CEREDIGION County Council has been reported to the Information Commissioner after over 50 confidential reports – some containing personal details including medical conditions – were made public on the authority’s website.

Dozens of reports classified as containing exempt information were published on the council’s website as part of council Cabinet agendas and reports for 2004 and 2007.

Those reports included commercial information about leases, land sales and grant applications, as well as personal details of council house allocations and grants for home building work required because of medical reasons.

Amongst the information revealed was that £2 million was paid for the purchase of the land for the site for the Welsh Government and council offices at Parc-y-llyn in Aberystwyth. Both paid just over £1m each for the 7.4-acre site.

Also disclosed were details about Aberystwyth Town FC’s lease of the Park Avenue site; interest in purchasing the former Lampeter mart site; discussions between the authority and Cadwgan Building Trust over Cardigan Castle; and an agreement on fees for the site of Aberystwyth’s Hafan y Waun care home.

The information was publicly available on the council’s website on Thursday, 23 August, although it is not known how long it was available for. It was removed by Friday, 24 August, after the Cambrian News alerted the council to it.

The information ‘breach’ only applied to agenda items from the Cabinet.

Within the exempt information, six of the reports included personal details of people who had made applications under council-run grant schemes, including grants to enable people with disabilities or health problems to carry out building work on their homes.

Those six reports include personal details around the applicants’ personal circumstances, with some of the reports including medical details, names, ages and addresses, as well as details of the grants provided and the work that was carried out on properties.

The Cambrian News is not publishing details of these, to protect the applicants’ privacy.

A council spokesperson said: “Due to an error, a number of exempt reports were shown on the council website. The reports have now been removed.

“The council wishes to apologise for this error and will be taking measures to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future.”

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