Kelly Promises Improved Child Protection Laws

LONDON - Education Secretary Ruth Kelly said on Thursday she would tighten child protection laws after revealing she did not know how many registered sex offenders were working in schools.

Kelly and her department have been heavily criticised by parents' groups and opposition politicians after a registered sex offender was given a job as a physical education teacher.

Kelly's department had ruled he did not pose a risk.

"We have some of the toughest sex offender laws in Europe," she told the House of Commons.

"(But) I fully understand the concern that this has caused, and I'm determined to do something about it," she added.

"I have therefore commissioned as a matter of urgency an exhaustive review of all such cases since the introduction of the Sex Offenders Register in 1997 in order to confirm the precise number of these individuals."

She said the review would also establish "their whereabouts and whether their behaviour has been of concern to the authorities."

In her statement to the House, Kelly said the so-called List 99, of the names of those barred from ever working in schools, had been significantly tightened in recent years.

However some people on the registered sex offender list — such as those who were only cautioned by police rather than prosecuted — were not automatically put on List 99 and in such cases a minister has to decide whether the person is a risk or not.

"I will ... also review urgently the decision making process surrounding such cases ... (and) whether ministers can be removed," she said.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said Kelly had Downing Street's full support.

"It is better to deal with the policy issue rather than turn it into some kind of blame game," he said.

The subject of child protection laws is an emotive one following the murders in 2002 of two 10-year-old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, by Ian Huntley, who worked at their school despite being a suspected sex offender.

Police checks had failed to reveal his background.

Sir Michael Bichard, who investigated how Huntley had become a school caretaker on the same grounds as the girls' primary school at Soham in Cambridgeshire, criticised how offenders were recorded on different lists.

Bichard told the BBC on Thursday there were dangers in the current system. His inquiry in 2004 had called for a single list.

"There's a list for the Protection of Children's act; there's a List 99; there's a list for the protection of vulnerable adults and the inquiry said there were real dangers here because those various lists had different decision making processes," Bichard said.

The opposition Conservative party said Kelly should resign and demanded to know how many sex offenders were working in schools.

"As every day passes, parents' confidence in Ruth Kelly's ability to maintain the integrity of the staff working in schools is ebbing away," education spokesman David Willetts told BBC radio.

"These were very sensitive decisions that were taken.

"They were taken at a ministerial level and they (the ministers) were consciously deciding that someone who is on the register of sex offenders should nevertheless be permitted to work in schools".