Adult Social Care files were not missing but had been “incorrectly catalogued”, council insists

The council confirmed it had “no evidence” that the files were missing, adding that “significant work” is underway to review and digitise the records, and that around 2,000 files have now been scanned.

In June this year, a Care Quality Commission (CQC) assessment of Southampton City Council identified significant information governance shortcomings.

The assessment, published on 17 June 2026, identified failures across governance, safeguarding, and service delivery, with findings on information security and document management playing a significant factor in the authority’s poor rating.

As part of the investigation, the CQC found an unresolved risk relating to large volumes of paper files whose location was unknown, creating the potential for breaches of confidentiality.

According to the Southern Daily Echo, Amy Danahay, the council’s head of innovation, quality, performance and practice development, told a Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting on August 27 that the files in question had not been lost.

In a statement to Local Government Lawyer, Councillor Christian Cox, Cabinet Member for Adults and Health at Southampton City Council, said: “I would like to emphasise that we have no evidence that the files are missing. The key issue is that many have been incorrectly catalogued and significant work is underway to review and digitise the records. Around 2,000 files have now been scanned.”

The CQC's overall assessment of governance gave Southampton City Council a score of 1 - the lowest possible - under the "Governance, management and sustainability" quality statement.

Lottie Winson