By Campbell Thomas

SCHOOLS have been targeted by mystery foreign-sounding callers asking about staffing numbers, mobile phones and email addresses.

Suspects, thought to be operating from overseas and described as having "Asian accents", got through to two primary schools in East Lothian.

Staff have been urged not to give out any information, education bosses said.

In an alert sent to all office and school-based employees, East Lothian Council warned: "Schools in the authority have received a number of suspicious calls.

"The callers have all had voices with Asian accents and the call quality has been poor, indicating the calls may be from overseas.

"They have been requesting various pieces of information, including email addresses and details about telephone systems in the school."

The alert added that the calls appeared to be "non-genuine" and advised staff not to give out any information.

Employees were urged to try and glean as many facts as possible from the callers, such as their company name, phone number and any other clues that could be passed to the council's IT team.

A spokeswoman for East Lothian Council said: "The council's IT team received some reports from schools reporting phone calls from individuals asking about the school's telephone system, number and make of mobile phones, number of staff within the building and email addresses."

Police have not been informed as the incidents were not considered criminal nor a threat to the safety of pupils and staff, the spokeswoman added.