SECURITY fears have been raised over sensitive information about more than 300,000 people after a council's database was branded "inadequate" by auditors.

A report has found "significant system security issues", and "major risks" with software used by Lancashire County Council to store its social services files.

The files contain social services case notes on children, as well as vulnerable adults - a total of 351,564 records, many of which are for cases now closed.

The report, by council auditors, found a "significant number" of council staff had access to the records, which should only be shown to as "few individuals as possible".

It said there was a risk of unauthorised access, and staff showed a lack of knowledge of who was allowed to use the different parts of the database.

The auditors also claimed a more co-ordinated approach was needed to maintain the service, in case the system crashed.

Council bosses insist no data has been lost, and say they are taking steps to improve the security of the system.

The risks were highlighted after a series of high-profile natonal blunders involving the loss of important data.

In October the government announced it had lost two disks containing personal details of 25million people.

Conservative Coun Richard Shepherd said: "This clearly rings alarm bells because obviously one is dealing with very sensitive information."

But Coun Shepherd added: "The only reason you would do that is because the number of people who have access to it creates a dangerous situation.

"We want someone to give us assurances and be sure that we are not going to suddenly be confronted with a leakage which would cause sudden embarrass-ment to the county council."

Labour member for Burnley South West, Coun Maureen Martin, said: "It's obvious there has been some slip shod practice."

But Dave Carr, the council's ICT manager for children and young people, said: "It's not a system where we are regularly extracting information and putting it on disk.

"We are very, very careful about the way we treat data because it is so sensitive."

And director of ICT Bill Brown said: "We take information security very seriously, which is why we have taken a proactive approach and asked the council's own audit team to identify any possible risks and suggest where improvements can be made."