Civil servants have been watching Netflix and accessing porn websites on their SNP government-issued laptops, the Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Government staff – most of whom were working from home – have streamed their favourite Netflix shows so many times in the past six months that officials say the number of attempts to log onto the streaming channel is too high to calculate.
On sixteen occasions civil servants have visited the x-rated Pornhub sex site and online betting sites Betfair and Paddy Power on their government devices, new data shows.
The stunning figures appeared days after a row over a new drive to get Scottish civil servants back into the office.
First Minister John Swinney said he approved of making officials work at least two days at their desk to boost productivity.
However, the plan for an average 40 percent attendance generated a backlash from staff working from home.
The bloated devolved civil service – which has grown by more than 70 percent since 2016 – is now costing the taxpayer over £600 million a year.
It was recently discovered that employees of local governments were operating from remote places, such as Eastern Europe and the United Arab Emirates.
The latest revelations follow Health Secretary Michael Matheson having to quit after he racked up an £11,000 bill on his work iPad while abroad on a family holiday – and charged it to the public purse, before he resigned his position and agreed to pay it back.
Last night, critics said taxpayers would be appalled by civil servants’ use of their official laptops and devices.
Scottish Conservative MSP Annie Wells said: ‘Hard-pressed Scottish taxpayers will be furious and appalled to learn they are footing the bill for civil servants to access dodgy websites and watch Netflix.
‘What does it say about the culture within the SNP government that staff think it’s okay to use a work device to watch pornography or place a bet?
‘Scots are paying the highest rates of income tax in the UK to support the SNP’s growing army of civil servants while our public services worsen, and yet this is what some civil servants are choosing to spend their time on.’
Benjamin Elks, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: ‘Scottish taxpayers will be rightly disgusted to see what their civil servants have been up to.
‘It’s clear that these pen-pushers have too much time on their hands as they work at home, failing to deliver for hard-working Scots.
‘Anyone caught using government devices to access pornography should be sacked without hesitation.’
The frequency with which civil officials in Scotland have accessed improper websites on government-issued devices was revealed by figures obtained under freedom of information rules.
Records reveal there were at least 16 attempts to access pornography and gambling websites on taxpayer-funded devices in the past six months.
Since November, there have been six endeavours to access Pornhub, six attempts to access Betfair and four endeavours to access Paddy Power on Scottish Government devices.
Officials declined to communicate how many attempts there were to watch Netflix by civil servants, saying it would cost more than £600 to sort through the number of the attempts.
In response to a freedom of information request, it said: ‘While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information for Netflix as requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600… the Netflix dataset was too large and included too many duplicate entries to sort within a reasonable time frame and within the applicable cost limit.’
The new statistics, obtained by the Scottish Conservatives, follow public backlash over the number of civil servants still working from home despite the pandemic ending years ago.
Some employees have been told they only need to attend their offices one day a week, although the official expectation is for them to attend for two.
The work from home culture has had a major impact on the vitality of town centres, with many shops, bars and restaurants reliant on trade from office workers.
Even First Minister John Swinney has said Scotland’s Permanent Secretary should ‘go further’ in getting employees back to work.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s bloated public sector is costing the taxpayer over £600 million a year, double the bill charged eight years ago.
The devolved civil service workforce also stood at more than 9,000 last year – a 71 percent climb since 2016.
Staff at one Scottish council have been working from lands as far away as the United Arab Emirates, sparking questions about their tax affairs and other working arrangements.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Any attempt to access, download, display, store or distribute pornographic, racist or other offensive material, or material relating to illegal activities is considered a disciplinary matter, as outlined in the Scottish Government’s IT Code of Conduct.
‘Action is taken in line with Scottish Government disciplinary policy where concerns are identified.
‘Scottish Government staff can use devices for personal use if this is within their own time, for example, during the weekend or a lunch break. This is subject to restrictions on certain activities, such as running a personal website or attempting to access inappropriate material online.
‘The Scottish Government has in place recruitment and workforce controls to reduce its workforce size.’
It’s fairly straightforward – sack them all if they don’t return to the office because we are sick and tired of Civil Servants scrounging off our hard earned taxes.
I’m not sure how this could have happened. Civil Servants have laptops that has a secure Internet Gateway Service that prevents people from accessing all sorts of sites, including such things as Amazon and eBay, so I can’t imagine for one second it would allow entry to porn sites, or any other sites that would be considered illicit or risky, and if people are foolish enough to try and access these sites, they deserve to be sacked.
I’m not opposed to people working from home, especially if they have the flu or something infectious and can’t go into the office, but could work from home, but working from home most of the time decreases production levels.
Working from home means that people can do the bare minimum without a care in the world, but they’ll still end up with a good company pension, and the foolishness of anyone using a work computer to access porn and betting sites beggars belief, but then they’re Civil Servants and they’re hardly known for their brilliance.
Let’s face it, these people have traded their original gravy train for a brand new, high-powered powered super sonic gold top cream train. Slick, fast and with no effort required. We were foolish enough to give an inch, and they have not taken 100000,000 miles. They do less and less and want more and more. Good luck getting these spongers back into the office.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 