BOURNEMOUTH council spent more than £14,000 paying staff to stay at home in a row over allegedly offensive emails.

The £14,100.17 cost to taxpayers of the Viagra email row earlier this year has been revealed following a Freedom of Information request made by the Daily Echo.

Bournemouth council has also confirmed for the first time the number of staff affected. A total of 15 employees were paid to stay at home, two of whom had two separate periods of management leave.

Most staff were kept off for between a week or two weeks at the end of February and beginning of March. The longest individual spell spanned 16 days from February 23 to March 10. The employees at the centre of the action included social workers, occupational therapists and secretarial staff.

It is understood the council probe started after some staff received a joke email about Viagra with an explicit picture attached.

A number of staff subsequently had their email accounts checked by managers who found other messages deemed pornographic or racist.

When they returned to work, they faced disciplinary hearings, management advice and guidance.

Dave Higgins, of the Bournemouth branch of Unison, said: “We feel the approach the council took was a bit heavy-handed.

“Given the number of people involved, we feel a better course of action would have been for them to have been taken to one side and had the council’s email policy explained to them. Then, if there were any incidents afterwards, disciplinary action would have been appropriate.

“The whole incident heightened the anxiety of those concerned. It was a real shame.”

Vicky Hughes, the council’s employee relations manager, said: “A number of staff were initially placed on management leave while an investigation was undertaken into alleged improper use of email at work featuring material in breach of equality and diversity policies.

“Some emails contained material that could be considered as discriminatory and given the potentially serious consequences for both the council and staff, the matter warranted a number of employees to be placed on management leave until an investigation had been carried out. This was dealt with as a matter of urgency in order for appropriate action to be taken.

“Bournemouth Council takes |equality and diversity issues very seriously and has a robust email |policy that states sending offensive, bullying, insulting or threatening emails will not be tolerated and may result in disciplinary proceedings up to and including dismissal.”