Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the average processing time for Disclosure and Barring Service checks in (a) Basingstoke constituency, (b) Hampshire, and (c) England in the last 12 months.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is operationally independent. Standard and Basic checks are not referred by the DBS to police forces. For Enhanced checks, application details may be referred to any police force that holds potentially relevant information and not just the police force where the applicant currently resides.

The DBS publishes its performance data for England and Wales on a quarterly basis. The most recently published performance data for the second quarter of 2024-25 which can be viewed at: DBS dataset 1: DBS checks, the DBS Update Service, and disputes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), shows that the DBS achieved the following:

• The target to process 85% of Basic checks within 2 days was met, with an average attainment of 88.6%.

• The target to process 85% of Standard checks within 3 days was met, with an average attainment of 91.2%.

• The target to process 80% of Enhanced checks within 14 days was not met, with achievement continuing to be impacted by the closure of a higher percentage of aged cases at the police force stage.

The DBS does not publish data broken down by constituencies, towns, cities or counties.