Whips, blow-up dolls and knickers are not items normally associated with filing, but a new survey shows one in 25 employees in most businesses in the News Shopper circulation area has a sex-related object in their filing cabinet.

The National Filing Survey, conducted by document management specialist Kardex Systems (UK), found four per cent of the employees interviewed from 1,000 companies had items ranging from condoms and corsets to handcuffs and KY jelly in their files -- not to mention Sellotape.

In addition, nearly 20 per cent kept something to nibble on -- a wedding cake, a pork pie and Chinese herbal tablets were among the foodstuffs found.

Kardex Systems marketing director Nick Tuggey said: "Looking at these figures you could conclude that sex and food are vying to take the place of the nation's number one obsession!

"On a more serious note, the survey also found that businesses need to take better control of their paperwork. For example, one in 12 companies spends more than 70 minutes per day looking for lost files -- 13 per cent of which eventually turn up on the boss' desk.

"What's more, 75 per cent of people interviewed do not believe a paperless office is achievable and even 34 per cent of those working towards it do not believe it either.

"Despite this, 66 per cent of the companies are not planning to change their filing policy, which is incredible, as no other aspect of business would receive so little attention."

The survey has revealed that small businesses spend an average of 55 minutes to retrieve each missing file.

One in five respondents to the survey were from small companies of up to 50 employees. With office filing staff earning around £8 to £9 an hour, the average cost of locating each lost file is about £10.

Mr Tuggey added: "UK-wide this translates into a huge sum.

"As the survey reveals, six per cent of the UK's 2.1 million businesses admit to losing at least one file a day -- which adds up to 120,000 lost files. By this estimate, poor filing practices are costing UK businesses £1.2 million every working day -- or more than £240 million a year."

More than half (55 per cent) of the lost files are simply misfiled. Many (48 per cent ) are lying on other people's desks and around 13 per cent turn up on the boss's desk. But for two per cent of lost files, the mystery is never solved and they are never found.

Despite this level of confusion and wastage, two-thirds of the companies surveyed said they were not planning to change their filing policy in the future.

Most small companies (82 per cent) use standard two, three or four-drawer cabinets for storing files, and respondents estimated that they could comfortably get rid of 18 per cent of their files without inconvenience.

However, half of the smaller companies which expect an increase in their storage requirements will meet the need with new filing cabinets, while one third said they would be looking at electronic filing systems.

"Businesses are simply failing to do their sums. By remaining complacent and relying on outdated four-drawer filing cabinets, they are wasting thousands of pounds a year and substantially compromising their overall efficiency and profitability," said Mr Tuggey.

More than 7,000 companies were questioned in the survey.