An increase in the time taken for the Criminal Records Bureau to carry out checks on candidates is hitting recruiters.

Steven Benton, director of Rye-based social care recruiter Trustinus Recruit, told Recruiter that enhanced CRB checks for jobs such as child protection social workers were taking between two and three months compared with one month a year ago.

He said this was having a dramatic effect on his business with many jobs being filled or candidates going elsewhere before CRB disclosures are received. “We are losing possibly 20% of our placings this year compared to what we would normally do,” said Benson.

Andrew Thorne, chief executive of criminal justice recruiter Backstop, told Recruiter that because checks were taking longer, his company was applying up to four months before documentation needed to be renewed.

A CRB spokesperson conceded that “some enhanced checks are taking longer than usual to process”, blaming “an unprecedented increase in demand for its service” since April 2008. “The performance for completing enhanced checks has dipped below the 90% target for processing checks in 28 days,” added the spokesperson.