Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what targets her Department has in place to ensure criminal records check disclosures are processed efficiently.

The Disclosure and Barring service works directly with each police force to agree a budget annually based on the expected numbers of local checks and considers any requests for additional resources as part of these discussions.

In 2015/16 the Disclosure and Barring Service had a target of processing 85% of all applications within 21 days. Some of the over four million applications received each year need to be referred to one or more police forces for further checks and the Disclosure and Barring Service funds Police disclosure units.