My DBS application has recently been submitted by my unit. I’ve tried checking the status via the online DBS tracking service using the forms reference number. I keep receiving the same message - “We are unable to process this request because the DBS has not received the corresponding DBS application”
The application was submitted nearly 2 weeks ago. Does anyone know if the ACO electronically submit the information online to DBS rather than sending the paper forms? I’ve heard of other organisations doing this. In which case the message above would make sense
The thing to remember is that, yes, paperwork is sent by snail-mail to DBS for checking; shame we can’t do it electronically, but you never know in the future.
We are told that paperwork doesn’t go direct either, which adds to the timescale.
I chased a DBS for a new member of Staff that was submitted 4 weeks ago and was informed by my Wing HQ that it has to go to Cheadle Hume (MOD) first for double checking before they send it to DBS in Liverpool so there is always a delay.
I checked last night and my new member of Staff’s still hasn’t been registered as received by DBS yet. Sorry!
I checked the dbs for one of our new chaps yesterday and it was sat waiting for police clearance as of 1st June. Application was submitted 8 weeks ago.
It is correct that they go to DBS Cheadle for vetting first before they are registered on the system for you to track.
Longest DBS clearance time I’ve had for a new pilot was 18 weeks.
It’ll go global once they’ve worked how to make something that seems to be so simple in the real world, as awkward as possible. I can see a trip to Wing to get it set up (which will be on a Tuesday between 1.30 and 2.30pm), then wait 2-3 months for the link to come through, a week for the cert to land on your doormat and then the same rigmarole or certified copies sent to Wing, when as I understand it the requesting body get notified of the result. We have far too many admin roles to try and keep.
Ironically, civil servants entering MOD have an electronic DBS submitted on their behalf from their job application information. After about three days, it is actioned and then completed within 30 minutes.
And these are the people processing volunteer paper forms at the rate of an asthmatic snail carrying some heavy shopping… providing the forms are not then lost and require resubmission because nobody in the process knows where it’s gotten to, and the cadet/staff is about to be suspended.
Just like that.
It is difficult not to engender a pre-conception of slow/ineffective RAFAC admin when new volunteer staff turn up for their first night and are told not to return for 6-8 months. Although those that survive this gap are likely to have formidable resilience, they will know from other lines of work that this wait is unjustifiably exaggerated.
The paper form DBS often provides lead times longer than it would take to apply for a permanent staff role, interview and be selected, get eDBS, security check and have had a first months pay.
There are likely good reasons for this wrt money and business needs etc. However, this is the first prospective a new volunteer gets dealing with RAFAC. In Astra, we should keep the ball rolling for the positive benefit a proper eDBS would have on our recruitment pipelines — as @Mr_OZ says we are.
Remember though that for most CS adminers the DBS is not the enhanced one CFAVs have for working with kids for the most part and the biggest lead time in a lot of cases is the processing with individual police forces. eDBS will not speed up the police processing, it will merely bypass the snail mail of sending the paper form.
You can get the performance data for the various police forces on gov.uk
Why is it that the eDBS I and others have done take c, a week from send to cert on doormat and the Air Cadet ones take several weeks. My last cadet one took over 9 weeks from sending to Wing to cert on doormat.
The one I got for my new job (3 months after the cadet on done online 8 days from send to cert and the school admin was notified before I got the cert and no other faff.
These will use the same police force checking, yet massive time difference. Even taking into account say 3 days for each posting around the system, there was c.7 weeks lost somewhere. Even if the turn round was a month, still a week lost.
