To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much on average it cost the Criminal Records Bureau to process a (a) standard and (b) enhanced check in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. (285971)

The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) is an Executive agency of the Home Office and issues higher level disclosures (both standard and enhanced) for employment and licensing purposes, as provided for in part V of the Police Act 1997. The CRB has been self-funding since 2006.

Fees have been frozen at the 2006-07 level, meaning the cost of a disclosure has not increased since April 2006. This has been achieved as a direct result of year on year internal efficiency savings and year on year increases in demand.

Approximately 20 per cent. of applications are from volunteers and disclosures for volunteers continue to be processed free of charge. This has resulted in a considerable saving for the voluntary sector.

As the CRB is self-funding, the processing costs for all the volunteer applications, processed free of charge, needs to be recovered through the fee paid by other applicants; consequently, the fee must be set higher than the unit cost.

The unit cost of a standard and an enhanced disclosure is the average cost to the CRB of producing one disclosure, irrespective of whether the disclosure is paid for. The following table shows the unit costs in each of the last five financial years.