People waiting longer than 14, 28, 60 days for various types of disclosure: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for the number of people waiting longer than 14, 28, 60 days for each type of disclosure (basic, standard, enhanced, Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG)Scheme) in each of the last six months.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. However, we are able to provide equivalent data for the number of “applications” that took longer than 14, 28, and 60 days. In Disclosure Scotland we measure the time taken to process an application as each application carries a unique reference number and is traced throughout its whole process journey. Applicants can submit more than one application at a time.

The reasons why we don’t have the information are explained in the Annex to this letter.

* The following information has been provided outwith FOI(S)A *

A summary of the number of applications that have had an completion time longer than 14, 28 and 60 days broken down by disclosure type for each of the last six months is provided in tables 1 to 3 below.

• Note that the number of PVG applications during May 2019 to August 2019 may not exactly equal other similar published data as these contain a small number of reprocessed applications. These would be difficult to remove from the analysis due to the requirement to report consistently on the three different periods requested (longer than 14, 28 and 60 days). These will have minimal impact on overall figures.
• Reprocessing is not required in our new system (hence why the above note applies only to May 2019 to August 2019).

Table 1: Number of completed applications that had a processing time longer than 14 days by month and disclosure type, for last six months.

Application Type	May-19	Jun-19	Jul-19	Aug-19	Sep-19	Oct-19
Basic	170	50	270	60	95	1750
Standard	40	15	50	5	160	1100
Enhanced	20	5	10	5	40	325
PVG	745	520	760	1325	3800	18740
Overall	970	595	1090	1400	4090*	21915*

* Note: Due to the seasonal increase in our work and the bedding in time of the new system, we are temporarily taking longer than usual to deliver our PVG products. Arrangements have been put in place to deal with the delays and these arrangements are now having an effect.

Table 2: Number of completed applications that had a processing time longer than 28 days by month and disclosure type, for last six months.

Application Type	May-19	Jun-19	Jul-19	Aug-19	Sep-19	Oct-19
Basic	25	0	<5	10	<5	40
Standard	<5	0	0	0	<5	10
Enhanced	<5	0	0	0	0	20
PVG	20	15	5	155	45	520
Overall	50	15	5	165	50	590

Table 3: Number of completed applications that had a processing time longer than 60 days by month and disclosure type, for last six months.

Application Type	May-19	Jun-19	Jul-19	Aug-19	Sep-19	Oct-19
Basic	<5	0	0	0	<5	5
Standard	<5	0	0	0	0	<5
Enhanced	0	0	0	0	0	0
PVG	<5	<5	0	<5	<5	10
Overall	<5	<5	0	<5	<5	20

Note:
1 - Data rounded to nearest 5. Totals may not equal sum of parts due to rounding.

Annex - Reasons for not providing information
The Scottish Government does not have the information

Section 17(1) of FOISA (information not held) requires the Scottish Government to notify you if it does not have the information you requested. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because we are unable to provide the data requested for “people” waiting longer than 14, 28, and 60 days.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

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