CHECKS on up to 7,000 school staff will not be completed by the start of term, the Home Office admitted today.

But schools in the Evening Press region are still to open as planned at the start of term even though hundreds of checks have still not been completed by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).

The bureau was set up in March to provide checks that would stop paedophiles from gaining access to children. Staff have to receive double clearance before they can work with or near children.

Their names are checked against List 99, a secret Department for Education and Skills (DfES) dossier of people convicted or suspected of child abuse, as well as other criminal records.

Patrick Scott, director of education at City of York Council, said the DfES had contacted the council today with new advice on how schools should cope with the backlog. It said any teachers moving schools after continuous service elsewhere, for example coming to a York school from North Yorkshire schools, should be allowed to teach as normal, so long as they had been checked and had proof of their checks.

The same applied to newly-qualified teachers who had proof of the checks they had had done as students.

"They have said it would be perfectly reasonable to let them teach straight away," he said.

Mr Scott said he anticipated that the number of outstanding checks on York teachers would be down to single figures by Wednesday.

"I don't anticipate any schools will close, but we could still be left with a school which may have to send home a class," he said.

He said that although the issue had come to a head at the start of the new term, the council had had problems with the bureau.

"We've been finding it difficult since April to get checks through as rapidly as we would like," he said.

In North Yorkshire, a spokeswoman said that between 300 and 400 checks were outstanding, and that 75 to 80 per cent of these were teaching staff.

That figure was likely to reduce today and no schools were expected to close as a result.

In the East Riding, there were 300 checks still outstanding, and about 100 of these were teachers.

A spokesman said: "We don't anticipate any schools having to close."

By mid-afternoon yesterday, a total of 9,600 staff across the country had still to be cleared by the CRB. Of them, the Home Office - of which the CRB is part - said 7,000 had not even begun to be processed.

These applications either contained errors or omissions and the bureau was having to request additional information before processing could take place.

"The CRB is working round the clock by contacting the individuals or organisations involved to obtain the correct information," a Home Office spokesman said.

He explained, however, that once the information was received "three or four days" was being allowed before completion of processing.

The remaining 2,600 are being "fast-tracked" and should be completed by Wednesday, said the spokesman.

- Pupils at Manor CE School in York have a two-day delay in the start of their new term because of building work.

Updated: 11:16 Monday, September 02, 2002