The Home Office used to be referred to as the “dustbin” of Whitehall, such was the range of policy responsibilities with which it was burdened. That portfolio has shrunk somewhat in recent years, but it appears that the “sieve” may be a more apt moniker for this department. The statement issued yesterday by Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, on the failure to consider deporting or removing former prisoners who should have been scrutinised is astonishing. Had it occurred in any other realm of government, the calls for heads to roll would be deafening. As it is, the reaction is that of weary despair, although the offenders included murderers, rapists and paedophiles.

It is not even clear whether the full facts of the matter are truly settled. Mr Clarke started his statement with the ominous words that “to the best of my knowledge”, 1,023 foreign national criminals had left prison without being duly referred to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) as they should have been. His caveat is understandable, not least because it is not certain that the Home Office realises who these offenders are, let alone where they are living. In 103 of these instances, the department cannot identify the crimes that those in its charge had committed. Nor was Mr Clarke prepared to produce the names of murderers who should have left Britain.

The Home Secretary has indicated that he is not interested in any “blame game”. It would presumably involve too many individuals and institutions, including himself, if one were initiated. A sharp increase in the overall jail population since 1997 — including a rise of 6,000 in the numbers of foreign nationals incarcerated — seems to have overwhelmed the Prison Service, which could barely focus on allocating inmates to cells, never mind the origins of the offenders.

Meanwhile, the IND, under intense political pressure to find and exclude failed asylum-seekers outside the prison system, seems to have forgotten to check on the most unsavoury and unwanted of visitors.

The chances of tracking down the outstanding 916 people who have been freed incorrectly since February 1999 and then actually returning them to their home states are, alas, minimal. It does not help that this quest will depend on the competence of the Probation Service, yet another branch of the Home Office whose collective capacity has fallen under doubt of late. For according to the National Audit Office, this body suffers from an endemic “sick-note culture” among its own staff as well as finding it a challenge to keep accurate records on and make wise judgments about some who come under its jurisdiction.

The news of this gross incompetence will come as a genuine shock to many law-abiding citizens who have every reason to worry about precisely where these criminals, some with a history of extreme violence, have settled. The public will have little confidence in the authorities to deal with this menace.

It has to be asked again, however, whether despite shedding certain of its more tangential functions elsewhere, the Home Office is stretched too thin and would benefit from concentrating on crime — its prevention and punishment — in the manner of a continental interior ministry. And if the “sieve” that the Home Office has been does not become more secure, and the offenders are not identified and loca-ted, there is every reason for Mr Clarke to fear for his job security.