Fife Council has given assurances that everything possible is being done to locate the forms, which went missing in April.

However, some anxious staff at the Cupar high school say they have 'no confidence' in the process and believe the documents could well have been misplaced by overworked council employees.

The local authority insists that the forms — which contain homes addresses, dates of birth and even passport details of the teachers — were sent in one batch by recorded delivery to Disclosure Scotland, the body that checks a person's suitability for working with children.

But Disclosure Scotland says it received only three of the forms on three separate dates.

A source at the school said that people were getting 'very upset' by the continuing uncertainty over the whereabouts of the documents and speculation was rife that they were still somewhere in Fife House.

He claimed: "The adminstrative team supporting the education service are working under a huge strain because of lack of staff.

"On one occasion recently, around 70 forms were sent out to teachers without the correct postage, so they all had to collect them from the post office, where they were each charged £2.70.

"There are papers piled all over the place in the department, and we suspect these documents may be among them.

"In the meantime, with the summer holidays approaching the loss of the passport details is causing a great deal of worry, as they could easily be used for fraudulent purposes."

However, a spokesman for the council dismissed the incorrect postage incident as a 'simple case of human error' and reiterated that efforts to try to find the forms were still continuing.

Both the staff involved and trade unions were being kept up to date with progress, and the council was working with Disclosure Scotland to ensure everything possible was done to prevent a repetition of the incident in the future.