Slightly old but interesting.
Council tax pays for internet shopping loafers.
COUNCIL staff who claim Coalition cuts are putting them under intolerable pressure at work are wasting away office hours glued to Facebook, Argos and online dating sites, new research reveals.
By: Ted Jeory
Published: Sun, April 28, 2013
Council staff waste time glued to social networking websites
Football club websites are also a favourite with supposedly busy staff, while at one east London council, an internet forum dedicated to Pakistans nuclear and military might is among the more popular.
The Pakistan Defence site, defence.pk, which is littered with anti-Semitic and sexist comments, is being accessed at the rate of 3,000 times a month at Hackney Council.
However, a council spokeswoman denied this was a cause for concern and said the usage complied with the authoritys internet policy, which is similar to that in other councils and states: You confine use to authorised breaks, lunch breaks or just before or just after normal working hours.
At Merton Council in Wimbledon, south London, controversial dating site SugarDaddie.com, which matches up women with wealthy men, is the 139th most accessed site, according to disclosures made to London Loves Business under the Freedom of Information Act.
Lesbian dating site PinkSofa.com was 207th in the councils list of the 500 most-accessed sites.
Matchmaking sites are also popular in Wales, with Friends Reunited Dating making it into Cardiff Councils top 100.
You confine use to authorised breaks, lunch breaks or just before or just after normal working hours
In the West Midlands, Facebook was the most popular, with staff at Sandwell Council clocking up 12.7 million visits to the social networking site in 2011.
At Walsall Council that year, womens fashion retailer Dorothy Perkins was in the top 100.
And in Tower Hamlets, east London, council workers visited Facebook more than 5.4 million times last year. Auction site eBay was visited 3.4 million times, while Argos was also high on the list, with 1.4 million hits. Secondhand car site Auto Trader was also popular, as was The Perfume Shop.
Tower Hamlets Tory councillor Peter Golds said he was staggered by the findings, adding that whatever was being done during office hours it is not all for the benefit of the residents of the borough.
However a council spokesman insisted that staff must be working hard and effectively because we are building thousands of new and affordable homes.
In Havering town hall in Romford, Essex, online comics are a bookmarked favourite, with staff spending their time reading Pokemon X Comic Genius, a site that chronicles the adventures of fictional Brendan, May and Wally.
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