Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time was for applications to the Disclosure and Barring Service for each police force area in England for the most recent year for which figures are available.

In the last 12 months (1 October 2015 – 30 September 2016), the proportion of disclosure applications which took longer than 60 days was as follows: (a) the UK - 5.4%, (b) Manchester - 3.9%, (c) Manchester Withington - 2.8%. The Disclosure and Barring Service 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. The average time taken in days to process disclosures checks in the last three years is as follows:

The average processing time for applications to the DBS for each police force area in England from 1 October 2015 to 30 September 2016 is set out in the table below. This shows the average number of days each application took from the point at which the application form was received to the date the certificate was issued, broken down by the applicant’s geographical police force area. This information reflects all applications sent to the DBS, of which a proportion are sent to police forces for consideration for disclosure.

For a breakdown of how long police forces take to process applications they receive; this information is regularly published on the DBS website and can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dbs-performance