Ex-burglars given a licence to snoop round your house

Energy assessors for the troubled Home Information Packs will not be checked by police for previous convictions, it has emerged.

Some 2,000 applicants are being trained to carry out 'green' audits of properties as part of the packs, which include key documents needed to sell a home.

Prisoners have even been phoning surveyors' organisations from their cells to find out how to become assessors, MPs said.

Ministers introduced domestic energy assessors to replace home inspectors - a job effectively made redundant when part of the HIPs scheme collapsed.

Home inspectors would have been forced to face much more stringent police checks by the Criminal Records Bureau, with all convictions being disclosed. But for domestic energy assessors, 'spent' convictions will not be revealed because of a mistake when drafting the regulations.

Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, a convict jailed for between six months and two-and-a-half years will have spent their conviction ten years after they are freed. If they are jailed for under six months it will take seven years and if it is a fine it will be five years.

In one case a man rejected as a home inspector because of a burglary conviction was approved as an energy assessor because his past was not checked so thoroughly.

Last night MPs condemned the Government over the lax security checks and accused ministers of covering up the blunder. Tory housing spokesman, Grant Shapps, said: 'The prospect of someone who has previously been convicted of burglary strolling into your house on apparently official business will concern thousands of householders throughout the country.'

His LibDem counterpart Paul Holmes said estate agents and surveyors had flagged up the concerns with housing ministers, but their fears had repeatedly been ignored.

He added: 'This is a glaring error. It means burglars and thieves will be allowed to wander around a house that is up for sale.

'Even if they don't plan to burgle the house themselves, it is a good way of having a good look around and passing the information onto their friends.'

Vince Gaskell, chief executive of the Criminal Records Bureau, has been asked by companies which process applications to clarify the position.

The problem was highlighted at a meeting of MPs, officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government and members of the housing industry. It will also be raised in the House of Lords when HIPs are debated.

The packs were meant to be introduced on June 1 but, faced with a legal challenge from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly delayed the launch until August 1.

Even then it will only apply to properties with four bedrooms or more.

A Communities and Local Government department spokesman said: 'We consulted and agreed the level of criminal checks for energy assessors with the police. These checks are as strong or stronger than other professions who enter the home like gas inspectors and utility representatives.'