How long do they take to get?
The overall time to get a Disclosure is largely a function of the time the applicant takes to complete and return the form (correctly) and the time taken at the CRB or SCRO.
For our part we generally send out the form the same day the client gives us the applicant's contact details. We remind the applicant to complete and return the form as per an agreed (with the client) schedule and process the application form the same day we receive it (see standards)
The CRB element varies depending on which level of Disclosure is required and, for Enhanced Disclosures, whether the Local Police Force has a backlog.
We measure the time taken to receive the Disclosure for every application we submit and produce a weekly chart giving the average. We break this into Standard and Enhanced applications.
Currently (16th November 2009) the CRB are issuing Standard Disclosures in a reasonably consistent 10 calendar days and Enhanced Disclosures in an average 28 calendar days but the spread on the latter is much wider, with the odd one taking 3-6 months. If we remove the worst 10% the average for these comes down to 23 calendar days.