STAFF working with children are still being hired without proper criminal record checks or references, a child protection investigation has found.

The Safeguarding Children report also discovered that temporary agency and foreign workers are being taken on without background checks.

The report, by the chief inspectors of the eight public services working closely with children, said that while there had been overall improvements to child protection services in the past three years, considerable failings persist.

In one of the worst examples of bad practice, it highlights the case of two local authorities, Croydon and Lewisham, which placed vulnerable children in an unregistered private unit. The children were housed in caravans staffed by unchecked workers. After the placements were discovered, both authorities were successfully prosecuted, and David Behan, chief inspector of the Commission for Social Care Inspection, wrote to all councils reminding them not to place children in unregistered establishments.

The report, which covers social services, education, schools, health, police, probation, courts and the Crown Prosecution Service, also raises concerns about children being placed in homes or foster care without the carers being informed of their background. This has led to cases of young people with a history of abusing others being placed in dormitories with younger children.

In the criminal justice system, the report highlights the concerns raised by some children in young offender institutions about staff using physical restraint measures as punishments or to secure compliance with their instructions, and adds that inspectors are also concerned about the use of physical restraint measures by staff who have not been trained to practise them safely.

The report notes that in the family courts, where contact disputes between divorced and separating parents are settled, there is widespread disagreement over how much say children should have in their own future.

Although staff from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service are supposed to report to the court on the child’s wishes and feelings, the inspectors found that they often merely read a summary or interpretation of the child’s own words.

“Since children rarely attend court, the opportunity accurately to represent and take into account their views is therefore weakened,” the report says. It also raises concerns about asylum-seeking children, particularly those who come into the country apparently unaccompanied. As immigration and asylum staff often received no more than half a day’s training in child protection, there was doubt over whether they were able to identify whether such youngsters were subject to trafficking for sexual exploitation or if under-age girls had been kidnapped for forced marriage.

Where children and their families were held in immigration detention, there were often no child-protection policies, physical conditions were inappropriate and education inadequate. “Even more concerning,” the report says, “is the effect of detention itself on a child . . . and of witnessing their parents’ powerlessness.”

Mr Behan, who will launch the report tomorrow, said that there were also concerns about disabled children, particularly those with communication impairments, who found that they were ignored and incapable of reporting any cases of abuse, and youngsters who spent long periods of time in hospital.

“Many staff charged with looking after them lack the proper training to communicate with them properly, or identify signs of potential abuse,” he said.

The inspectors also express concerns about the differing thresholds applied by social services departments. Continuing difficulties in recruitment and retention of staff in some services were also affecting their ability to safeguard children effectively, they say.

The report calls for registration and tougher vetting of staff and, two years after the Laming inquiry into the Victoria Climbié murder recommended greater co-operation between different agencies working with youngsters, makes 24 recommendations and says that agencies should make sure that these are acted on.

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