Committee chairman Edward Leigh

MPs have heavily criticised the Criminal Records Bureau for failing to provide the "standard or range of services" it promised.

The chairman of the public accounts committee, Edward Leigh, said the bureau must learn lessons to protect the most vulnerable members of society.

The CRB was set up in 1999 to help employers and voluntary groups screen people who wanted to work with children and vulnerable adults.

It was not long before the body's computer systems failed, leading to a massive backlog peaking at nearly 300,000 applications by October 2002.

It meant employers could not recruit and charities lost potential volunteers.

Despite efforts to fix the problem the committee said the service is still inadequate and costs have increased from £250 million to £395 million over the 10 year period.

Recommendations

Among other recommendations, the committee said the government should looks again at the way private finance agreements, like that used to organise the bureau, operate.

"The serious problems surrounding the launch of the Criminal Records Bureau were a direct consequence of weaknesses in planning," Leigh said.

"If a new service is to be successfully introduced, then sufficient time must be left for it to be properly piloted and tested.

"The price of the contract with Capita has turned out to be higher than the prices quoted by other bidders, because business processes had to be fundamentally changed during system development."

Critical response

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten said the CRB was "an expensive failure".

"It is too slow, too inaccurate, and too costly," he said.

"For school, church, and youth groups the CRB has too often caused serious problems, with staff and volunteers waiting too long for clearance.

"Whilst we need safe systems to protect our children, we also need the home secretary to ensure this can be done more effectively in the future."