or half-measures compound it. Treat every mis-sent reference like a data-breach: quarantine, correct and communicate. The five-step list beneath is your emergency drill.

1. Stop the flow – instruct the manager to cease all further contact with the recipient immediately.
2. Disclose internally – brief legal/ER and (if you’re regulated) your compliance function.
3. Correct the record – send the recipient an updated, factual reference marked as “supersedes all earlier versions”.
4. Tell the individual and apologise – speed and transparency can head off litigation.
5. Review insurance & notify regulators where sector rules impose reporting duties. Schools must also consider a safeguarding referral; FCA firms must update a Regulatory Reference.
6. Investigate under conduct policy; treat the manager’s actions under your conduct policy. Tribunals look closely at the employer’s response once the error is known.
7. Learn and automate – review why the breach slipped through. In most cases it is a manual bypass of an otherwise solid process. Lock down future requests behind a central HR account or an automated portal so there’s no ‘human shortcut’ left to take.

Prevention beats cure – and why automation is winning

Policies and training help, but they snap under the pressure of inbox fatigue, “urgent” recruiter calls and human bias. That is why many large employers now lift the risk out of e-mail entirely and let automation police the boundary. WorkPass - Verifile’s cloud platform – converts payroll data into tamper-proof, factual references that are delivered instantly and logged forever. It is not a bolt-on; it becomes the only gateway through which a reference can leave your organisation.

Cross-sector good practice distilled from the guidance

Here’s the five-point compliance pattern that ACAS, CIPD and NHS Employers all mirror:

1. Route every request through one channel – policy alone is not enough; build a gating mechanism.
2. Issue standard wording first; allow narrative only after double sign-off.
3. Keep an auditable trail – who asked, who answered, what data left the building.
4. Refresh manager training annually and require an acknowledgement click-through.
5. Correct mistakes fast and tell all three parties (recipient, employee, HR).

Those five moves appear verbatim, in some shape or form, across ACAS, CIPD and NHS Employers guidance – which is why WorkPass bakes them into its default workflow out-of-the-box.

WorkPass in a nutshell:

• Generates only factual, pre-approved data – job title, dates, salary, leaver reason, disciplinary outcome, even FCA “Regulatory Reference” fields – with no room for personal opinion.
• Runs on your payroll feed – once-a-month file upload; no form filling.
• Logs every access – employee and HR see who pulled the reference, when, and what exactly they saw.
• Costs HR nothing – requesters pay a small fee; employers like Virgin Money freed two full-time HR posts and 1,000+ emails a year.
• Builds an audit wall around sensitive data – ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus, GDPR compliance and much more.

“If everybody signed up to WorkPass, how great would that be? All the data is there; whoever needs it can get it quickly. That’s utopia.” – Virgin Money HR team

Take-aways for your next leadership meeting

A tribunal judgment is not just a cautionary tale; it is a roadmap for change. By the next quarter your referen- ce process could be litigation-proof, staff-light and audit-rich – if you make it a line-item now. The four bullets below double as a ready-made agenda slide.

1. Map your reference traffic – how many requests, from whom, and how long they tie up staff.
2. Stress-test your policy – could a manager still send a rogue email tomorrow? If yes, fix the funnel.
3. Cost the risk – Wood-Hope shows six-figure liability is real; add legal fees and reputational hit.
4. Ask whether a zero-human, audit-first model would serve you better. WorkPass pays for itself from day one and eliminates the very human bias that sank Friars Primary.

Whether you’re safeguarding your brand during a Right-to-Rent audit, supporting an employee’s mortgage, or meeting a bank’s SM&CR obligations, WorkPass turns every request into the same stress-free, regulator-re- ady download.

Ready to see how an automated reference workflow looks in practice? We’re here to help you turn an HR vulnerability into a compliance win.

Over the past decade, the complexity of global sanctions regimes and the sophistication of financial crime networks have grown exponentially. One-off screenings at onboarding simply can’t keep pace with new listings, updated politically exposed person (PEP) statuses, or emergent adverse media about individuals or entities. Today, continuous monitoring is the benchmark for proactive risk management and regulatory compliance in financial services, security-sensitive sectors, and beyond.

High-Profile Compliance Failures Highlight the Stakes

Standard Chartered Bank’s £102.2 million FCA fine (2019)
In 2019, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority fined Standard Chartered Bank £102.2 million for “serious and sustained shortcomings” in its anti-money laundering (AML) controls, notably its failure to maintain effective ongoing monitoring and due diligence in higher-risk business areas, including certain branches in the UAE.

HSBC’s multi-billion-dollar penalties (2012 & 2021)
In 2012, HSBC Bank USA paid the US Comptroller of the Currency a $500 million civil money penalty for AML failures, including deficient transaction monitoring. In 2021, the FCA fined HSBC £63.9 million for “serious weaknesses” in its automated monitoring, leaving entire regions (e.g., Wales) unmonitored and delaying Suspicious Activity Reports by years.

Danske Bank’s Estonian branch scandal
In 2022, the Central Bank of Ireland fined Danske Bank A/S €1.82 million for deficiencies in transaction monitoring under the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering & Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 - part of wider sanctions and AML probes that ultimately cost Danske more than $2 billion in US and Danish penalties for laundering hundreds of billions of euros through its Estonian arm.

These examples underscore the reputational, operational, and financial damage inflicted when continuous monitoring is neglected.

Cross-Industry Compliance Failures

Rideshare operators
Between 2016 and 2019, a Somali national found liable in US courts for war crimes was driving for major rideshare platforms because initial criminal checks found no US convictions. A global watchlist check, or periodic re-screening, would have flagged his name on human-rights-related sanctions lists.

Airport security
For nearly 20 years, one of Dulles International Airport’s unarmed security guards hired through a third- party contractor, was a former Somali military commander accused of atrocities. He passed FBI and TSA vetting, but continuous global watchlist monitoring would have identified him immediately.

Healthcare providers
In early 2025, an addiction treatment centre in Utah and an Ohio nursing facility each paid six-figure penalties after employing staff excluded by the US HHS-OIG from federal healthcare programmes. Ongoing monthly exclusion-list monitoring would have prevented these violations. Similarly, several US hospitals and pathology labs were fined in 2024 for hiring excluded individuals, highlighting the insufficiency of one-off checks.

Together, these cross-sector incidents show that continuous monitoring is essential not only in banking but wherever personnel or partners interact with sensitive assets, regulated products, or high-risk jurisdictions.

Regulatory Mandates Across Industries

Financial Services & AML
Since the Money Laundering Regulations 2007, UK firms have been required to implement transaction monitoring systems capable of detecting suspicious activity; continuous screening of customers against sanctions and PEP lists became compulsory upon its introduction. Subsequent updates, including the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, mandate enhanced due diligence and ongoing review of existing clients whenever their risk profile changes.

Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs)
Both UK and EU regulators demand rigorous PEP screening at onboarding and periodic re-screening to capture changes in political status, affiliations, or emerging adverse news. The FCA’s ongoing review of PEP definitions and risk assessments, expected to conclude in mid-2024, highlights the continued emphasis on real-time and scheduled re-assessments.

BS7858 Security Screening
Under BS7858, the British Standard for security screening of roles with access to sensitive assets or data, organisations must conduct ongoing monitoring throughout employment, including periodic re- screening to ensure personnel remain compliant with the standard’s criteria.

Introducing Verifile’s Continuous Monitoring Service

Verifile’s Global Fraud & Sanctions Monitoring Service delivers a fully managed, cost-effective monthly screening solution designed to keep your employee or customer profiles continuously up-to-date against global watchlists, sanctions data, PEP registers, and adverse media sources.

1. Secure File Exchange
   • We provide a template for profile data.
   • Clients upload their file to a dedicated SFTP site that ensures safe, automated transfer of profile data each month.
2. Automated & Manual Hybrid Processing
   • Verifile retrieves the file the next working day.
   • Automated screenings run, followed by manual expert review to minimise false positives.
3. Fast Turnaround
   • Results are delivered via the same SFTP site within three working days of retrieval.
   • Comprehensive reports enabling swift action on any alerts.
4. Feedback-Driven Refinement
   • Client feedback is integrated into our screening engine, continually reducing false positives over time.
   • Verifile fine-tune the screening engine and further slash false positives over time.
5. Flexible Profile Management
   • Annual package covers as many profiles as required (with allowance for profile changes included).
   • Additional profiles can be purchased as needed.

This structured, transparent model ensures you capture new sanctions listings, PEP updates, and media exposures as they occur and far beyond the capabilities of static, point-in-time checks.

Real Business Value

1. Risk Mitigation

   Continuous monitoring identifies emerging risks before they escalate, protecting against fines, legal actions, and reputational harm.

2. Regulatory Confidence

   Demonstrate ongoing compliance with FCA guidelines, AML directives, and industry standards like BS7858.

3. Resource Efficiency

   Outsourcing to Verifile’s managed service frees up internal compliance teams to focus on high-value investigations rather than routine screening tasks.

4. Scalability & Agility

   Easily add or remove profiles to reflect organisational changes, whether you’re scaling up, restructuring, or onboarding new regions

5. Data-Driven Insights

   Regular reporting and analytics offer clear visibility into screening trends, alert volumes, and risk profiles across your entire population.

6. Flexible Deployment Models

   Choose between fully managed or self-service screening options, with tiered pricing discounts that make continuous monitoring accessible and cost-effective for any budget.

Who Benefits Most?

• Finance & Insurance Firms

  Subject to strict AML and sanctions regulations, these firms use continuous monitoring to avoid regulatory breaches and maintain customer trust.

• Security & Critical Infrastructure

  Organisations adhering to BS7858 rely on ongoing personnel screening to protect facilities and sensitive data.

• Corporate Enterprises

  Multinationals with global workforces need to spot emerging risks, like sanctioned counterparties or adverse press, before they escalate.

• Third-Party Risk Managers

  Procurement and vendor management teams screen suppliers and partners continuously to prevent supply-chain exposure to sanctioned entities.

Getting Started

Verifile’s Continuous Monitoring Service is priced per profile per month, plus a managed service fee per month, payable annually in advance for a 12-month term. Once your data feed is established via SFTP, Verifile handles the rest: delivering peace of mind that your compliance programme is always current, always vigilant, and always aligned with global best practices.

To learn how Verifile can empower your organisation with continuous, expert-driven monitoring, contact our team today and turn regulatory challenges into competitive advantage.