There are various types of Police Clearance Certificate in existence in the United Kingdom. Some require legalisation from a UK Notary Public, or from a Solicitor, Barrister or other legal executive, while others can be processed without further intervention from the legal profession.
This can be a complex area of Notary practice, and although the same procedures must be observed by any qualified legal practitioner, this article is intended primarily as a resource for notaries public operating in the United Kingdom.
Under current legislation there are three separate forms of Police Clearance Certificate.
The first type of certificate of which to be aware is known as the Subject Access Letter. The Subject access letter bears the signature of a member of the Criminal Records Bureau and therefore requires no further legalisation as the signatures of every member of the CRB are kept on file by the Foreign and Commonwealth office. It is important to remember that this does not apply in Scotland.
In Scotland, the Criminal Records Bureau produce a document referred to a ‘Disclosure’. This Disclosure document must be certified by a Solicitor or Notary Public before it can be legalised. Without such further legalisation the document will be considered valid and it is vital that any practicing legal entity is aware of this discrepancy between English and Scottish procedural requirements.
The third type of Police Clearance Certificate relates to Immigration matters and is applicable only for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. Immigration matters relating to these countries require neither further legalisation nor additional certification of any kind.