Tracking Applications at the CRB/SCRO
With the CRB handling 60-70,000 applications a week, their process is very proscribed and any issue with an individual application causes a significant delay to the Disclosure being issued. The worst case we have experienced so far took 7 months to see the Disclosure issued, and that was with our expediting it (the issue was eventually traced to the process used by a particular local police force to decide whether some intelligence they held was relevant to the role and should be released, which included fingerprinting the applicant). The process has improved somewhat since then, and now more than 90 days is unusual
We track every application submitted and record the date we receive the resulting Disclosure (separately to the issue date). From this data the system can calculate the average time taken for Standard and Enhanced Disclosures to be issued, which is done on a weekly basis to allow for seasonal fluctuations. Ignoring the fastest and slowest 10% (which can skew the figures) the current (20/1/2007) average comes out to around 12 calendar days for Standard Disclosures and 35 calendar days for Enhanced Disclosures, though the spread is much wider for the latter.
With this data we can set a time when we consider an application becomes "overdue" and start to chase it, which is not trivial!
If the delay is due to the CRB or SCRO requiring clarification of some personal data we will take ownership of getting this from the applicant and back to the CRB. Where fingerprints are required (generally only requested if there are two people with similar personal details and one has a record) we will ensure that this process happens. In many instances the delay is due to an error at the CRB with the required data having already been supplied, but which was overlooked by the processing staff, in which case we will get the application back on track
The new on-line tracking system introduced by the CRB in January 2007 is making life easier, but this only shows where an application is and we still have to call them to find out why a delay is occurring.
If the delay is down to the checks with the local police force (Enhanced Disclosures only) we have to escalate the application with the CRB once 30 days has elapsed from the date they sent it to the police, which we will be told when we chase the CRB a second time. Once escalated we get into a round of telephone calls and written correspondence and eventually we will be told which police force has the application. It is then down to us to contact the local police force (we have a database of contacts) and escalate it with them, which usually does the job.
In short we will stay on the case until we get the Disclosure issued.