David Lammy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Lammy on 2016-07-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether compensation is available when the Disclosure and Barring Service does not resolve checks within the 60 day service level agreement period.

Sarah Newton

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) has a target to issue 95% of certificates within 8 weeks, which it is close to achieving. The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner.

DBS will liaise with the police on behalf of a customer who is experiencing delays when their enhanced level DBS application is with the police to undertake statutory checks. In these cases DBS will aim to resolve the customer’s issues as quickly as possible, and keep the customer informed until resolution. However, the DBS cannot provide financial remedy for any complaint about police actions including the timescales taken by the police to complete a check. It would be up to individual police forces to comment on any local redress policies.

If the delay is due to maladministration on behalf of DBS, the DBS redress policy is designed to ensure that the person who is the subject of that maladministration is not disadvantaged. Further information can be found on the DBS website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service/about/complaints-procedure