The council’s head of personnel Graham Jones said that it was forced to intervene "due to the significant amount of time officers were spending on the internet, and this highlighted an unacceptable level of usage of shopping, entertainment and BBC/Sky-related websites".

"We have a policy of allowing employees to use the internet in their own time,” he told reporters. “But we clearly do not want them to use it in council time [as] they are employed to do a job of work and not to shop online."

Mark Fisher, a local spokesperson for public sector trade union Unison, said that the council was in part to blame for allowing its employees the freedom to surf the web. Employers should install firewall software to protect their staff from the temptation of the world wide web, he said.

Further reading

IBM employee sacked for 'sex chat' sues - February 2007