Council's zero tolerance vow to tackle abuse of staff

The authority says abuse of its staff will not be tolerated under any circumstances and, wherever possible, it will take action against those responsible.

Reported incidents have increased by 400% over the last four years and include shouting, swearing, screaming, spitting, threats of violence, punching, pushing and intimidating behaviour.

Chief Executive Gill Alexander said: “The time has come to say enough is enough and that we are not prepared to tolerate such behaviour.

“As a Council, good customer service is at the heart of everything we do and in return all we ask is that our staff are treated with dignity and respect. Sadly, that is not always the case. We want people who abuse our staff to be in no doubt that we will take strong action against them, including prosecution.”

The “Respect: Everyone Deserves It” publicity campaign is one of a series of measures proposed by a Staff Safety Forum set up by the authority and led by employees themselves.

Other proposals include training staff in de-escalation techniques, providing them with physical devices such as body cams to improve their safety and improving security at buildings, including the installation of CCTV and the use of security guards.

The Council says that staff subjected to abuse can be left feeling traumatised and where incidents occur they will be supported to access counselling.

An updated policy is also being produced to provide staff and customers with clear guidance on what is deemed to be unacceptable behaviour and the sanctions that will be taken as a result.

Strong support for the clampdown has been voiced by councillors, with members of the Finance and Policy Committee – which recently considered a report on the issue - saying that it is totally unacceptable for staff to be abused whilst doing their jobs.