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Written question asked by Tulip Siddiq (Labour) on Tuesday, 5 January 2016, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 7 January 2016. It was answered by Karen Bradley (Conservative) on Monday, 18 January 2016 on behalf of the Home Office.

Vetting

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) requests were made for and (b) individuals passed Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) adult first checks in each year since 2012; what the average time taken was for that check to be carried out; and how many of those passed subsequently failed their DBS check, and were therefore not issued with a DBS certificate.

Answer

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Adult First is a service provided by the Disclosure and Barring Service that can be used in cases where, exceptionally, and in accordance with the terms of Department of Health guidance, a person is permitted to start work with adults before a DBS Certificate has been obtained.

An individual neither passes nor fails an Adult First check and a certificate is not withheld if a person is on the Adults barred list. If a person is on the list, that fact will be disclosed on the completed DBS certificate.

There are two outcomes to an Adult First check and the Registered Body is either advised that no match exists for this person on the current Adults barred list, or they must wait for the full disclosure as a match against the Adults barred list cannot be ruled out at this stage. Further investigation is then carried out through the normal disclosure checking process and if a match against the Adults barred list is confirmed, it will be disclosed on the certificate.

The table below shows the number of requests that were made for DBS Adult First checks, the average time taken to complete Adult First checks and the number of times the Registered Body received a ‘wait for the full disclosure’ or ‘no match found’ response between December 2012 and November 2015.

Period

Number of Adult First Requests

Average Number of Days to Conduct Adult First Check

Number of “No Match Found” responses

Number of “wait for full Disclosure” responses

Dec-12 to Mar-13

50,175

1.07

39,200

10,975

Apr-13 to Mar-14

166,287

1.08

130,333

35,954

Apr-14 to Mar-15

173,503

1.19

135,792

37,711

Apr-15 to Nov-15

116,602

1.06

91,782

24,820

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
21044
Session
2015-16
Related items
Vetting
Monday, 1 February 2016
Written questions
House of Commons
Subjects
Vetting
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk