Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the backlog is for enhanced DBS checks by police area.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) operates to service standards of completing 80% of Enhanced check applications within 14 days. These service standards can be seen in quarterly performance reporting which the DBS publishes at: DBS dataset 1: DBS checks, the DBS Update Service, and disputes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The latest published statistics are for September 2023 which show that the DBS is completing 78.1% of Enhanced check applications within 14 days. The DBS does not publish data by police area.

An Enhanced check requires the DBS to send applications to the police for local data searches and local intelligence checks. Currently some police forces’ turnaround times have been affected by increased volumes of disclosure applications against original forecasts.

Police forces are recruiting more staff to service the additional demand for Enhanced DBS checks The DBS is working collaboratively with policing partners to enhance the quality of an enhanced criminal record check referral to improve turnaround times and continues to modernise its services through the replacement of legacy systems and further digitisation of disclosure products.