time-wasting

you have to hand it to the taxpayers' alliance they are relentless in their search for truth.
by using the freedom of information act they have discovered that civil servants use the internet while they are at work.
no shit!
they do that?
they use the internet while they are at work - who would have thought it.
because as we know in the private sector no one ever shirks, no one ever gives less than 100%. their noses to the grindstone, their backs to the wheel.
the public sector full of lazy feckless waistrels.
the private sector is full of thrusting, striving achieving individuals who give there all and never (ever) slack.
well that is the world according the the taxpayers' alliance

"While many staff work very hard, there have been enough anecdotal reports of time-wasters within the civil service that it is vital taxpayers are able to scrutinise how time they are paying for is spent."

an important word here is annecdotal.
we all have stories to tell and some of them might even be true - but if you are going to cast judgements on people and organisations you had better have something a little more substantial than 'my mate said he saw that civil servant doing nothing'.
then there is the phease 'able to scrutisnise' and bless them the taxpayer's alliance have provided us with the raw data to do it, because the taxpayer's alliance are far to busy being..well busy to actually break down the figures into anything that might be useful, nor do they provide any context to the useage of the sites.
while they concede that some might be using the web while they are not working (lunch or before or after shits) it is done grudingly and with the caveats such as: "It looks like many officials at the Department for Transport are spending a lot of time surfing websites that clearly have nothing to do with their jobs." no proof is given, no analysis made just a broad sweeping assumption based on anecdotal evidence.
or how about "but online activity shows there are some not fully dedicated while at work" except that the figures provided do not prove this - the data we are asked to scrutinise is just a ranked list of websites based on the hits of the sites - there is nothing on there to say what time the hits were made or even how long they were there for.

if this is the level of work that the tpa provide then i am at a loss to explain why anyone gives them the time of the day.

if anyone is time-wasting then it seems it is the highly motiviated thrusting thinking bods at the taxpayer's alliance - it is just a shame they are wasting everyone else's time while they do it.