The personal details of nearly 150 schoolchildren with special needs were mistakenly left on a council's website for five years, it was revealed today.

Wiltshire County Council believed the information had been removed from its public site back in 2004 but because of "human error" it was never taken down.

Two parents recently contacted the authority to complain they had found their children's names, dates of birth, schools and codes identifying their special needs all listed in the spreadsheet.

The details of the 146 children listed on the website, which did not include their addresses, have now been taken down for good, the council promised today.

The authority said in a statement: "It was thought action had been taken at the time to remove this information but it now appears this was not the case.

"Recently the council was contacted separately by two parents after they each discovered each of their children was listed in a spreadsheet held on the council's website.

"The spreadsheet was mistakenly placed on the council's website alongside a committee report. The spreadsheet contained the name, date of birth, the name of the school attended and a code identifying their special educational needs (for example HI for hearing impairment). There were 146 children and young people listed in the spreadsheet.

"The spreadsheet has been taken down from the council's website and also taken down from Google cache.

"The council has also checked its website to ensure there are no further spreadsheets containing this type of information on the website. There were not.

"A letter has been sent to those that are affected to explain what has happened, set out what action has been taken and to apologise for this mistake. The information commissioner has also been notified."

Carolyn Godfrey, Wiltshire County Council's director for the department of children and education, said: "We are confident all reasonable steps have been taken to ensure our website does not contain any other personal information.

"We believe that the availability of this information on the website does not present any significant risks.

"We have apologised to all those affected by this matter and I would personally offer the reassurance that we will take steps to ensure that this does not happen again."

The information blunder is the second the council has apologised for this month. Last week a memory stick containing bank and personal details of 1,385 Salisbury residents was lost in the post.

Brian Dalton, county councillor for Harnham, described the latest error as "incompetence at the highest level".

He told the Salisbury Journal: "A senior head needs to roll, and not that of some junior office clerk."