Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of trends in average waiting times for mental health volunteers to gain security clearance to work with prisoners.
Officials have investigated this question and have liaised with those in the Approvals and Compliance Team (ACT) who have reviewed all data held on those wishing to work with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.
The current average timescales for security clearance for a non-directly employed worker is 8 working days from the point of all correct documentation being submitted by the worker.
Unfortunately, the vetting platform used for non-directly employed personnel such as mental health volunteer workers is unable to provide specific timescales on groups of professionals that are placed through the vetting process.