Shocking figures show Lewisham Council lost or disclosed the public’s sensitive data 64 times - including a social worker who left confidential children’s records on a train.

Information obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed data breaches by the local authority between April 2011 and April 2014 with personal documents addressed to the wrong people and confidential records lost or stolen.

By comparison neighbouring councils Bromley, Bexley and Greenwich did not commit any data breaches, while Kent County Council was responsible for just five.

Despite the catalogue of blunders, the council has allegedly only sacked one employee - the social worker who left personal information including the names, addresses and birth dates of 10 children and their families on a train.

The documents also included third party information about sex offenders, police and child protection.

A Lewisham Council spokesperson said: "We take information security extremely seriously and we terminated the contract of the agency employee responsible for this breach.

"We very much regret this breach occurred because an agency worker did not adhere to the council’s strict procedures."

Other data breaches involving Lewisham Council include details of four youths being published on the internet and linked to Twitter, a needs assessment that appeared on the council’s website by mistake, and emails and letters containing children’s information being sent to the wrong person.

One staff member left client files with the council’s security officers while she went to get her car and did not pick them up until the next day.

Another took a number of files before leaving employment to present to an employment tribunal, which the council did not notice until the hearing.

As the staff member left before the breach was highlighted it is now a legal matter.

The FOI data, which was requested by campaign group Big Brother Watch, shows for all the incidents one verbal warning and two verbal and written warnings were issued, one person resigned and at least one ex-employee is now the subject of a legal matter.

Lewisham Council claims it has put tighter measures in place to prevent further data breaches.

The spokesman added: "We continue to train, support and raise awareness among staff about the importance of data protection and their responsibility around handling sensitive information."