DBS checks for delivery drivers, Right to Work and DVLA.Three different duties. One record that has to hold them.

Informational, not legal advice. Every rule below links to the gov.uk page it came from, all consulted on 25 September 2026.

Three duties that get treated as one job

Operators talk about “the checks” as one task on an onboarding list. They are three, with different legal weight, and confusing them is what makes them expensive.

Right to Work is a duty. Getting it wrong carries a civil penalty of up to £60,000 for each illegal worker, as published at 25 September 2026, and it lands on the DSP — not on Amazon, not on the station, not on the agency that sent the driver over.

DVLA licence checking needs the driver's cooperation. You cannot look anyone up on your own.

DBS is where you set the standard, within what the role makes you eligible to request.

Only the first is a legal obligation. All three have dates attached.

Right to Work, and the statutory excuse

GOV.UK sets out three ways to check: online with a share code, manually against original documents, or through an identity service provider. Copies are kept for two years after the employment ends.

The protection is called a statutory excuse, and it is earned by carrying out a correct check before the person starts. Done afterwards, it is paperwork.

Two things catch DSPs specifically. British and Irish citizens cannot obtain a share code, so the online route does not cover a large part of a typical workforce. And where permission is time-limited, the excuse does not extend past the expiry date — the follow-up is a new check that has to happen before, not after someone notices. Our guide to Right to Work checks covers the self-employed carve-out and the umbrella-company liability that arrived in April 2026.

DBS: which check, and what it proves

GOV.UK lists four levels. A basic check is available for anyone aged 16 or over working in England and Wales; standard and enhanced are only available where the role itself is eligible. A parcel round is not obviously one of them, and a supplier offering you enhanced checks without asking about the work is a reason for more questions, not fewer.

The sentence that causes most confusion is gov.uk's own: “A DBS check has no official expiry date.” A certificate is a photograph of a moment. It says nothing about the week after it was issued, which is why organisations set their own re-check intervals — and why “he had a DBS when we hired him” is not an answer to a question about today. Our guide to DBS checks has the levels, the fees and the change that takes effect on 5 October 2026.

DVLA: why this one cannot be batched

To check a driver's licence you need the last eight characters of the licence number and a check code the driver generates. The code is valid 21 days and can be used once. And, in gov.uk's words, “it's a criminal offence to obtain someone else's personal information without their permission.”

So a licence check cannot be batched on a quiet afternoon. Each one needs a living driver to produce a code, which makes asking somebody's job — and a code used once is a check valid for one moment, with no alert when an endorsement lands.

What WaveGo does, and what it does not

Worth being exact, because this is where software in this category gets vague.

It collects. In self-onboarding, the driver states their Right to Work basis and — where it is not a British or Irish passport — a share code is required before they can continue. Their licence number and a photograph of the licence are collected in the same flow, in their own language, from their own phone.

It keeps. What was collected sits against the person, with the date — which is what turns “we checked him” into something you can produce.

It does not run the checks. WaveGo does not query the Home Office or the DVLA, does not order DBS certificates, and does not block a driver from being scheduled because something is missing. Those are government services and your decision — and enforcing the gate is on the roadmap rather than in the product.

The value is in the collection. Most compliance failures here are not refusals — they are documents that arrived in four WhatsApp messages over five days while a route needed covering.

Questions UK operators ask

Does WaveGo run the checks for me?

No, and it is worth being precise about the difference. WaveGo collects and keeps what the checks need — the driver's Right to Work answer and share code, their licence number and licence document — as part of onboarding. Running the check itself happens on the government services, and the decision is yours.

Do delivery drivers need a DBS check?

It depends on what the role involves, and anyone who answers without asking that is guessing. A basic check is available for anyone aged 16 or over working in England and Wales; standard and enhanced are only available where the role itself is eligible. Our guide to DBS checks goes through the levels and the fees.

What happens if I get Right to Work wrong?

A civil penalty of up to £60,000 for each illegal worker, per gov.uk as at 25 September 2026, and it lands on you rather than on Amazon. A correct check carried out before the person starts is what gives you a statutory excuse.

Why can't you check a driving licence without the driver?

Because the law requires their cooperation. A DVLA check needs the last eight characters of the licence number and a check code the driver generates, valid 21 days and usable once. Obtaining someone else's information without permission is a criminal offence.

Does it stop a driver going out if a check is missing?

Not today. WaveGo records what was collected and when; enforcing a block is on the roadmap, not in the product. Until then the gate is your process, and the record is what lets you apply it consistently.

What does it cost?

Five seats are free, permanently, then £10 per seat per month. A seat is any active user, whatever their role.

More depth on the UK side in running an Amazon DSP in the UK.