Glasgow city council caught up in Netflix and porn scandal
The Daily Mail revealed that Glasgow City Council workers tried to access inappropriate sites using taxpayer-funded devices.
In the past year, staff attempted to stream Netflix shows 63 times.
They also tried to access the Pornhub website 17 times and gambling sites another 17 times.
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While most attempts were blocked by the council's safety firewall, five attempts to access betting sites were successful.
The council suggested that some staff may have been working on a gambling harms project at the time of these successful entries.
The revelations come as many public sector staff continue to work from home for part of the week, with some logging on from as far away as the United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, and Germany.
This follows last week's revelations in The Mail that Scottish Government civil servants had also been accessing inappropriate material at work.
Scottish Conservative Glasgow MSP Annie Wells said: "Glaswegians who have been hit with huge hikes in their council tax will be appalled that council employees have been trying to access dodgy websites and Netflix on their time.
"We know that this behaviour has occurred within the SNP government, and this culture is clearly prevalent within SNP-run Glasgow City Council too.
"Hard-pressed taxpayers expect employees to be focused on fixing the city's pothole-ridden roads, emptying bins, and supporting our schools.
"Instead, there have been multiple occasions of them trying to view dodgy content, place a bet or watch their favourite new shows.
"This might only be a select number of staff who thought this was appropriate, but SNP bosses at the City Chambers must guarantee all staff will be working on what matters to Glasgow at all times."
Figures obtained under freedom of information laws show that there were 63 attempts to access Netflix on Glasgow City Council devices between May 14, 2024, and May 13 this year.
Every attempt was blocked by a firewall, the council insists.
In the past year, there were also 17 attempts to access pornography on Glasgow City Council devices, but every attempt was again blocked by firewalls.
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Over the same period, there were 17 attempts to access gambling websites, with five of those being successful.
The statistics, obtained by the Scottish Conservatives, follow a public backlash over the number of civil servants and local authority staff still working from home, despite the Covid pandemic ending in 2022.
Some workers only need to attend their office one day a week, while council staff have been allowed to work from far-flung locations including Japan, India, and Australia.
A spokesman for the council said: "The council has clear policies on acceptable use of IT equipment, and access to some sites and services is restricted or blocked.
"The council has thousands of staff who use a PC, phone or other internet-enabled device, and these figures reflect a very small number of incidents."
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