UNION chiefs have pleaded with bosses not to ban thousands of council staff from using a social networking site on their office computers.

Hampshire County Council bosses threatened workers with the ban after it found that 46 employees had spent more than an hour on the Internet site Facebook.

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However, the authority admitted that it was not sure if workers had been using the site during work time or during personal time.

According to the council’s IT policy, workers can use Facebook and similar sites before 9am, at lunchtime and after 5pm.

Rolli Rowlands, Unison branch secretary at the county council, said that a blanket ban would be unfair on all staff.

He said: “A process is in place and when it’s abused by individuals it’s dealt with. If we have thousands of workers using it appropriately they should not be punished because one or two people take advantage.”

Facebook is a free website that allows members to join networks including cities, workplaces, schools and religions. It allows members to add friends, send messages, share photographs and update their personal profiles to notify friends about developments in their lives.

Discretion A spokesman for the council, which employs almost 40,000 people, said: “The council’s IT policy for Internet usage clearly states that access to the Internet for social networking should always be in an employee’s own time and at the discretion of their manager. It should never interfere with Hampshire County Council work and never at the expense of contractual hours.

“We are not exactly sure when the usage is. The data doesn’t say if they are using it during county council time.”

The spokesman added that only 27 of those monitored were county council employees. The rest were district council and Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service staff who also use the computer network.

County council leader Councillor Ken Thornber said: “Staff are reminded of Internet usage policies forbidding the use of such sites for anything other than business purposes during normal working hours. The council continues to monitor the situation.”

The campaign group Taxpayers Alliance said that workers were “wasting” taxpayers’ money.