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Written Question
Vetting
Wednesday 26th November 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of Disclosure and Barring Service applications are referred to police forces for verification.

Answered by Karen Bradley

Applications for an enhanced criminal record certificate are referred to police forces under certain circumstances, including where there is a match against the Police National Computer (PNC) or a match against a national database of
local police intelligence, known as PLX (Police Local Crosschecking). Between 1 April 2014 and 30 September 2014, 34.9% of applications for a DBS enhanced check were referred to local police forces as part of the Disclosure process.


Written Question
Vetting
Monday 20th October 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of (a) how many and (b) what proportion of Disclosure and Barring Service applications took longer than 60 days in each of the last five years.

Answered by Karen Bradley

The number and proportion of Disclosure applications that took longer than 60 days to process is provided in the table below. The Disclosure and Barring Service was established in December 2012. Data prior to this date relates to the Criminal Records Bureau.

Financial Year

Total Despatched

Number issued over 60 days

% issued over 60 days

2014-15 year to date

2,046,233

60,249

2.9%

2013-14

3,948,733

83,299

2.1%

2012-13

4,066,605

42,839

1.1%

2011-12

4,074,241

105,260

2.6%

2010-11

4,311,816

454,065

10.5%

2009-10

4,299,496

354,150

8.2%

Total

22,747,124

1,099,862

4.8%


Written Question
Vetting
Monday 20th October 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the time targets are for the return of Disclosure and Barring Service applications.

Answered by Karen Bradley

The current Disclosure and Barring Service service standard is to issue 88% of all Disclosures within 40 working days.


Written Question
Passports
Tuesday 7th October 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have waited longer than the advised waiting times for (a) new passport applications and (b) passport renewals in the last year.

Answered by James Brokenshire

The information is not available in the format requested. Information can be
provided for UK straightforward and non-straightforward applications as set out
below for 2013-14

Total number of UK applications received 2013-14 5,818,272

Processed outside published turnaround times
Straightforward (within 3
weeks)
401 (0.007% of applications received)

Non-straightforward (within 6 weeks)
29,331 (0.5% of applications received)


Written Question
Passports
Wednesday 1st October 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the average waiting time for (a) new passport applications and (b) passport renewals in each of the last four years.

Answered by James Brokenshire

We are unable to break the data down into first time applications and renewals,
although we can provide the data broken down by straightforward and
non-straightforward.

The table below shows the average waiting time for straightforward and
non-straightforward applications on an annual basis since 2010.

Average processing times in working days

Straightforward applications

Non-straightforward applications

2010

3.6

9.7

2011

4.1

9.7

2012

6.8

11.6

2013

3.8

7.9


Written Question
Passports
Tuesday 8th July 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints her Department has received regarding delays to the issuing of a passport in each of the last four years.

Answered by James Brokenshire

The table below shows the number of complaints related to delays in receiving a
passport.

Year

Number of complaints relating to delays

2010

1253

2011

1341

2012

1513

2013

1437


Written Question
Passports
Tuesday 8th July 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications for (a) new passports and (b) passport renewals there have been in the last year; and what the annual change in such figures has been.

Answered by James Brokenshire

During the period between 1 June 2013 and 31 May 2014, Her Majesty's Passport Office
received 1,425,885 first time passport applications and 4,461,343 passport
renewal applications.

This compares with 1,346,246 first time applications and 4,036,267 passport
renewal applications during the period between 1 June 2012 and 31 May 2013.


Written Question
Passports
Monday 7th July 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent reports she has received of changes in the backlog for processing (a) new passport applications and (b) passport renewals.

Answered by James Brokenshire

Ministers receive regular reports on the performance of Her Majesty's Passport Office.


Written Question
Police
Monday 16th June 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department issues to police forces on marking cases as requiring No Further Action.

Answered by Norman Baker

The Home Office Counting Rules provide guidance to police forces on all matters that relate to the recording of crime and disposals. They are issued annually
by the Home Office.

This Government is committed to increasing the transparency of information available to the public on recorded crime and outcomes. From April 2014, we introduced the recorded crime outcomes framework, replacing the previous regime of detections. This will inform the public how forces have dealt with 100% of crimes reported to them. For the first time, therefore, the public will be able to see how those crimes previously recorded as ‘undetected' and as requiring ‘no further action' have been resolved. The first data will be available in July 2015.


Written Question
Police
Monday 16th June 2014

Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number and proportion of cases that police have marked as requiring No Further Action in each of the last four years.

Answered by Norman Baker

The information requested is not held centrally by the Home Office. Until recently, information has only been collected on crime outcomes that involve action being taken by the police. These were part of the former detections framework before 2013/14, and the new outcomes framework after that.

In April 2014, a new, broader crime outcomes framework was introduced, providing much greater transparency on how crimes are resolved by the police. This framework includes all scenarios where no further action was taken by the police. From April 2014 onwards, data is being collected on this new framework, and the first full set of statistics will be published in July 2015.