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Written by rosalind renshaw

EAT was intrigued to learn that a civil servant at CLG faces the sack after using Twitter to voice his thoughts on housing policy, Grant Shapps and Eric Pickles.

The twitterer, @nakedCservant, called Pickles a “disgrace” who was only interested “in petty point scoring”. In one tweet, he mentioned “kicking Pickles & Shapps out”.

Throwing civil service neutrality to the wind, he also used Twitter to attack Tory MPs – which went down well with Labour members.  

He described himself as “a lazy, good-for-nothing civil servant”. This description meant he was very difficult to pick out in the corridors of power. The mystery civil servant also escaped detection by only ever tweeting from his iPhone.

But he was finally unmasked last month after a seven-month mole-hunt.

He was suspended, pending a disciplinary hearing in the near future, CLG has confirmed.

Still, the case – unproven of course – does appear to demonstrate two things.

First, that not all civil servants are subservient (or even civil).

And secondly, that not all of Twitter is dull (although frankly, the jury is still out on that point).

But EAT, which is rapidly developing a great interest in all matters Twitter, asks readers: Would you sack a member of staff who wastes their time tweeting in office hours?

Comments

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    Charlie- cheat- pay for an advert- thats so low.

    • 07 June 2011 12:56 PM
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    An employee who is hell bent on wasting their employers time by tweeting and facebooking in office time will do it anyway. On the other hand, a motivated employee with loyalty to their employers would do neither of these things. It comes down to nature and nuture - employers should take steps to appreciate their employees and reward them accordingly.

    • 06 June 2011 12:35 PM
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    It is, Charlie, but use of Twitter as a corporate tool needs to come with strict guidelines. Use it, by all means, but if you're going to say something controversial about your employers or their policies, or even use the twitter account to say "I'm in the pub and I'm pissed", then it should be clear that you will be disciplined.

    The right to use Twitter should also come with responsibilities.

    • 06 June 2011 10:49 AM
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    We strongly encourage the use of Twitter among our staff (most of whom wer employed after reading their Twitter timelines anyway - a far more revealing source of information than any cv where you see someone's true colours). To us, it is the online equivalent of chatting with a bunch of people you've just met in a pub, only its a truly international bunch of very diverse characters. The one thing they all have in common though, is that they have something to say. Some are more interesting than others, of course, but thats the same in real life, isn't it?

    • 06 June 2011 09:30 AM
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