LONDON - Public confidence in the government's competence has slumped in the wake of the lost data discs scandal, an opinion poll showed Friday.

The share of voters who trust the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his chancellor, Alistair Darling, to handle the economy has fallen from 61 percent to just 28 percent since September, the Populus poll for The Times newspaper revealed.

The poll came after the government admitted computer discs containing details on 25 million people were lost in the post by the tax authority, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

The poll, taken on Wednesday night, showed almost three quarters of voters believe the scandal of missing discs has hit their confidence in the government's ability to handle confidential data.

A further 64 per cent said it called in question "the basic competence of the government".

The missing discs, containing information such as people's bank details, were sent by internal mail and were not encrypted.

An investigation has been launched and the senior civil servant head of the tax collection office has resigned over the affair, the largest data lapse in British history.

A majority of the 1025 voters the newspaper surveyed said they were pessimistic about the economic outlook in the wake of a barrage of bad news including falling house prices and the Northern Rock credit crisis.

Opposition Conservative Party parliamentarians say blame for the scandal goes higher than the 23 year-old junior civil servant so far blamed by the government for violating security rules by putting the discs in the post.

Brown, currently in Uganda for a Commonwealth summit, apologised on Wednesday for the loss before ordering a review into the huge security lapse.

Police are continuing their search for the discs in the tax offices in Newcastle.