Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the cost of Disclosure and Barring Service checks.
Karen Bradley
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is funded through fees charged for disclosure certificates and from subscriptions to the DBS disclosure update service. DBS operates on a full cost recovery basis. There has not been a fee increase in four years and volunteers receive free checks.
The table below sets out the average time taken to process all three types of checks.
|
Timeframe |
Standard Disclosures |
Enhanced Disclosures |
Enhanced Disclosures with List Checks |
|
01st Nov 2010 to 31st Oct 2011 |
5.21 |
16.84 |
16.81 |
|
01st Nov 2011 to 31st Oct 2012 |
5.34 |
11.24 |
11.25 |
|
01st Nov 2012 to 31st Oct 2013 |
4.57 |
10.60 |
10.63 |
|
01st Nov 2013 to 31st Oct 2014 |
6.37 |
14.12 |
14.17 |
|
01st Nov 2014 to 31st Oct 2015 |
5.97 |
14.92 |
14.94 |
The fluctuations in processing times over the years relate to a number of factors, including changes in demand and demand forecasting, changes to IT systems and the performance of police forces for enhanced disclosures.
