Town hall bans staff from using Facebook after they waste 572 hours in ONE month

A council has banned its staff from using Facebook after they spent up to 572 hours a month looking at the website instead of working.

Portsmouth City Council blocked access to the social networking site for its 4,500 staff with computers after finding they were logging on up to 270,000 times a month between them.

During the past year its employees have spent an average of 413 hours a month on the popular site - which has four million users in Britain - while at work.

The usage peaked in July this year at 572 hours and 38 minutes, the equivalent of 71 working days.

The council says staff can apply to have the site unblocked if they can prove they need it for their job - such as benefit fraud staff carrying out checks on claimants' lifestyles to make sure their status is what they say it is.

Before the ban, staff were allowed to use Facebook and other sites such as Twitter or MySpace, but only in their lunch breaks or after work.

Mark Wallace, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Even if everybody spends even a small amount of time on the site it is still paid for by the taxpayer.

'It is a huge amount of work time, and therefore money, being wasted.'

Private firms started to ban Facebook in 2007 when the site became increasingly popular across the country.

A survey found the problem was particularly bad in London, where two thirds of leading companies had imposed bans or limited the use of such websites.

Some even treat excessive use as a sackable offence.