§ Bob RussellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he anticipates the Criminal Records Bureau will reach its performance targets for processing applications. [86057]
§ Hilary Benn[holding answer 9 December 2002]The Home Secretary's independent review team is in the process of examining all aspects of the Criminal Records Bureau's (CRB's) operation with a view to identifying medium to long term improvements, which will include service standards. They will report to the Home Secretary shortly, their recommendations will then be elaborated and implemented in the course of 2003.
The Criminal Records Bureau has implemented a range of improvements to processes and working practices and the intensive focus on improvements is already yielding results. The current average turnaround time for processing correctly completed disclosure applications is now five weeks. Over the last two weeks the CRB has been averaging around 43,500 Disclosures per week, which is over double the weekly output issued by the police under the previous arrangements. Since 11 March the CRB has received 1,023,000 applications and issued over 755,000 disclosures.