Hi Everyone,
I have just ordered a UK police check and received an email saying that they are experiencing delays, so please refrain from contacting customer services. This makes it sound like there are serious delays well beyond their stated 20 working days. Has anyone recently received a certificate and knows the current waiting time?
Many thanks,
TC
They said the same to me about 3 months back. They are staggeringly unreliable. Mine took well over a month to come through and my partner’s was nearly 2 months but then they “accidentally” sent it to the States instead of to France. After over 6 weeks he rang up and they got it back to him.
I imagine you’ll have had problems with GRO and birth certificates etc too. We started the process at the beginning of January and what with getting translations done as well, it was the end of April before everything was through…
Patience is very much required! Good luck 
The criminal records service was hit by a major ransomware attack about a year ago and totally fell apart for weeks. They had to do everything manually and built up a massive backlog. It took months for one sister to get hers.
Although back on line all reports suggest that their performance is still rubbish right now.
“Absolute fucking disgrace of a service. In what first world country should we need to pay £50 for a document then be kept completely in the dark for a month before hearing any kind of update? 4 weeks on for me since submitting and nothing whatsoever in terms of communication from them - this despite their new online system promising to speed up processing times. Shambles.”
Average seems to be about a month