Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of application backlogs at the Disclosure and Barring Service.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) receives around 4 million disclosure
applications a year and provides the Home Office with monthly updates on its
performance. Latest data for the 2014-15 operational year, covering the period
from April 2014 to January 2015, shows that 95.4% of disclosure certificates
were issued within 40 working days - well above the DBS service standard to
issue 88% of all disclosures within this time.

A key aspect of DBS administration is to ensure that disclosure checks are both
accurate and completed within service standard timescales. In the small
proportion of cases where checks have not been completed within these
timescales, the DBS is expected to take the necessary steps to progress the
case including, as appropriate, working with the police and other parties
involved in the checking process.