Dundee has one of the highest proportions of smokers in Britain

Dundee City Council will ban its employees from smoking or vaping anywhere during working hours in the first move of its kind.

The Scottish city has one of the highest proportions of smokers in Britain and male life expectancy rates are among the lowest.

Now the council wants to crack down on the number of 'adult role models' seen lighting up in public.

Workers will face disciplinary action if they do not comply with the tough new policy, which includes smoking anywhere away from the office between 8.30am and 5pm.

Dundee will be the first UK council to introduce such a ban, which aims to 'promote positive health messages' and 'protect the health of employees'.

But the move has been slammed as 'bullying' by campaign group Forest, which describes itself as the 'voice and friend of the smoker'.

Director Simon Clark said: 'Threatening employees with disciplinary action if they smoke during work breaks or while they're working out of doors, out of uniform and between locations is tantamount to bullying.

'Smoking is not illegal. If it doesn't interfere with their work or inconvenience colleagues, employees who wish to smoke outside during work breaks should be allowed to do so.'

He said banning vaping made 'even less sense' because e-cigarettes have helped lots of smokers quit.

Dundee City Council (pictured) will be the first UK council to introduce such a ban

A spokesman for Dundee City Council said: 'The council has revised its smoking policy as we are working to protect the health of employees and also promote positive health messages across the wider community, in line with the agreed Our People Strategy and health and wellbeing framework.

'A key part of that approach involves discouraging children and young people from taking up smoking.

'One way to assist that is to reduce the number of adult "role models" who can be seen smoking in public.

'Across Dundee, there has been the introduction of voluntary no-smoking areas at children's play parks and we will be looking to extend this to more open spaces in the future.'