THE foreign secretary, David Miliband, faced embarrassment last night after it emerged that a computer disk containing confidential bank details of up to 2,000 public servants working for the British Council has been lost.

The council — the Foreign Office’s cultural arm — admitted that the disk, which held the names, National Insurance numbers, salary and bank account details of staff on its UK payroll, went missing while in transit last month.

The incident is the latest in a string of losses which has led to criticism of the government’s handling of sensitive data.

In November a memory stick holding data said to give access to tax and benefit records was lost in a pub car park, forcing officials to suspend the government’s gateway website.

After that loss, Gordon Brown promised that Whitehall rules on data handling would be toughened yet again.

However, it emerged this weekend that a month later the British Council’s data disk had been lost by TNT, the courier firm, in transit to its offices.

A spokesman for the council said the information — which was compressed and therefore difficult to read — was part of a monthly report from its payroll data supplier.

Although the British Council is at arm’s length from the Foreign Office, Miliband is still responsible for its oversight.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman who uncovered the loss, said: “This is another instance in a long line of slapdash data protection by government departments.

“If Whitehall cannot look after its own data records . . . it should not be trusted with the personal information of every citizen as it wants with the identity card scheme.”

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