Today's report from Unison paints a picture of housing officers at risk of attack from violent clients, classroom assistants dealing with pupils who lash out, and care workers fielding violence from patients who may have dementia or mental health problems.
Unison's latest violence at work survey has recorded more than 37,000 incidents, up 3,400 since last year and almost double the 20,000 reported incidents when the survey was first done in 2006. Education, nursing and social care are all areas which experience comparatively high levels of violence.
On first reading, the upsurge in violence appears very dramatic but, as Unison makes clear, some of the increase is accounted for by better reporting of violent incidents over the years. There are also differences between how public sector employers record violent incidents - Scottish Borders Council, for instance, has recorded by far the highest incidence of assaults of any health board, at 4,370, but that is due to its having a system of "frequency reporting" in which multiple incidents of assault on the same member of staff are recorded in the same period; other health boards do not have the same recording arrangements.
Even so, an increase in incidents is evident, for instance among council workers. Unison suggests that one of the underlying causes could be that both staff and clients are under pressure as a result of staffing cuts in key public services. There is no doubt at all that council services have been at the sharp end of austerity policies, not helped by the council tax freeze that is now in its seventh year. Stressed clients are surely more likely to lash out.
No violent behaviour towards workers doing their jobs is ever acceptable; no workers should have to live with the threat of violence. Unison has noted its concern that some employers and even staff may take the view that assaults by certain groups have to be tolerated, for instance those by "looked after people" such as those with dementia or learning difficulties. While there are obviously extenuating circumstances when it comes to the culpability of these individuals for their actions, their attacks can still have a serious impact. Employers must ensure that they are doing the utmost possible to prevent these incidents occurring.
Further improvements are required to the way violence is recorded since, without clear information, there will be limits to what employers can do to combat the problem. Unison fears that many incidents still go unreported. Greater standardisation of reporting techniques between public sector organisations is also necessary if meaningful comparisons are to be made between different organisations and from one year to the next.
Violence against public sector workers has been going up during a period when violent crime in Scotland has been going down. Even if this is partly due to better reporting, there is clearly a stubborn problem that is not diminishing as it should. This report should make employers look again at their policies for dealing with assault and do more to tackle the problem.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article