Surrey County Council has misled a Government watchdog over staff and child safety checks, according to a damning report released today.

Both Ofsted and the Audit Commission criticised the council service which looks after about 4,000 at-risk children, rating three of the five areas as inadequate and the other two as merely adequate.

According to the report, Surrey County Council made false statements that all staff had been checked to see if they were a threat to children and vulnerable people.

One voluntary agency visited providing services to young people could not confirm whether their staff or volunteers had been subject to any CRB checks - which were brought in to root out paedophiles and criminals from sensitive jobs.

Another service, paid for by schools to provide education to young people, was not monitored for safe staffing checks at all.

The Ofsted report said: "Although the council state in their self-assessment that all staff are robustly CRB checked, this information is false, with high numbers of staff identified by the human resources database as either not having had CRB checks or three yearly re-checks."

It added: "The poor attention to ensuring that staff are safe to work with children and young people is both unacceptable and dangerous."

Weeks after the draft report was presented Andrew Webster, strategic director of services for families and the officer with overall responsibility for making CRB checks had been carried out, announced he was leaving the council.

It is understood that two senior members of staff have been suspended.

The council press office said they could not comment on any suspensions.

"Two members of staff are currently on a leave of absence. We can't comment further," a spokesman said.

Leader of the Tory run-council Nick Skellett told fellow councillors today: "I was personally shocked by these findings. The thought that our services to this group of children are not good enough is for me upsetting."

He added: "As a result of this work around 40 children have been made subject of a child protection plan and a further 20 have been looked after."

A Surrey County Council statement said only a very small number of staff were affected and there had been no "adverse incidents" as a result.

Lib Dem county councillor Sarah Di Caprio said her party wanted Mr Skellett, recently given a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, to resign for a lack of political leadership.

She said: "There is so much here that is shocking and shameful. We just don't feel we have been given the information in time or a full and frank discussion on what is going on."