Checks into the background of care workers in charge of vulnerable people are being delayed because the vetting process has not been up to scratch, the government has announced.

Existing staff in care homes, agency staff in nursing homes and school governors will not be checked by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) for the time being, Downing Street said on Friday.

The greatest concern about the plans has come over the decision not to vet carers giving one-to-one help to people in their own homes.

The National Care Homes Association (NCHA) said that decision put elderly and vulnerable people at risk, but the government says other checks will go ahead.

Keeping carers working

Home Office Minister Lord Falconer said the delays to the vetting procedures had been agreed to ensure demand for checks was in line with the CRB's ability to process them.

"All these arrangements are designed to avoid having regulations in place which cannot be complied with by providers," said Lord Falconer.

"The government recognises the importance of criminal records checks but at the same time providers must not be prevented from operating.

Falconer: Demand for checks had to match supply

"Care homes have to be able to continue to employ existing staff, and we believe that domiciliary care agencies and nurses agencies should not be prevented from being able to place staff because they have not obtained checks."

New staff in care homes and the owners and managers of homes and nursing agencies will still have to go through the criminal records checks now.

The government wants existing care home workers to be vetted during 2004.

Preventing another crisis

A backlog of 100,000 vetting applications built up this summer.

A Home Office spokesman said a similar crisis would happen if the checks had been introduced by next March as planned.

Earlier, the prime minister's official spokesman said the systems in place at the CRB were not robust enough.

Paul Burstow: Appalled by homecare decision

It was not a perfect piece of administration as far as the government was concerned, he said.

Staff at the bureau were working flat out and in the last three weeks there had been 40,000 checks, compared with 24,000 in the whole of August, he added.

The delays decision came under fire from Sheila Scott, chief executive of the NCHA, who told BBC News Online she was "appalled".

She pointed particularly to the lack of checks for carers giving one-to-one help in people's homes.

People 'at risk'

Those concerns were echoed by Liberal Democrat spokesman Paul Burstow.

"It means that non-vetted staff, caring in the privacy of a person's own home, will do so unseen and unmonitored, putting the most vulnerable people at risk," said Mr Burstow.

But Lord Falconer stressed the Department of Health would still go ahead with plans for new regulations on homecare workers in February.

Staff would not have to be vetted by the CRB but would have to provide a statement that they had no criminal convictions, or disclose any convictions they did have.

Some nursing agencies which already needed to have staff checked by the bureau would still have to go ahead with that vetting, added Lord Falconer.

Problems at the CRB meant thousands of teachers were sent home at the beginning of term because many new teachers had not been vetted.

The education department eventually changed the guidelines to allow headteachers to use their discretion about letting new staff start work.