DEFRA staff spend hours on Facebook, data show

DEFRA staff spend thousands of hours a year on Facebook, the BBC and cricket websites, an investigation has revealed.


The figures were released by the department in response to a Freedom of Information request. It showed that within a six-month period staff logged 5.25m page views on Google, 4.1m page views on Facebook.com and 2.8m views on bbc.co.uk website.


The top 20 sites also included shopping website Amazon.co.uk with 1.06m page views, cricket site ESPNcricinfo.com with 829,220 views and video-sharing site YouTube.com with 808,131 views.


DEFRA’s response to the request estimated that a total of 856.64 man days were spent on Google, 694.16 man days on BBC.co.uk, 377.99 on Facebook.com and 187.9 on ESPNcricinfo.com between January and June 2013, according to an article on the ITV website.


DEFRA’s most visited sites (Jan-Jul 2013)



  • www.google.co.uk 5,254,184 page views, 856.64 man days
  • www.facebook.com 4,180,098 page views, 377.99 man days
  • googleleads.g.doubleclick.net 3,380,396 page views, 158.08 man days
  • www.bbc.co.uk 2,882,709 page views, 694.16 man days
  • b3-uk.mookie1.com 2,213,050 page views, 92.66 man days
  • ad-emea.doubleclick.net 1,809,332 page views, 97.39 man days
  • static.ak.facebook.com 1,792,768 page views, 152.15 man days
  • platform.twitter.com 1,261,629 page views, 88.92 man days
  • bbcfmhds.vo.llnwd.net 1,212,628 page views, 5.81 man days
  • zaphod-live.bbc.co.uk.edgesuite.net 1,150,927 page views, 4.62 man days
  • bs.serving-sys.com 1,110,020 page views, 114.32 man days
  • ams1.ib.adnxs.com 1,100,094 page views, 37.52 man days
  • www.amazon.co.uk 1,065,708 page views, 67.93 man days
  • ad.doubleclick.net 1,013,318 page views, 55.74 man days
  • www.espncricinfo.com 829,220 page views, 187.9 man days
  • www.youtube.com 808,131 page views, 56.74 man days
  • aax-eu.amazon-adsystem.com 720,719 page views, 54.26 man days
  • delivery.adstheaa.com 711,060 page views, 49.63 man days
  • bcp.crwdcntrl.net 603,766 page views, 54.82 man days

The details were based on 10,000 staff in DEFRA and a number of agencies and non-departmental public bodies, information included in the response explained. It also stated that the estimates do not necessarily equate to the actual browsing time.


It added that the figures recording the number of page views included pop-up adverts that open automatically.


The FOI response said:


“This means that should a member of staff go to a website page which includes such pop-ups then these will also be recorded as a page view. So, for example, if five pop-ups are delivered as part of a web page then this will be recorded as six page views.”


It also said that the browse time was calculated using an algorithm based on the number of page views multiplied by time, with a minimum browsing time of 30 seconds used.


“Therefore using the page view example above, a 15-second view of a page with five pop-ups will be recorded as a browsing time of 180 seconds.


“Browse time is therefore not necessarily indicative of the amount of time members of staff have spent browsing specific sites.”


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