News

Council chief executive Andrew Lloyd is relaxed about staff internet use
advertisement

Council staff enjoy online shopping and tweeting

By Tim Harris
December 23, 2011

SOME of the most visited websites by staff at Rushmoor Borough Council include Twitter, Facebook and eBay.

The News & Mail has learned that the two social networking sites are in the top 20 most viewed at the authority’s Farnborough Road offices, with the online auction platform also in the top 50.

The list also included shopping and retail websites such as Amazon, Argos, Tesco, Debenhams, Marks & Spencer and Dorothy Perkins.

Others on the radar were Autotrader, Fish4Jobs, a body building site, and nearly 700 visits to a Coventry City FC website by two staffers.

The report, released under a Freedom of Information request, covers the six months from May 1 to November 30 this year and shows internet access by all employees.

Rushmoor has pointed out that personal web use is allowed during lunch breaks or after work, so long as it does not interfere with council business.

But because of the authority's flexi-time system, it is impossible to determine if Twitter and Facebook are being used during work time.

Chief executive Andrew Lloyd said he was relaxed about staff using the internet.

“My feeling is our staff work hard, and I do not believe there has been any inappropriate use,” he said.

“We are quite comfortable for people to access websites outside of their flexi-time work hours, or during lunch times.

“We would not expect staff to be unreasonably accessing sites privately during their work hours, but we are comfortable with them doing that on their breaks.”

The council said there could be a specific reason why Twitter usage was common.

Spokesman Gill Chisnall said: “Nowadays, a lot of websites have social media links, including to Facebook and Twitter, embedded into them as a matter of course.

“If a member of staff visits a website which is integrated with Twitter or Facebook, our web filtering software picks this up as a visit to the social media site, even though that is not the case.”

The number of listed visits to Twitter came out at nearly 250,000 over the six months.

Mr Lloyd said Rushmoor would act swiftly if it was found any staff were accessing the internet improperly.

“We have a system within our IT and internet access to prevent access to inappropriate sites,” he said.

“But if anyone did find a way to do that, our disciplinary procedures and protocol would come into play and we would take action.”

| Submit Comments | View Comments (11)

« Previous Story | Next Story »

Most recent user comments 11 of 11

Show 15 | 25 | 50 per page

reply to :- I suspect any office in the country would have similar trends. The council - like every other employer - will have policies around what is acceptable and what is not, and providing this is enforced, I dont see a problem. AndyEnn, Ash

Maybe happening in other offices but when the tax payer pays for it in council tax it should not be allowed at all!

If other offices want to do it then maybe they should stop it as well, or charge those who use other peoples property to do their private business should pay for it in the first place.

Aldershot Born
30/12/2011 at 08:37

The majority of systems that monitor web usage can report on when and who is accessing which web sites.

This feature could be used to support "dear leader" Lloyd's view that access is only made during employees "rest" times.

I assume it can be linked to the "flexi-time" monitoring suite of programmes.

It can be used to see who is spending "too long" on the web.

I recognise that the marginal cost to the Council (other than staff costs) of allowing access is very low given the investments made in IT infrastructure but that should not be allowed to obscure the impact of non-productive time spent by the staff on the web.

The web monitoring software can also be used, as commented previously, to restrict access to web sites that have been approved as "business essential" by the Council.

However the cost of operating, reporting and reviewing the output of such monitoring software is not trivial and doubtless another RBC committee would be needed to administer the process.

How about setting a threshold for non essential usage and then flagging it for review?

Retired of Aldershot, Aldershot
28/12/2011 at 12:11

I suspect any office in the country would have similar trends. The council - like every other employer - will have policies around what is acceptable and what is not, and providing this is enforced, I dont see a problem.

AndyEnn, Ash
27/12/2011 at 21:45

Too many idle hands and should be sacked, especially Lloyd who is "authorising" this waste of resources, with no payoffs and no pensions

Thimbles 2
27/12/2011 at 15:21

The Chief Executive says they work hard? Where? The staff at Rushmoor Council wouldn't know hard work if they tried.

We could easily lose 50% of the staff there, and make the others do a full day's work, and we'd still see improvements.

I will be very surprised if the staff "only" access these sites in lunch breaks.

It's time that the Chief Executive made Rushmoor Council employees work full time, properly, for the people of Rushmoor, and not just sit in offices drinking tea and chattering.

Decent citizen of the UK, Camberley
24/12/2011 at 16:44

Lets take a pop at public sector workers again eh!

I wonder how many of you who have engaged a plumber, builder etc who taks a call for another job while you are paying him? Would you have a pop at the trades person for making/taking private calls while under your employ? Probably not. Let's be a little realistic here. The freedom of information aact once again helps a newspaper with no stories fill a dull period! Lazy reporting.

Aldershot Flyer
24/12/2011 at 08:15

Aldershot born i really sympathise with your personal situation - no-one should have to suffer the financial struggle you have on top the health issues. However, there are couple of issues with your arguments - electricity - industrial pricing for electricity is different to private pricing, business's of which the council is one tend to purchase a set KW of supply in advance this is so the energy companies can balance the supply and demand. unlike the private user who is purely consumption based. in addition it takes no more electricity to run a PC on standby than it does to run one surfing the net. many councils, business, charities now use social networking sites to communicate with their customers it therefore follows that the employees of those business, councils etc need to be conversant in their usage. the Employer has a psychological contract with the employee - this means that in return for items like being able to search the internet during their lunch hour, use the business address to take delivery of small items etc the employee will stay a little later, get in a little earlier or answer a query during their lunch hour rather than ignoring that ringing phone or pulling the shutter down on the query desk dead on 5pm. The internet gives you a five minute brain holiday. i work for a business and we are allowed to use the internet. there are times when i have been working on a document, speed sheet or power point and my brain needs a break - five minutes to re-focus and energise. i don't drink coffee or smoke so that five minutes or so on the internet allows me to regain my focus, read or check the work i have just done and polish it.

Those employees could take a day's holiday to do their shopping - that would be a day they would be paid for and would not be productive, they may work in the council tax dept making sure people are paying their bills, or alternatively making sure that people who are entitled to reductions get them. That is work that would not happen if they were no there.

the point of the article is clear - every employee whether working for the council or a business needs to understand this - every time an employee accesses a website it is logged in the company's it system, it logs the time, the site, the machine and user name and the time spent on that system. YES BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.

on a personal note - have you contacted the macmillan nurses i think they can help you with financial advice and check that you are getting everything you are entitled to. I hope you have a speedy recovery and would like to say on the whole many of the comments you put in this forum are spot on.

sleeping beauty
23/12/2011 at 23:13

I used to work for Cardiff Council and we had internet access completely blocked, would only access sites relevant to my job, such as council website etc. everyones got iphones and that now if they want to twitter away, not sure there is much of a point in allowing them access, can only lead to people moaning and potential trouble should sites be visited that may not be suitable.

Wonderlove, Farnborough
23/12/2011 at 14:52

I Bet they are on Facebook ! Looking at Lumleys Legacy

Outermongolian
23/12/2011 at 14:01

I am paying for that use, i have my own private PC which i have to pay for the line use, lights, heating, repairs, its a perk for them at no cost, as for it MIGHT be in their own time i doubt it.

clamicil per-inger
23/12/2011 at 12:18

Rushmoor has pointed out that personal web use is allowed during lunch breaks or after work, so long as it does not interfere with council business

Chief executive Andrew Lloyd said he was relaxed about staff using the internet.

“My feeling is our staff work hard, and I do not believe there has been any inappropriate use,” he said.

“We are quite comfortable for people to access websites outside of their flexi-time work hours, or during lunch times.

“We would not expect staff to be unreasonably accessing sites privately during their work hours, but we are comfortable with them doing that on their breaks.”

Reply to above! Well sorry to say that being a full council tax payer and struggle to pay it because of struggling with cancer and not getting any benefits to help pay this - I feel that people who work for the council should not use computers and electricity to use internet for private use should not be allowed at any time, this is at the cost of the tax payers of rushmoor and if we were to come into the council offices to ask to use the computers to shop on ebay or use to talk on facebook what answer would we get ? - we would be told it is not allowed not bad when we pay for it in our taxes but Chief executive Andrew Lloyd thinks it is okay - well I don't think it is - people who work in council offices should wait until they get home and use their own electricity - internet access for their needs and not use something that us council tax payers pay for in the first place.