Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many disclosures have been made under the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme in (a) Bedfordshire, (b) Cambridgeshire and (c) Hertfordshire in each of the last three years.

The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme sets out procedures for sharing information about a person’s known history of violence or abuse to members of the public to prevent further crime.

The DVDS has two procedures for disclosing information:

• “Right to ask” – a member of the public applies to the police for a disclosure.
• “Right to know” – the police make a proactive decision to disclose information.

Data on the number of disclosures under the schemes is collected by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services and published by the Office for National Statistics at Domestic abuse and the criminal justice system - Office for National Statistics.

Data on the number of disclosures under these schemes by the police in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire in the last three years, are shown in the below tables. Note that these data are not classified as accredited official statistics and caution should be taken when comparing data between years due to differences in completeness and recording practices over time.