Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what was the average time taken to complete HM Prisons and Probation Service staff security vetting for each quarter of the last 12 months.

Within HM Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS), security vetting is carried out to ensure individuals who wish to take up employment within the organisation can uphold the security and integrity standards expected of their role and ensure prisons and probation remain safe for rehabilitation to take place.

In response to this question, information on the average time taken to complete staff security vetting is not held centrally in the format requested.

Responsibility for staff security vetting within HMPPS is split across different teams and service providers, and there is no single centrally held dataset capturing end‑to‑end average completion times by quarter. Without a centrally held dataset, we are unable to provide the average time taken to complete HMPPS security vetting in response to the question.