HUNDREDS of council officials have taken part in a nationwide health and safety survey on accidents in the workplace caused by biscuits – not realising it was a spoof.

The fictitious British Biscuit Advisory Board was created by Batley-based Fox’s Biscuits as part of a £3m marketing campaign for the firm’s Rocky bar.

A spoof “workplace biscuit risk assessment test” – written in bureaucratic health and safety language – was created and issued to 5,849 council workers across the UK.

Some 813 council workers clicked through to the online survey and 437 completed it.

And according to the answers, four councils have policy rules on safe biscuit consumption – with one council reporting that it has supervised tea breaks.

The survey covered breaking, dunking and chewing biscuits.

The company did not disclose which councils took part in the survey.

Mike Driver, Fox’s marketing director, said: “We developed the idea of the British Biscuit Advisory Board as a parody of the nation’s obsession with health and safety – but we never thought it would taken quite so seriously.

“The idea was to reposition Rocky as the chocolate biscuit bar with attitude – so we developed a campaign that satirises bureaucracy and defends our right to enjoy chocolate biscuits.”