A year ago we were witness to the piles of National Sex Offenders Register (NRSO) applications at the Department of Justice in Cape Town. Most of them were submitted to the department over a year prior to our visit.
We entered into regular discussions with them explaining the ramifications should the resulting certificates not be issued on time. Many applicants needed their certificates for job applications and many organisations were applying for certificates for their staff and volunteers for the first time, and had no idea what the statuses were for their people.
This can pose a serious safety risk to the children and as we have previously mentioned in one of our blogs, the organisation is also at risk because the courts are starting to ask whether the mandatory checks had been done (see another one of our blogs).
Over the last year we have seen dramatic improvements in their services with the average turnaround time being experienced now down to around one month. That is absolutely FANTASTIC - Well done DoJ. Hopefully soon it will be down to 10 days - the department's actual time standard for the processing of NRSO certificates.
So, to all our organisations and institutions - there's no excuse anymore that the DoJ takes forever. They are getting "on the ball" as required in order for us to be properly compliant with the law and having the peace of mind that none of your staff or volunteers have their names on the NRSO!
Please keep those bookings coming.