Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to improve efficiency in DBS processing for prospective teachers.

As an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body of the Home Office, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is operationally independent and responsible for the service it provides. It currently operates to formalised service standards of completing 85% of Basic check applications within 2 days, 85% of Standard check applications within 3 days, and 80% of Enhanced check applications within 14 days.

Its latest performance against these service standards is available at DBS dataset 1: DBS checks, DBS Update Service, and disputes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Prospective teachers are likely to require an Enhanced level DBS check which must be sent to police forces for local intelligence checks. It is important from a safeguarding perspective that the DBS allows sufficient time for these robust checks to take place, as these are ultimately in place to protect the most vulnerable groups in society.

Whilst the vast majority of Enhanced checks are processed within target, there are a small number of police forces that have been experiencing difficulties in meeting their target times due to extra demand. The DBS has been working closely with these affected forces to improve performance, including by providing funding for overtime and additional staff whilst the forces recruit and train new staff to process the checks. The DBS is also facilitating workload sharing between police forces so that forces with capacity can provide assistance to those forces that are struggling.

This work should help to further improve efficiency in DBS processing of Enhanced checks for all, including for prospective teachers.