PAEDOPHILES could freely begin work at Swindon schools and in social services, following a ruling by Swindon Council.

Due to the poor performance of the Home Office's Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), the council has changed its clearance procedures for employing staff working with children and vulnerable adults.

Staff will now be able to start work as teachers, teaching assistants, social workers and other positions for the council without receiving clearance first.

The council has admitted that the move is a "calculated risk" and there is a danger that people with criminal records could slip through the net.

The new measures will be reviewed after three months and any employees starting work in the meantime will be subject to extra supervision until their clearances are received, which could take several months.

Councillors on the cabinet reluctantly approved the move, claiming they had little choice on the matter.

They argued that vital appointments were being delayed or prevented altogether by the failure of the CRB to process clearances quickly enough. It was considered better to take the risk than have empty classrooms and a shortage of social workers.

The CRB only began performing the country-wide service in March this year, but the backlog of unprocessed disclosures is believed to have already reached 30,000.

It has a target to complete 90 per cent of disclosures within three weeks, but of the 311 disclosures requested by Swindon Council since March, only 30 have been returned.

Some councillors questioned whether changing the system was the right approach.

Coun Ian Dobie (Haydon Wick), deputy leader of the Conservatives, said: "If we're talking about children, we're talking about paedophiles.

"It's well known that these people are extremely clever, cunning and manipulative. They get away with it over and over again before they're found out.

"So even if we are only talking about a few weeks, the damage done in that time could affect a child for life."

Phil Baker, Swindon secretary of the ATL teachers' union, said the risk was low in schools because most teachers bring references with them from other schools.

He said: "One secondary school has 10-12 new teachers starting in September and it would be a massive problem if they weren't allowed to start.

"In the current situation, we have to balance the positive of having teachers in front of our children against the negative of the possibility that there could be an abuser employed."

Headteacher of Seven Fields Primary School, Andrew Nye, said the previous system, where clearance was sought from local police before appointments were made, was perfectly satisfactory.

"It seems ridiculous that they abandoned a system that was working before they could be sure how the new system would operate," he said.