The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) has warned DBS checks may be delayed if they have to go to the Metropolitan Police, taking “much longer” than its 60-day target.

The DBS issued a statement this morning claiming some applications were taking up to 100 days to be processed.

The DBS’s remit is to help employers make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children. 

In a statement sent to Recruiter, a Metropolitan [Met] Police spokesperson said the force was beginning a recruitment drive to cope with increased demand to process DBS checks but new hires would require specific training.

“DBS checks are not simple administrative work,” they said. 

“Staff are making decisions about the disclosure of information on MPS [Met Police Service] databases that directly impacts children and vulnerable adults, and those who seek to work with them. For this reason, staff require three months’ specialist training and supervision by current, experienced staff to be fully productive, even at the basic level.

“Multiple police forces may be involved in one check at any one time. Applications are only completed once all of the police forces sent a particular check have responded.” 

Once in receipt of an application, the spokesperson continued, a force may reject or 'conflict' the check due to incomplete information or additional checks required by DBS. 

“Once the conflict issue is resolved, DBS directs the application back to all forces concerned for checks to resume or begin again. This process would inevitably lengthen the time taken for the application to be completed.”

According to the statement, other actions the Met is taking to tackle delays in the handling of DBS cases include:

• Working closely with DBS officers exploring all opportunities to minimise the backlog

• Continuing to explore working with other forces to assist with the workload

• Exploring the possibility of introducing an evening team to increase resilience

• Reviewing selection and training processes in the context of existing risk factors

• Reviewing database and registry search processes 

The spokesperson also revealed the Met handles roughly 12% of all DBS cases nationally and is funded to research about 5,335 applications a week but has received more than those numbers each week this year. 

Despite the increased workload, the spokesperson added, since October 2014 the Met is less than 0.5% short of its target of 200,197 checks, returning 199,324 against an increasing workload and with resources more than 20% below target strength.

Targets set by DBS will increase from September, the spokesperson said, with the weekly target rising from 5,335 to 5,965.

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