Estelle Morris says that councils must share suspicions about teachers

The names of up to 1,000 teachers who are suspected of being unsuitable to work with children are being kept on secret town hall blacklists, a BBC investigation has found.

But none of these names appears on the government's official list of teachers banned for sexual or physical abuse of children.

In response to the investigation, Ms Morris has promised to write to local authorities demanding that any information about suspect staff should be held centrally.

"I'm saying to local authorities - don't keep secret lists, give me the names of these people and we will look at the names and take action," the minister said.

"From today, I will write to local authorities and say if you have a so-called secret list that's not on - we all have an obligation as adults to protect children and we need a central list."

The BBC Two education programme, Just One Chance, discovered that local education authorities are keeping secret lists of teachers suspected of being a threat to children, but who have not been convicted of offences which would place them on the official register of banned teachers - the so-called List 99.

Estelle Morris has promised to write to authorities telling them to share information

The Association of Chief Education Officers said the investigation proved that the government's List 99 was not offering sufficient protection to children.

Chairman David Mallon said: "We need to examine whether or not the rules for getting on List 99, which appear to be criminal convictions, are too tight in order to have child protection.

"List 99 ought to work in such a way that parents have pretty well 100% certainty that their children are safe. I really don't think it does."

Mr Mallon also said that the number of teachers blacklisted by local authorities as potential risks could be nearer to 2,000.

The Local Government Association's John Ransford agreed that List 99 needed to include a wider-range of suspected staff - but pointed out that a legal ruling stops councils from sharing information based on civil court rulings.

The Just One Chance investigation suggests that at present there is little to stop a teacher suspected of abuse from moving on to another school or education authority.

As well as the lack of shared blacklists, headteachers were found to be reluctant to mention unproven allegations when providing references for colleagues.

Teachers who have been banned are registered on 'List 99'

The deputy headteacher of a former special school in Leeds, Stuart Lindsey, was jailed for 16 years last month after confessing to a catalogue of sexual abuse against his pupils.

Accusations had followed him from school to school and he had been the subject of two full police investigations, but prior to his confession he had been able to continue in the classroom.

Although authorities like Leeds keep confidential records on suspect teachers, employers do not always ask for them.

The authority's Principal Education Welfare Officer, Arthur Giles, said: "As long as a teacher has got a certificate of teaching qualifications, some authorities will simply employ them."

In East Sussex, education officials have acted to prevent abusive teachers moving on by drawing up a secret list of suspect teachers who they refuse to employ in their schools.

The council's Assistant Director of Education, Matt Dunkley, said: "The kind of problem we have is that we may have somebody who has been found by us to have been guilty of, for example, a sexual assault on a child.

"But if that has not resulted in a criminal prosecution, for whatever reason, the Department for Education is unlikely to put them on List 99 - although we may be completely convinced of their guilt. Sometimes they may have even admitted it.

"Some teachers that my colleagues and I are convinced are guilty of abusive acts towards children, are still teaching, are still being allowed to teach - and there's nothing I can do about it."