Children's staff checks 'danger'

The review looked at services for children and young people

Surrey County Council is to take immediate action after a report said checks for staff working with children were "unacceptable and dangerous".

Ofsted said high numbers of staff had not been checked by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), despite claims by the council all staff were verified.

One voluntary agency providing services to young people could not confirm if workers had been checked or not.

The council said it accepted all the findings and took them seriously.

Ofsted published the 2008 review of Surrey's services for children and young people last month.

Three out of five categories were judged inadequate - scoring grade one out of a possible four - while two were judged adequate.

We have taken on board these findings by taking immediate and decisive action Surrey County Council

It also found mental health services for children and young people were under-developed and inconsistent across the county.

There was limited access to sexual health services for young people in rural areas, and the county had one of the highest rates of chlamydia in the South East, the review said.

Slow process

But the report also said the county had good fostering and adoption services, and good initiatives for improving access to services for Traveller children in the west of the county.

And all schools had been issued with anti-bullying guidelines.

The council said in a statement that all staff who were required to have a valid CRB check either had one in place or were getting one.

"No organisation will ever be able to claim it has 100% of staff CRB checked," it said.

"This is due to natural turnover and the length of time the process takes.

"We have taken on board these findings by taking immediate and decisive action, and we can reassure residents that vulnerable children in Surrey are not unsafe."

It said it was confident the issues were being addressed and had voluntarily asked for re-inspection next January.

"A thorough action plan has been agreed by the executive and is currently being implemented," it said.