§ Mr. BurnsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the average time has been for processing a check by the Criminal Records Bureau, broken down by category of worker; [129842]
(2) what the average time is which it is expected the Criminal Records Bureau will take to check on new staff seeking to work in the long-term care sector. [129843]
§ Paul Goggins[holding answer 15 September 2003]: I am unable to provide data to the hon. Member on the average time taken to process Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks, broken down by category of worker because there are no IT procedures at present to extract these data from the CRB database.
However, I can confirm that the average turnaround times for Standard and Enhanced Disclosures across all business sectors is 24 days. Service turnaround times for Standard and Enhanced continue to exceed the CRB target of 90 per cent. of Standard Disclosures within two weeks and 90 per cent. of Enhanced Disclosures within four weeks. The CRB expects to process the checks for new care home workers within this service standard. In July 2003, the average turnaround was 93.1 per cent. for Standard Disclosures and 93.5 per cent. for Enhanced Disclosures. Over the last four weeks, output has exceeded intake: 142,932 applications have been received and 145,117 have been issued. Since 11 March 2002, the CRB has issued over 2,364,312 Disclosures.