Disclosure Barring Service
Customers contacting DBS between Monday 12 December and Tuesday 3 January may experience some delays and disruption.
Staff working for HGS will be taking part in industrial action for two weeks from Monday 12 December. HGS is contracted by DBS to provide customer contact centre services and some administrative functions. This includes handling customer queries by telephone, webchat and email but excludes the processing of DBS checks.
HGS is putting additional resources in place to try and minimise the inconvenience to customers as much as possible. However, with the festive period immediately following the industrial action, DBS customer contact centre services will experience some disruption until the new year.
Core DBS services and turnaround times for DBS checks and barring decisions should not be affected. Employers and customers should continue to access our services as normal.
How to contact DBS
Customers can still contact DBS by:
-
telephone - 03000 200 190
- webchat
- email - customerservices@dbs.gov.uk
Service operating hours
The customer contact centre operating hours from 12 December 2022 to 3 January 2023 are:
- Monday 12 December to Friday 16 December - 9am - 5pm
- Saturday 17 December to Sunday 18 December - closed
- Monday 19 December to Friday 23 December - 9am - 5pm
- Saturday 24 December to Tuesday 27 December - closed
- Wednesday 28 December to Friday 30 December - 9am to 5pm
- Saturday 31 December - closed
- Sunday 1 January - Monday 2 January - closed
From Tuesday 3 January 2023, usual operating hours will apply.
Advice for customers when contacting DBS
To ensure your query is dealt with as quickly as possible, it is really important you provide the correct information when contacting us. This includes your full name, address including postcode, telephone number and any DBS reference numbers if relevant.
If you are contacting us about an application, please provide 5 of the following:
- full name
- address including postcode
- date of birth
- position applied for
- name of employer
- National Insurance number
- a previous address
- place of birth
- your E or F reference
In addition to the above, Registered Bodies will also need to provide their Registered Body reference number and Countersignatory reference number to confirm their identity.
Additional support for customers
To support customers, DBS will be issuing a range of frequently asked questions and up to date service information on social media throughout December. You can access this information by following us at:
Customers can also access more help and advice by reading our factsheet: