Senior police officers held at least four meetings with Home Office officials last year over British citizens convicted abroad, it emerged yesterday.

The officers warned the department that more than 500 serious offenders had been identified among 27,520 files that had been gathering dust in the Home Office for seven years. Today John Reid, the Home Secretary, is hoping to learn from the Criminal Records Bureau whether any of 260 serious offenders have secured jobs working with children and vulnerable adults.

The disclosure that police officers met Home Office officials at least four times between September and December last year to discuss the problem raises questions about how ministers were kept in the dark.

A statement from the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said that the backlog of 27,500 files on offenders convicted abroad was handed to it in June. It said: “We prioritised the notifications according to the offence categories of murder, manslaughter, sex offenders, serious assaults, drug offences receiving at least one year’s imprisonment, robbery and any other offence that the unit classed as serious where information was limited about the offence but the sentence indicated it was of a serious nature. Of the 540, 260 were entered on to the Police National Computer which feeds into other public protection processes and databases.”

It added that by the end of September Acpo held a number of meetings with Home Office officials. The statement went on: “General progress was discussed along with how best to deal with the historic notifications.”

Senior officers told officials in the Home Office’s crime policing and counter-terrorism divisions that it would take a least a year to tackle the backlog, but that were more money available this could be done sooner. “We did not receive any additional funds,” the statement added. In October police wrote to Tony McNulty, the Police Minister, to update him and indicate “difficulties around the exchange of criminal records across the EU”.

The letter was passed to Joan Ryan, a junior Home Office minister, whose office replied to police in December. “She acknowledged the points raised and asked that we keep officials updated,” the statement said.

Acpo met officials again in October and December.

The Home Office insisted that the scale of the problem was never brought to the attention of ministers.

As the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats made applications under freedom of information legislation for the letter sent to Mr McNulty to be published, No 10 said that the Prime Minister retained full confidence in Mr McNulty and Ms Ryan.

Nick Clegg, for the Lib Dems, accused Mr Reid of “hiding behind the skirts” of Ms Ryan. He said: “Her boss should have the courage to take responsibility for this farce and publish the letters immediately.”

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