Facebook banned for council staff

A council is to ban Facebook on its computers after it was revealed staff spent on average 400 hours on the site every month. Portsmouth City Council said it had decided to change its policy and block access to the social networking site. It added the figures equated to each of its 4,500 staff, who have access to computers, spending between five and six minutes a month on the site. The Taxpayers' Alliance said the move would stop the "waste of public cash". Mark Wallace, from the group, added: "It is sad that it has reached a point where councils need to ban staff from Facebook. "But people are employed to work hard for the taxpayer and this is clearly a waste of public money." The council stressed it was unable to determine whether staff had been accessing Facebook in break times or before or after work, which had been allowed. The ban will come into force in the next few weeks and will also see the Bebo, Twitter and eBay sites blocked - YouTube had already been banned.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8231234.stm