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Angus Council has apologised after confidential council documents were found dumped in a florist’s wheelie bin.

The discarded papers included sensitive personal and payroll data relating to council employees, according to reports.

Angus Council explained in a statement:

“As part of a recent exercise to box up and move personal paper files from the office in Arbroath to council headquarters in Forfar, old papers were discarded. The bulk of these papers, which included some timesheets, related to staff who have subsequently left the council’s employment.

“Our usual process is to shred all papers containing confidential details prior to their disposal, but in this instance a small number of papers were incorrectly put out in a black bag with normal waste. The bag was then placed, in error, in the bin belonging to the florist’s shop.”

Source: Arbroath Herald, 5 March 2010.