Top website hits 2016 to 2017

You asked

I am looking for information about internet web pages accessed by staff. Please could you provide me with the following:

1. A list of the 500 most accessed websites – in terms of page views (or however you record this) – on computers over the past 12 months (December 2016 to December 2017).

2. Please could you provide the URL of the website and number of times it has been accessed by computers on the network.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

Please find attached the requested information.

Some of the information has been withheld under s.31(1) - prejudice to the prevention or detection of crime. The exemption applies to ensure that we do not allow those with criminal intent to exploit knowledge of our internal work practices and allow attacks on our internal systems. Given the potential security risks, we believe the information requested should be withheld. To use this exemption we are required to consider a public interest test. Whilst we note there are public interest arguments in favour of transparency and disclosure we have decided that these are outweighed by other public interest factors that are in favour of non-disclosure. Principally we consider that release of the information requested would prejudice our ability to maintain and run a secure and safe IT network. This is an essential function for all government departments and is particularly important for ONS which processes personal and economic information on its systems.

All staff within ONS are subject to a social media policy and the Civil Service Code which covers them as an employee and as an individual. This code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of all civil servants to uphold the Civil Service's core values which are integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. ONS uses social media in both a proactive and reactive capacity. The use of social media provide the opportunity to promote outputs, forge new and strengthen existing relationships with stakeholders, build trust in the statistics brand and actively manage our reputation. It enables us to respond to content online, so that we may add value where pertinent, and respond to queries from individuals or large groups.