mummyMia
03-06-2011, 12:30 PM
Like so many others on here, I am waiting for a crb. Mine came back quickly but husband's is taking much longer. The CRB office refused to tell me which police station it was sent to, but after some calling around I managed to track down the correct number at the London Met. After many attempts somebody finally answered my call today:) Apparently, all the CRBs are put onto a single list and picked randomly. The lady explained that they have lots of different staff working different shifts and some work faster than others so they don't assign CRBs to specific people. Instead whoever is on shift that day randomly pickes out a CRB from this massive list to look at. After 60 days, if the CRB hasn't been done yet, they can escalate it to another list, where in theory it should be looked at by a manager and get done faster. They don't always get escaled automatically so she asked me to call back once 60 days have passed. That is 60 days from when they received it, not when the CRB office received it. The Met received mine 4 days after it went to stage 4 on the online tracking system.
So now I know why some take so much longer to come back than others. Your CRB could get pulled on the first day or it could sit there for the full 60 days without being picked, or even longer if nobody calls to chase it up:( Who knows how long it takes on the escalated list.
For all those who live in any London Borough, your CRB will go to the Met, not the local police station. The phone number for the character enquiries unit is 02072302002. Be prepared to call several times as they don't always answer. I was told that they can't do anything until the 60 days is up so it may not be worth the struggle of getting through until then.
Hope this is of help to someone:)
So now I know why some take so much longer to come back than others. Your CRB could get pulled on the first day or it could sit there for the full 60 days without being picked, or even longer if nobody calls to chase it up:( Who knows how long it takes on the escalated list.
For all those who live in any London Borough, your CRB will go to the Met, not the local police station. The phone number for the character enquiries unit is 02072302002. Be prepared to call several times as they don't always answer. I was told that they can't do anything until the 60 days is up so it may not be worth the struggle of getting through until then.
Hope this is of help to someone:)