The View from the UK: Facebook, the BBC homepage and cricket  are among the most accessed websites by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs staff in a six-month period, new figures reveal.

Google.co.uk is the most visited website by the department’s staff between January 1-June 30 2013 iwth 5.2 million pages, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request published by the Government today shows.The FOI was published here.

Next on a big hit list was Facebook.com, which attracted 4.1 million page views and then bbc.co.uk with 2.8 million.

The top 20 for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs also included shopping website Amazon.co.uk with 1.06 million page views, cricket site espncricinfo.com with 829,220 and video-sharing site youtube.com with 808,131.

Defra Top 20 accessed sites – January 1 2013 to June 30 2013:

www.google.co.uk 5,254,184 page views, 856.64 man days www.facebook.com 4,180,098 page views, 377.99 man days googleleads.g.doubleclick.net 3,380,396 page views, 158.08 man days www.bbc.co.uk 2,882,709 page views, 694.16 man days b3-uk.mookie1.com 2,213,050 page views, 92.66 man days ad-emea.doubleclick.net 1,809,332 page views, 97.39 man days static.ak.facebook.com 1,792,768 page views, 152.15 man days platform.twitter.com 1,261,629 page views, 88.92 man days bbcfmhds.vo.llnwd.net 1,212,628 page views, 5.81 man days zaphod-live.bbc.co.uk.edgesuite.net 1,150,927 page views, 4.62 man days bs.serving-sys.com 1,110,020 page views, 114.32 man days ams1.ib.adnxs.com 1,100,094 page views, 37.52 man days www.amazon.co.uk 1,065,708 page views, 67.93 man days ad.doubleclick.net 1,013,318 page views, 55.74 man days www.espncricinfo.com 829,220 page views, 187.9 man days www.youtube.com 808,131 page views, 56.74 man days aax-eu.amazon-adsystem.com 720,719 page views, 54.26 man days delivery.adstheaa.com 711,060 page views, 49.63 man days bcp.crwdcntrl.net 603,766 page views, 54.82 man days

The FOI says the information is based on approximately 10,000 staff in “core Defra and a number of agencies and non-departmental public bodies”.