Teacher vetting given top priority

Thousands of people working with children will not be vetted for up to a year because teachers were made the top priority in clearing a backlog.

The disclosure today prompted an angry backlash in Whitehall but Estelle Morris, the Education Secretary, insisted that school staff should take precedence over other professionals in charge of young people.

Officials in rival departments accused Mrs Morris of putting children at greater risk from sex abusers by trying to protect her own department from a scandal at the expense of others.

Among those whose checks will be delayed for months are care home workers, hospital staff, social workers and probation officers.

One official said: "Under the rules forced through by the Education Department, school dinner ladies are being vetted ahead of a care worker who may have sole charge over a child and be responsible for undressing or washing vulnerable children. That is plainly ridiculous and a misdirection of resources.

"In practice, it means some people who have the most authority over children and the least supervision will be among the last to be vetted to see if they are likely abusers.

"The fact is teachers are the lowest risk category for child abusers and are highly supervised."

The fiasco follows confirmation of a huge backlog at the Criminal Records Bureau, set up this year to check on people working with children.

Three weeks ago, Mrs Morris ordered the bureau to vet teachers and ancillary school staff as a priority. She pledged that no school would allow anyone to work this term who had not been checked. But that pledge was dropped last week when thousands of children faced disruption because the backlog had not been cleared in time.

Reports today quoted "allies" of Mrs Morris blaming the turmoil on Home Secretary David Blunkett, saying she had warned him of the growing crisis months ago.

The backlog in vetting checks at the CRB has risen to 102,000 in the past month, partly because resources were diverted to picking out 25,000 applications for checks from schools and faststreaming them.

Among those in the backlog are nursery staff, children's homes workers, staff in hospital children's wards and people working with vulnerable adults, such as the mentally ill. People in voluntary groups, including Scout leaders, are also being treated as low priority.

Last Friday, Mr Blunkett announced a sweeping review of performance at the CRB to be carried out by independent management experts.