Nearly a quarter of councillors could be putting vulnerable people at risk after failing to complete data protection training, it has been claimed.

Cllr Rob Bird (Lib Dem) condemned 20 councillors out of 81 sitting on Kent County Council who have not completed new courses being run by the authority.

The training includes mandatory tests on information governance, data protection and the recently implemented General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Council officers have run 20 sessions over six weeks but a quarter have still not finished a session.

Without completing these tasks, councillors could be inadvertently putting vulnerable people at risk such as looked-after children and elderly people in their care homes, Cllr Bird claims.

At the policy and resources cabinet committee, he said: “I am very disappointed there are still 20 members outstanding.

“I’m aware of one or two who have not been able to do it for reasons because of ill health in my group but there are still a significant number that haven’t done the training.

“As they haven’t done the training, they are not only putting themselves at risk but they are putting this council at risk and critically the residents of Kent at risk.

“This is not acceptable.”

“As they haven’t done the training, they are not only putting themselves at risk but they are putting this council at risk and critically the residents of Kent at risk..." - Cllr Rob Bird

General counsel of KCC Ben Watts told members the training was extremely important as they have access to a lot of sensitive data through their work.

A council report attached to the agenda of the meeting said: “It is the view of the general counsel in his statutory capacities as monitoring officer and data protection officer that this presents an unacceptable risk to the council.

“Members through their role have access to sensitive information and data.

“KCC as a Data Controller should not continue to provide information and access to KCC systems to those who have not completed the training and who may compromise our systems or fail to follow our agreed policies and procedures.”

Those who have not completed the training have not been disclosed by the council but Mr Watts offered to send a list to party leaders and whips once the final training session has been completed to add pressure to those councillors.

The compulsory tests are also available online.