On 14 December, 2016 this story I produced and reported on, led BBC London News programmes:

The speed at which mandatory criminal checks are being completed by the Metropolitan Police is of “great concern”, a government department said.

A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is needed to work with children or vulnerable adults.

The London force has 50,570 outstanding applications. The Met says that is down from 83,000 in April and more people have been brought in to process cases.

One nurse said she lost her job after an eight-month wait for clearance.

A DBS check is supposed to take up to eight weeks, with no checks taking longer than 60 days. But just over half of cases – 51.9% – are dealt with within 61 days and on average, it takes 107 days.

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Published 14 December, 2016