Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications to the Disclosure and Barring Service took longer than 30 days to process in 2014-15.

As of 31 May 2016, the DBS had 78,596 disclosure applications in progress which were over 30 days old. In 2015/16, the DBS processed 86.9% of applications within 21 days, against a target of 85%.

In 2014-15 the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) issued 4,111,856 disclosures. 400,883 of these took longer than 30 days.

The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner and is working closely with those forces whose performance does not meet turnaround time targets.