THE Chief Constable of Humberside Police has apologised for "system failings" which meant nothing had been kept on the force's computer that pointed to killer Ian Huntley's past as a sexual predator.

And following the Soham murder trial, Home Office Minister Hazel Blears has told MPs that police forces must have better systems for inputting arrest and conviction details to reach expected standards.

Forces are set targets of sending 90 per cent of court case results to the Police National Computer (PNC) within a week, and 90 per cent of arrests within 24 hours.

Throughout England, about 79 per cent of arrests are logged within a day, but only 38 per cent of court results are reaching the PNC in time.

In North Yorkshire, the average time from the police receiving notice of court cases to logging them is eight-and-a-half days, but the force is training seven members of staff to deal with the problem.

Cleveland Police hit the target in 88 per cent of cases, and for Durham Police the figure is 80 per cent.

For logging details of arrests, Cleveland hits the 90 per cent target while in Durham it is 80 per cent, and in Northumbria 94 per cent.

Ms Blears said a 12-month inspection between March 2001 and April last year was not encouraging, but a team has been set up to monitor police performance and a new code of conduct is expected in April.

One of the main failings in Humberside, where Huntley lived before moving to Soham, Cambridgeshire, was the police "weeding" methods where details of allegations were removed from the computer, partly because of data protection problems.

That meant the ten allegations of rape and underage sex made against Huntley between 1995 and 1999 were never cross-referenced or linked.

All four police forces in the region keep details of allegations and cautions on file for at least a year, and review its importance annually.

Convictions for murder and manslaughter, as well as sexual and serious crimes, are held indefinitely, while those for other offences are often deleted when they are classed as spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

Guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) advise forces to review regularly the information they hold, but to be cautious about how long it is kept.

The conflict between civil liberties and the protection of the public was last night described as contradictory by Acpo president Chris Fox.

But Lord Mackenzie, a former high-ranking Durham Constabulary officer and ex-president of the Police Superintendents Association, said that in the debate between the police having greater powers and allowing offenders to rehabilitate, children had to come first.

"People do object to the police having more powers," he said.

"But that has got to be balanced with the public interest."

The extent of checks made by councils employing people who work with children and vulnerable people has also been revealed in the wake of the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

A survey by The Northern Echo shows more than 36,000 inquiries were made with the Criminal Record Bureau by authorities in the North-East and North Yorkshire this year.

Councils request enhanced searches for job applications for teachers, classroom assistants, caretakers, social workers, taxi drivers and bus drivers, with standard searches for catering staff, office workers and librarians.

Durham County Council has carried out 13,500 checks this year, which resulted in 11 people being denied the chance of a job because of their backgrounds.

A spokesman said: "While the potential risk posed by adults to young children can never be entirely eliminated, Durham County Council has adopted a number of measures to ensure that the risks posed by any of its employees working in close and regular contact with young children is minimised."

North Yorkshire County Council has carried out checks on 9,700 people this year, while there were 3,000 in Middlesbrough, 2,800 in Hartlepool, 600 in the education department in Darlington, and more than 1,200 in Redcar and Cleveland.