Written question asked by Ben Chapman (Labour) on Wednesday, 10 December 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 15 December 2008. It was answered by Meg Hillier (Labour) on Thursday, 18 December 2008 on behalf of the Home Office.

Criminal Records Bureau: Complaints

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many complaints the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) received on the time taken to process applications for CRB clearance in (a) the last 12 months and (b) the last five years.

Answer: The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) received 3,733 complaints on the time taken to process applications in the last 12 months up until November 2008. During this same period the CRB issued 3.6 million disclosures.The CRB did not separately record delay complaints before April 2007. To obtain this level of detailed analysis would involve manually re- processing source records and this could be done only at a disproportionate cost.The CRB endeavours to issue both standard and enhanced disclosures in the shortest time possible. Some disclosures do take a matter of days, while others can take considerably longer. There are a number of factors that can affect the timely completion of checks, including but not restricted to the timely submission of application forms by registered bodies to the CRB; the accurate completion of the application form; the clarity of the information provided; the existence on conviction or non-conviction information and the operational effectiveness of the disclosure units at the police forces involved in the enhanced disclosure process.

Secondary information