Reading a report
Understanding the report layout, results and evidence.
The report is an HTML page (plus PDF) that summarises everything we verified. It is immutable and versioned — if a dispute arises, a new version supersedes the old one. It is not permanent: we keep a report for 12 months from the day it was issued, and the date we delete it is printed in the report's own footer.
Report structure
The report is eight sections in this order. Five of them carry a printed number, so you can hold this page beside the document and know where you are.
- Header — the candidate's name, the role, the hiring employer, the reference, the date it was issued and the version. Beside them, how many references arrived out of how many you asked for.
- 01 Summary — "One result per referee. No overall result." Each line is drawn from the same words as the key below.
- 02 Verification grid — one block per referee, with a row for each check that referee's reference type runs. Open any cell to see the evidence behind it.
- 03 Referee insights — the referee's competency answers, attributed ("The referee reports…"): "In their own words, not graded."
- 04 Reminders — "What we sent before each reply. A referee not replying would be a legitimate outcome, not a finding."
- 05 Activity — "Every event, in order, kept as a tamper-evident record."
- Technical detail — the raw sender and mail records a domain published, timestamps and the tamper-evident record, collapsed by default: "Technical detail — retained for dispute or IT review; not needed to read this report."
- Footer — "PreHire reports verification evidence. Hiring decisions, and any judgement drawn from this evidence, rest with the employer." — with the reference, the version, the issue date and the date the report is deleted.
Check results
Every check on the grid carries one of these results, and so does each referee's headline in the summary. These are the report's own definitions, word for word: it prints the same list beneath its verification grid, so this page and the report can never tell you two different things.
| Result | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ✓ Verified | what came back agrees with what was given |
| ! Discrepancy | partly agrees, or could not be tied to the employer |
| ! Not found | no company register answers to the name, as is true of many ordinary employers |
| ✗ Not confirmed | we could not confirm this, or what came back differs from what was given |
| ✗ Dissolved | the register says the company is no longer trading |
| – Not yet run | no source available for this check yet |
| – Not applicable | not a real question for this kind of reference |
| – No response | the referee did not reply before the check closed |
| – Declined | the referee was reached and declined to give a reference |
| – Undeliverable | the invitation never arrived at the address given |
Two results can share a mark, so the word beside it is what the report is actually saying. A dash is not a grade: it means there is no result to give — the check had no source, the question does not apply to this kind of reference, or the referee never answered.
The report prints the definitions of the results it actually contains, so a short report shows a short key.
The verification grid
This is the core of the report. Every cell with evidence behind it opens to show that evidence: the actual email address and mail records, the Companies House name and number, the two date pairs side by side. Not only the cells that disagreed — a result you are relying on because it agreed is exactly the one worth reading the evidence for. A cell that does not open is one with no evidence to show.
How many rows a referee has depends on the kind of reference they are giving. See How it works for which of the five checks each kind runs.
On paper the evidence is not printed — forcing every cell open would put the raw appendix across half the page — so the printed copy tells you where to find it instead.