The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), which processes criminal records checks, paid out £169,000 in compensation last year, compared to just £80,000 in the previous 12 months.

Payments can be made to people if the delay in issuing their certificate is too long and interferes with them starting a new job, or if something incorrect is disclosed on their record.

The vast majority or payments are made for delays with the biggest payouts in the last two years being £17,715 for a 12-week hold-up and £14,720 for a delay of four months.

A spokesperson for DBS said: “DBS checks are an important part of the overall safeguarding process. The average turn around time for disclosure applications is 15.3 days and 94.3% of applications are issued within 8 weeks, as of December 2015.

“We process over 4 million applications a year and on rare occasions some of our customers may not receive the level of service they should expect. DBS offer redress payments in such instances, where appropriate, each claim is considered on a case by case basis.

“We aim to deliver the highest levels of accuracy in all our work to protect vulnerable children and adults, however we also recognise the potential impact to individual customers should we not deliver the service they expect.”

Source: The Mirror

DBS and Police Caution Appeals

If you have been issued with a police caution then we are able to help. You may be finding that a caution is having a more serious impact on your life than you were led to believe it would have.

You may have only admitted an offence to avoid going to Court or you were told it was just a slap on the wrists. If you have received a police caution and would like to discuss getting it removed (expunged) from the police national computer (PNC) then please get in touch.

We can also assist if you are on the barred list or need to appeal a DBS certificate.