DDC Celebrates Awards, Launches New Services, and Looks Ahead to 2025

December 20th, 2024 by Jonathan Bazely

Foreword by Director, Jonathan Bazely

As we wave goodbye to 2024, I like to reflect on our successes as a team and some of the challenges we have overcome. We will also look ahead to 2025, and what our industry experts and colleagues are reporting. Over the past year, we have focused on enhancing our services by adding new checks, streamlining processes, and improving user experience. This effort has been guided by client feedback, addressing both what you value and your frustrations. Our dedicated Quality Assurance team has worked hard to measure performance and test solutions, ensuring continuous improvement.

Looking back at 2024

Awards success

DDC recently celebrated an impressive awards season, showcasing achievements in technology, innovation, and client-focused excellence. Our groundbreaking Digital DBS and Right to Work services have been recognised for transforming identity verification by streamlining processes and enhancing security. Accolades include wins at the CPC Excellence Awards, CorporateLivewire Innovation & Excellence Awards, and Midlands Enterprise Awards, alongside finalist positions in others like the Family Business Awards and OnRec Awards. These accomplishments highlight DDC’s commitment to innovation, client service, and pushing industry standards.

UX review and improvements implemented

This year we had a goal to focus on the ‘user experience’ as many clients told us they championed a smooth and professional onboarding process. Reviewing user experience (UX) and actively listening to client and applicant feedback is essential to DDC to deliver outstanding services. Regular reviews of our platforms, workflows, and physical interactions ensure systems are intuitive, accessible, and efficient.

The DDC Team used technical feedback and person-centred questionnaires to identify areas for improvement in products and services. Applicant feedback also highlighted inefficiencies and communication issues in hiring processes, helping organisations refine their recruitment strategies.

This year we have designed and implemented improvements to our multi-product platform, the ‘Applicant Overview’ and the final reports issued for pre-employment checks. We are also nearing completion of the new ‘Manage Applications’ tools which will deliver greater control and more status information to clients.

DDC ID app and digital identity

Over the past year, the DDC ID mobile app has undergone multiple updates to improve reliability, user satisfaction, and compliance with evolving standards. Regular enhancements have strengthened security, improved functionality, and refined the user interface, ensuring the app remains a trusted and user-friendly tool for secure identity verification.

Partnerships with ATS platforms

We’ve been working with three major client management software providers / ATS tools to improve our api offering. This has resulted in multiple new clients being able to upload client records directly to DDC systems, and then receive results or final reports directly back to their own systems. We see these types of services increasing over the next 12 months as more and more clients outsource the workload to us as the specialists, whilst retaining ownership of the data and outputs from the screening checks. Setting up secure and robust connections involves extensive collaboration among onboarding, development, testing, and management teams. We deeply appreciate the cooperation of our clients and their technical teams. Each project enhances our expertise and understanding of client operations and future service needs.

DBS price rise

Whilst price rises are never welcome news the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) took the decision to roll-out an increase in early December 2024. We worked hard to notify clients and applicants, and also push through as many applications at the reduced price. The team worked additional hours, and concentrated efforts on getting affected applications to the DBS before the 1st December. We are continuing to work with clients to collect these additional fees and ensure no delays in the application process where payment is required.

Reinforcing Trust and Reliability: DICS, ISO 9001, and ISO 27001 Audits

DDC operate in a heavily regulated industry where we deliver compliance to clients, with logs to demonstrate this to their own regulators or auditors. In the last year, we have passed all our audits and recertifications with very few ‘Opportunity for Improvements (OFIs)’ noted by our auditors. This includes regulators such as the Disclosure and Barring Service, Access Northern Ireland and Disclosure Scotland who all carry out extensive audits to ensure we’re meeting their strict criteria. We even took the opportunity to attend several meetings at the Home Office about the formation, regulatory frameworks, function and reach of the newly launched Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA).

Looking forward to 2025

Continued investment in services and technology

In 2025, we will focus on system improvements and technological advancements to drive growth, sustainability, and efficiency for our clients. These enhancements will reduce operational costs, streamline processes, and enable faster, more accurate checks, giving clients a competitive edge and positioning them as industry leaders. Improved systems will elevate customer experience, fostering loyalty and trust. Additionally, we will strengthen our technological infrastructure to adapt to market changes and future-proof our services and those of our clients.

Strategic aims

The team set-out our long-term strategy for the business which can be summarised under three main aims:

1. Faster return of references

We have engaged with clients using our reference checking services, learning about their goals to accelerate reference returns, reduce recruitment timelines, and enhance candidate experience. In response, we launched packages designed to obtain faster references, streamline onboarding, and minimise hiring delays. Looking ahead to 2025, we will implement further improvements, leveraging automation, clear communication, and optimised workflows to ensure timely responses. These enhancements will support better hiring decisions and help clients maintain a competitive edge in talent acquisition.

2. Reducing the time for applicants to complete checks

One of the biggest improvements we have seen comes from our digital identity offering which allows identity validation to happen in minutes, with a combination of self-scanned documents, chip reading and facial recognition technology. When combined with third-party address verification and DDC Countersignatory checks, the client only needs to check the person turning up for the role matches the person on-screen. For DBS checks with the highest validation requirement this has brought the average identity validation time by two days across all clients. As more and more clients opt to take digital identity, we predict this figure will continue to fall.

3. Greater tools to manage checks:

During 2024 we released some upgrades to the ‘Applicant Overview’ to give more up-to-date and accurate status information to clients managing applications. Our aim was to allow one-click to bring up details of what was happening with the application, where multiple different services were being procured or client actions were needed to complete a process. During 2025 we will be rolling out all these changes to clients, and then going a step further. We will be releasing updates to the ‘Manage Applications’ tools to allow clients to see all applicants on screen, and then choose how they want to sort details in a more dynamic manner.

Our predictions for 2025

We have been in the vetting and pre-employment screening industry for over 22 years and we have seen quite some changes in that time.  In 2025, the hiring market is expected to stabilise at lower levels compared to previous peaks, with businesses focusing on strategic hires amid economic uncertainties. Recruitment activity has moderated, reflecting a balanced approach to talent acquisition aligned with key sector demands and organisational priorities.

As the hiring market stabilizes and the impact of the new Labour government unfolds, DDC will continue to adapt to industry trends and regulatory changes.

The company remains dedicated to providing exceptional services and supporting clients’ evolving needs.

And finally, we would like to wish all clients, suppliers and applicants a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2025!

  • Posted in Company News
  • Comments Off on DDC Celebrates Awards, Launches New Services, and Looks Ahead to 2025