To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many of his Department’s civil servants were (a) suspended and (b) dismissed for accessing (i) obscene and (ii) other prohibited material on work computers in each of the last five years. (188784)

No civil servants have been dismissed or suspended for accessing obscene or other prohibited material in the two years since January 2006. Before that date, information is not available without recourse to individual personnel records and would entail disproportionate costs to collect.

To ensure acceptable use of information technology (IT) all permanent and temporary members of staff have to actively agree a reminder on the subject every time they log on to the Department’s IT network. Frequent communications on IT security and acceptable use of IT are distributed to system users, notably on the departmental intranet.