Low income families who applied for help to buy school uniforms have had their children's details and personal information leaked by a local authority.

More than 30 people who applied to Glasgow City council for it's school clothing grant have had their full applications sent to third parties.

Children's' names, which school they are at, their dates of birth, their parents earnings, national insurance details and banking information was sent out last week, in a blunder the local authority described as a 'procedural error'.

The leak came to light when a woman, who had applied for the grant herself, received more than 10 emails from the local authority containing the information of families who had also applied.

It was after the council had asked her for additional information for her own application.

The woman, who does not want to be identified, said she was sent 15 emails containing applications for families, some of which had information for up to 6 children, as well as their parent's personal details.

The 27-year-old mum contacted the council immediately to raise her concerns, which the authority did not seem to be aware of prior to her complaint.

Her complaint stated: "I applied for a clothing grant with yourselves for my son starting back at school, yesterday I received an email stating that I needed to provide more information and at the bottom of my email it had my form attached with all my personal information...but more to the point all my sons information including his name, date of birth, and which school he attends.

After I received the email I received a further 15 emails from the CBS Grant line with a further 15 separate emails which included other people’s applications...all of their personal information attached...name, address, national insurance number, bank details telephone number and email, and again all of the information regarding their children including names, dates of birth, address and the school in which these children attend.

"This mistake on your behalf has caused me a great deal of emotional stress.

"I suffer from extreme anxiety and depression and this breach is putting me under immense mental strain thinking that there is people that have my sons details and which school he attends, and all of my personal information."

The council replied thanking her for "bringing this matter to our attention" and said a data protection officer would be carrying out a "full investigation".

She told the Herald on Sunday she was shocked to see the information, and raised concerns about how carefully data is being handled by the council.

She said: "I was really upset by it as I have really bad anxiety so I was worried sick that my details or my son's details had been leaked. I was panicking that people would know my business, and that I earn less than a certain amount.

"I didn't like having the pressure of knowing I have all these people's details that weren't for me either.

"It made me concerned about how often these types of things happen, and I don't know how well they handle people's details now.

"It's really concerning. Some of the applications had as many as six children on the forms."

The woman said she felt "fobbed off" when she lodged her complaint, and said she did not trust that her own details had not been compromised.

She added: "I'm sure people applying for this grant, some of them anyway, may not want it known they have applied. There's also the child protection issue - what if children are not allowed to see their families or something and it is circulating exactly what school they go to. It's not acceptable. I don't feel like the council have resolved my complaint either. All they've said is that they would 'investigate'.

"They have basically fobbed me off and I don't know if they are telling the truth about not passing my details on either."

The Information Commissioner is now investigating the breach, which was reported to them by Glasgow city council last week.

An ICO spokesperson said: “Organisations have a legal duty to ensure the security of any personal information they hold.

“We are aware of an incident concerning Glasgow City Council and will be assessing the information provided.”

A Glasgow city council spokeswoman said: "Unfortunately due to a procedural error, personal information was shared with third parties and we have apologised and informed everyone concerned.

"The breach has also been reported to the Information Commissioner and new procedures [are] in place to prevent a re-occurrence."