BRIDGWATER and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has written to the county education chief and the Home Office in "horror" over criminal check-up figures.
The Criminal Records Bureau, responsible for carrying out checks on anyone with a connection with schools, has a backlog of 1,350 people's backgrounds to investigate in Somerset.
The figures were released following the arrest and committal to Rampton Hospital of Ian Huntley, alleged to have murdered Cambridgeshire ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
"If someone wants to be a taxi driver, for example, or a scout leader, the appropriate authority makes an application to the bureau which then checks whether the person has a criminal record," said Mr Liddell-Grainger.
"The same system applies to people who wants to do any work in or with schools, including as caretakers like Ian Huntley.
"I was absolutely shocked when the Somerset figure was released. I don't know whether it is that the Local Education Authority has not applied for the checks to be carried out or whether the bureau is lagging behind.
"But I do know that it's not good enough. Our children go back to school in only a few weeks from now yet there are 1,350 people who will come into contact with them without having been checked out."
Mr Liddell-Grainger has written to Somerset education officer Michael Jennings asking for the position to be made clear and to the Home Office urging that the checks be speeded up.