Employers
DBS checks for employers
You can ask for a basic check through a Responsible Organisation. Standard and enhanced checks need a Registered Body, or an umbrella body if you do fewer than 100 a year.
Which check
A basic check is £20 and can be used for any role. It shows unspent convictions and conditional cautions. A standard check is £20 and an enhanced check is £41. Both are limited to roles the law lists. Barred lists do not change the £41 fee. Use the GOV.UK eligibility tool before you request anything above basic.
Umbrella body or your own registration
DBS says an organisation that needs fewer than 100 standard or enhanced checks a year should use an umbrella body. At 100 or more it can apply to become a Registered Body. Registration costs £300, plus £5 for each countersignatory, and that fee is charged after DBS has accepted the application. The source is the employer guidance.
An umbrella body is a Registered Body that submits checks for other organisations. The public named source is the Home Office umbrella body directory, linked from GOV.UK. CompareDBS does not claim to have copied every record in that directory.
What you are comparing
The DBS fee is the same whichever umbrella body you use. The admin fee, VAT on that fee, digital ID, a dashboard, and an API are not. Volunteer standard and enhanced checks are free of the DBS fee when the role meets the volunteer definition. Admin can still be charged. Basic checks, including unpaid roles, are not free of the £20 fee.
If you hire a self-employed person to work for you or your family, you do not request the check. They request it, and you read the certificate.