Vetting, without
the paperwork.

It’s the same official Enhanced DBS check issued by the Disclosure and Barring Service as you’d receive in any other sector; there’s no special certificate type for martial arts. When we say Martial Arts DBS, we’re describing the purpose: a check requested because of your role in a club, whether teaching, coaching, assisting or supervising. The workforce and role details on the application reflect martial arts, but the certificate itself is the standard, nationally recognised Enhanced DBS.

Safer recruitment legislation is tightening. From September 2026, the expectation moves from checking only those in unsupervised or regular teaching contact to requiring Enhanced checks for everyone who comes into contact with children through a club role, closing the supervision loophole that previously exempted some helpers and volunteers. If your club has anyone helping regularly who’s never been checked because they were “always supervised”, now is the time to get ahead of it. We’ll keep members updated as guidance is finalised, and our checker above gives a quick steer for any role.

In England and Wales, safeguarding vetting is carried out through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). In Scotland, it’s managed through the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme. Both systems serve the same purpose, ensuring unsuitable individuals are barred from working with children or vulnerable adults, but they run separately. The good news: we can arrange both. Enhanced DBS checks for England and Wales, and PVG scheme applications for our Scottish clubs at £92, all online.

If you’re teaching or supervising children or adults at risk, you’ll almost always need an Enhanced DBS check (or PVG in Scotland). That includes lead instructors, assistant instructors who help regularly, volunteers with ongoing unsupervised contact with juniors or vulnerable adults, and Designated Safeguarding Leads or Welfare Officers. If your role involves only occasional, supervised contact, a full Enhanced check may not be legally required, but safeguarding training and appropriate club policies still are. We recommend every club treats vetting as a core safeguarding standard, not a legal tick-box.

A Basic check shows only unspent convictions, and anyone can request one for any purpose. A Standard check shows spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings held on the Police National Computer, for eligible roles. An Enhanced check is the most detailed level: everything on a Standard check plus any information held by local police considered relevant to the role, and, crucially, it can include a check of the children’s and adults’ barred lists. That barred list search is the only reliable safeguarding tool for roles with direct contact with children or vulnerable adults, which is why BMABA requires Enhanced checks with barred list searches for all teaching, coaching and supervisory roles.

We use government-approved digital identity verification, certified identity document validation technology operating under the UK’s Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework, to verify your identity remotely and countersign applications digitally. No printing, no posting original documents, no waiting for paper forms to crawl through the system. Most applicants complete identity verification from their phone in minutes.

Most Enhanced DBS checks come back within 7 to 10 working days, though the DBS advises that checks can take up to 6 weeks in some circumstances, for example where multiple police forces need to be contacted. Turnaround is controlled entirely by the DBS, not by BMABA or our umbrella provider, so individual cases can’t be expedited.

The Update Service keeps your Enhanced certificate current: employers and organisations can check your status online instead of you reapplying every few years. It costs £16 per year for paid roles, paid directly to the DBS, and it’s free for volunteers. We strongly recommend joining when you apply, since it saves both money and time in the long run, and BMABA can verify your status online at any point.

Yes. The government charges no fee for volunteer Enhanced DBS checks but does charge for checks linked to paid work (£49.50 from December 2024). All applications must also go through a registered umbrella body, whose admin fee we pass on, and BMABA incurs processing costs to run and log each check. Even with these charges we make a loss on every DBS check we run, to keep costs as low as possible for members: £25 for volunteers, £65 for paid roles, all-in.

In Scotland, the PVG (Protecting Vulnerable Groups) Scheme replaces Enhanced DBS checks, and we can arrange PVG applications for our Scottish clubs at £92, fully online. In Northern Ireland, vetting runs through AccessNI, which is separate again: we can’t process AccessNI checks directly, but we’ll advise you on requirements and point you to the correct body.

The DBS requires documents confirming your identity, address and right to work: typically a current passport or driving licence, a birth certificate, and a recent utility bill or bank statement issued within the last three months. The exact combination depends on what you hold, and because our identity verification is digital, you’ll usually just photograph documents rather than posting originals. We guide you through it as part of your application.