Wicks “sickened” by DWP pornography revelations
Malcolm Wicks, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Minister, today said he was “sickened” to hear that DWP staff had been accessing pornography.
Following an internal investigation at the DWP one person has been prosecuted and 277 people disciplined, including 16 who were sacked, for inappropriate computer usage.
According to The Sun two million pages of pornography- including images of child abuse- were accessed during the eight months in which computer use by 140,000 DWP staff was monitored.
Speaking to journalists at a press briefing to unveil the Government’s new strategy to improve the way older people access public services, Mr Wicks said: “We obviously take that very seriously … it sickens me to think our staff are doing that.”
However, the Minister said that the department regularly carried out checks and took action where necessary.
Pornography was described as “the scourge of our time”, and Mr Wicks asserted that “in the most serious cases, we will catch them out”.
He added: “We take it very, very seriously indeed. We regularly check on these things and we catch people.”
The Liberal Democrats today said they had evidence of “shocking levels” of computer misuse across a number of other departments- citing in particular the Inland Revenue and the Department for Education.
Pensions spokesman Steve Webb, said: “Apart from the moral and ethical issues of computer misuse, these figures show serious security and cost problems. Inappropriate websites can infect computers with viruses which costs taxpayers’ money to fix and leaves computers vulnerable to security breaches.
“Civil service bosses must ensure that there is a clear policy on computer usage and that any civil servants who step over the line face severe penalties.”
