Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken was for the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to (a) process the DBS application and either scan or return to the applicant for amendments, (b) search the Police National Computer, (c) search the Children's Barred List where appropriate, (d) search the Adults' Barred List where appropriate, (e) search the records held by local police where appropriate and (f) print the DBS certificate and return all necessary documentation to the applicant (i) nationally, (ii) in London and (iii) in Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in each year since 2016.

Table 1 shows the average number of days taken by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to scan an application, search the Police National Computer, search the records held by local police where appropriate and to print the DBS certificate for applications nationally.

Table 2 shows the average number of days taken by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to scan an application, search the Police National Computer, search the records held by local police where appropriate and to print the DBS certificate for applications with a London postcode.

Table 3 shows the average number of days taken by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to scan an application, search the Police National Computer, search the records held by local police where appropriate and to print the DBS certificate for applications within the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency.

Figures for the average processing time for returning paper applications cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate cost.

Checks of the Children’s barred list and the Adults’ barred list are carried out in parallel to the local police checks and data on the average time taken to conduct these checks cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate costs.