Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken was from request to response to carry out vetting under the disclosure and barring regulations in each police force in England and Wales in the last period for which figures are available; whether that vetting is undertaken in accordance with national requirements in each such force; and (a) what his policy is on and (b) how he measures the performance of the Disclosure and Barring Service.

The Disclosure and Barring Service publish police performance and average turnaround times quarterly with the latest information available up to and including June 2018.

Average turnaround times for police disclosure units broken down by month and by force can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dbs-performance

Police Force Disclosure Units must provide locally held information for inclusion on enhanced criminal record certificates in accordance with a statutory test set out in Part V of the Police Act 1997. This test requires that a chiefofficer believes the information to be relevant and that it ought to be disclosed. When considering information for disclosure, chief officers must also haveregard to statutory guidance available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statutory-disclosure-guidance

The statutory guidance sits alongside operational guidance drawn up by the police service and the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

This Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) can be found at the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/quality-assurance-framework-version-nine-qaf-v9

The application of the Quality Assurance Framework by Police Force Disclosure Units is monitored by the DBS Standard and Compliance Unit to help ensure that a consistent high quality approach is taken by forces when they process DBS applications.

DBS performance is measured against Published Service Standards which are detailed in the DBS Business Plan. These include:

• To complete 87% of all standard and enhanced DBS checks within 21 days
• To complete 96% of all standard and enhanced DBS checks within 42 days
• To complete 90% of DBS basic checks within 14 days

The DBS performance against these targets is published quarterly, here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dbs-dataset-1-disclosure-progress-information-disclosed-and-update-service-subscriptions