Millions of personnel checks to be abandoned

Children's home staff and foster parents could be fingerprinted to avoid paedophiles getting close to vulnerable youngsters in an overhaul of the Criminal Records Bureau.

Plans to check millions of people who move jobs will also be abandoned in an effort to rescue the bureau from the chaos caused by the backlog of teachers waiting to be vetted when the school year began in September.

A package of measures, amounting to complete reform of the organisation, was recommended to the Home Office in a report by the millionaire troubleshooter Patrick Carter. Mr Carter's review blamed the bureau's problems on "public expectations [which] are possibly unreasonably high". And he warned: "There needs to be a clear recognition that the process cannot provide complete security."

He called for the Government to consider compulsory fingerprinting, which would be cross-checked against police records, for applicants to sensitive posts with vulnerable children and adults. He said the provision could cover children's home staff, foster parents and prospective adopters, but said it would not apply to teachers.

Mr Carter said: "Fingerprinting is one of the very few ways you can employ to get true identity checking."

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, a Home Office minister, said the Government would consult on the proposal, which would require legislation.

Organisations that apply to the records bureau will be responsible for confirming the identity of applicants. The agency will then be left to decide which applicants would be subject to higher "enhanced" checks for people in charge of vulnerable children and adults and which would face the "standard" level, which applies to other adults such as teachers working with children. The move has been forced on it because police resources are "tied up" by the costly process of "enhanced" checks.

Meanwhile, the introduction of the lowest-level check, the so-called basic disclosure, which had been intended for general recruitment, has been shelved indefinitely.

More checks will be done via computers, rather than relying on paper records. The bureau, which is currently part of the Passport and Records Agency, will be reconstituted as a free-standing body.

Capita, the company that won the £400m deal to run the bureau, will have its contract renegotiated. Lord Falconer hinted that the group had been penalised because of the teachers fiasco but refused to disclose the amount.

The Home Office said the only senior manager to leave the bureau since the chaos began was Keith Broadbent, its director of operations. He has moved to another job in the Immigration and Nationality Department of the Home Office.

The report by Mr Carter said: "The cost of operating the CRB both within the agency, Capita and local police forces has remained high and there is no evidence that the bureau, as it stands, would be able to cope with the significantly higher level of demands which were foreseen in the business plan."

Lord Falconer said the bureau was doing 40,000 checks a week, 60 per cent more than last summer, and insisted it could be a "long-term strategic success". He added: "The new measures will need careful implementation, which cannot happen overnight. But we are confident they will put the CRB on a firmer foundation."