VULNERABLE adults have been put at risk after thousands of known offenders were allowed to work in care homes, a Labour Party inquiring revealed Yesterday.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) allows employers to sanction people with recorded offences from working with vulnerable adults.

But Labour released statistics showing a 90 per cent drop in the number of people being prevented from working with the elderly and disabled.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The barring system is still not keeping safe those it is designed to protect.

“These figures show we have not learnt lessons from the past.”

The system will bar workers based on two provisions — either a single qualifying offence or recorded patterns of behaviour, like petty theft or assault, which would be considered “discretionary bars.”

Labour’s figures show how the latter has seen a substancial decline, going from over 2,000 people barred in 2009 to merely 441 in 2013.

Ms Cooper blamed the Home Secretary for the DBS’s poor performance.

“We warned Theresa May that her reforms were creating loopholes that would put people at risk,” she added.

Changes to the regulation included the repeal of registration and continuous monitoring for those working with children and vulnerable people. 

Disabled People Against the Cuts spokeswoman Linda Burnip told the Star: “The failure of the Disclosure and Barring Service raises not only serious concerns about the safety of disabled people who use care services but is yet another example of failing government policies.”