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<p>The Disclosure and Barring Service is a non-departmental public body which provides
access to appropriate criminal record information for employers through its disclosure
service for England and Wales. It also makes independent barring decisions about people
who have harmed, or where there is considered to be a risk of harm to, a child or
vulnerable person within the workplace. Given the sensitive nature of this work and
the reliance on police forces to provide locally held intelligence, it would not be
appropriate to introduce competition.</p><p>Whilst no assessment has been made of
the affect of timeliness on the number of job opportunities which may have been lost,
the impact which delays may have on applicants is recognised. 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. In very exceptional
cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant,
the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the
relevant police force.</p><p>The average end to end time taken to complete a DBS check,
including the time taken by police forces, is listed in following table.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Financial
Year</p></td><td><p>Average calendar days for a disclosure to be processed</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>13/14</p></td><td><p>11.5</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>14/15</p></td><td><p>14.4</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>15/16</p></td><td><p>14.5</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The
proportion of checks which took longer than (a) eight weeks (b) 12 weeks and (c) six
months is listed in the following table.</p><table><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2"><p>Financial
Year</p></td><td><p>Disclosures which took longer than 8 weeks</p></td><td><p>Disclosures
which took longer than 12 weeks</p></td><td><p>Disclosures which took longer than
6 Months</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>% of Disclosures</p></td><td><p>% of Disclosures</p></td><td><p>%
of Disclosures</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>13/14</p></td><td><p>2.6%</p></td><td><p>0.8%</p></td><td><p>0.0%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>14/15</p></td><td><p>4.9%</p></td><td><p>2.1%</p></td><td><p>0.1%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>15/16</p></td><td><p>5.2%</p></td><td><p>3.5%</p></td><td><p>0.3%</p></td></tr></tbody></table>
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