Procedures at Telford & Wrekin Council are being ‘tightened up’ after a former employee dumped confidential files in a bin.

The confidential papers were dumped on the Wrekin Retail park in Wellington and contained job applications and staff sickness forms. The haul of 58 documents, which was found by a member of the public, included details such as addresses, qualifications and previous employment.

It also included references of people who applied for a cleaning supervisor job at Muxton and Phoenix schools in Telford.

There were also nine return to work forms detailing the reasons for individual staff absences between March and May this year, including one which named a member of staff and said they were suffering from stress and depression.

Now the council has said it is changing its internal procedures after it was revealed the former employee was off sick on their final day but failed to return the documents.

Also inside the pile of documents, which were handed into the Shropshire Star, was a copy of the council’ s Corporate Information Security Policy, which states sensitive data should be kept securely and not left in skips and bins.

Jonathan Eatough, the council’s senior lawyer, said the matter was now being dealt with internally.

He said: “The person was no longer working for the council when the documents were disposed of.

“They were on sickness absence during the period coming up to and including their last day with the council and had made arrangements to return our property to us.

“But obviously not everything was in fact returned and we are tightening up procedures to cover this situation should it arise again,” he said.

All of the documents have now been safely returned to the borough council.

Nigel Newman, spokesman for Telford & Wrekin Council, said: “We spoke to the former member of staff who confirmed that they had disposed of the data in a public bin, without realising that it contained sensitive information.

“We contacted the individuals whose data was compromised.”