Wordpress Work - custom posts

I have a Wordpress installation - 99% of the way to being launhced but have a couple of issues which need ironing out:

Custom Posts submitting as "draft", no "published"
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I have created a custom post type (called "Prep") – when a user who is not an administrator presses “submit” it says the post has been published successfully but is actually only saved as draft... I need to change this so it is published (and cannot change the user role because this has implications elsewhere).

I think it might be related to the "role scoper" plugin, but am looking for someone with experience of working with Wordpress to look and identify a solution.

Please bid if you are able to work on this straightaway - preferably I am looking for someone confident in their experience of working with custom posts as this needs to be resolved swiftly.

Obviously I will provide Wordpress and FTP username/password to the winning bidder.