Freedom of information figures reveal 1,196 attacks on council staff over three years
Attacks on housing workers go unreported
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The number of attacks on housing workers is likely to be greater than the one a day that is recorded.
Experts warned that assaults may go unreported, after figures obtained through a freedom of information request revealed 1,196 recorded attacks on housing staff in England and Wales between 2006 and 2008.
The figures, supplied to Conservative shadow housing minister Grant Shapps, reveal that some attacks involved staff being set upon by animals.
A total of 200 councils and arm’s-length management organisations responded to the survey that resulted from the FOI request. They reported 796 physical attacks and 400 verbal attacks over the three years concerned.
Sarah Haddon, director of personal safety at charity the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, said there had probably been even more attacks that staff had not reported.
She said: ‘We’re not surprised [by the number] we work with housing organisation that employ the kinds of staff that are lone workers, going into people’s homes and we’re often told this is the case. People are assaulted and that’s why they seek our help.’
Heavy workloads may put staff under pressure to carry on with the job rather than remove themselves from potential danger, she added.
In 2005 Inside Housing exclusively revealed that one in five housing workers had reported being taken hostage at some stage in their career, based on work undertaken by the trust.
Ms Haddon suggested that social landlords could improve staff safety by giving them more training and making sure employees’ movements were traced at all times.
Mr Shapps said: ‘I’m concerned because these results reveal a very worrying level of violence towards housing staff who find themselves on the frontline of Labour’s deepening housing crisis.’
Peter Jackson, managing director of the Social Landlords’ Crime and Nuisance Group, said: ‘Housing officers have a hard job to do in often tense circumstances, and need to be trained sufficiently or prepared. I would agree there’s a lot of under-reporting, especially of verbal abuse.’
He added it was a concern if housing staff thought that part of their job was to take abuse and did not report this, as it could be putting other staff at risk of anti-social behaviour if perpetrators were not identified.
John Hocking, director of housing at Kingston-upon-Hull Council, which recorded 45 incidences of abuse between 2006 and 2008 (see table), said that its housing staff dealt with ‘some very difficult clients’.
‘We encourage staff to report incidents and take these seriously,’ he said. ‘We make sure staff are doing basic things like keeping diaries, signing in and out and that they are given mobile phones.
‘We have a flagging-up system which identifies tenants who require special treatment or have a history of abuse and we keep a record of that so staff are aware of different clients and we refresh staff of this at meetings.’
But he said given that the council had 27,900 staff and that it had retained its housing stock, the figures were not unexpected.
A spokesperson for Stockport Homes said it had a robust system of procedures in place to minimise the risk assault, including an awareness training programme. It also had ‘employee support services including an external counselling service for those employees affected by verbal and physical abuse,’ she added.
Cambridge Council reported 69 assaults on its staff between 2006 and 2008 but told Inside Housing it had supplied figures for all the council’s staff.
| COUNCIL | PHYSICAL ATTACKS 2006 / 08 | VERBAL ATTACKS 2006 / 08 | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stockport | 2 | 63 | 65 |
| Kingston upon Thames | 2 | 57 | 59 |
| Dudley | 4 | 44 | 48 |
| Sutton | 2 | 44 | 46 |
| Gwynedd | 44 | 0 | 44 |
| Leicester | 32 | 0 | 32 |
| Southend-on-Sea | 2 | 30 | 32 |
| Westminster | 31 | 0 | 31 |
| Wandsworth | 8 | 23 | 31 |
| Bristol | 29 | 0 | 29 |
| Greenwich | 27 | 0 | 27 |
| Broxtowe | 25 | 0 | 25 |
| Medway | 25 | 0 | 25 |
| Enfield | 21 | 0 | 21 |
View results 10 per page | 20 per page
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Readers' comments (17)
not given | 27/03/2009 10:18 am
I have been an housing officer for 13 years and can confidently inform you that your figures are very very conservative, senior management wont do anything untill someone is either killed or seriously injured.
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Sandra Martin | 27/03/2009 11:57 am
in defense of the tenants. I have often seen red flags, these warn of agressive behaviour and indicate that staff should not attend premises alone, on many tenant records only to find the tenant is harmless and has become frustrated by the lack of response to their very valid complaints. This is a misuse of power I am sure you will agree but it goes on. When you talk about verbal attacks,and before we villify tenants yet again, how are these defined? Do they, for example, involve a tenant screaming at a staff member or disagreeing with a staff member?
As far as dogs go. I have worked in many housing associations across London and there has alaways been an option to give or take away a tenants right to keep animals- the housing organisations fall down because they do not monitor the situation and do not take action when staff are threatened by the dogs.
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kass | 27/03/2009 2:52 pm
By not giving good services Housing Associagtions executives are the ones putting their own staff at risk... Give good services if you want to insure staff safety in the first place... Out of ten very frustrated/angry tenants one will snap and what he or she will do to whoever housing staff is there is totally unpredictable. It's not much good to anyone punishing a tenant driven mad through disrespect and bad services after a staff gets injured or even worse.
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Junior | 27/03/2009 5:32 pm
I remember a case in Southend on Sea Essex I was watching via my spyhole and then my neighbour several day's later came with a Court Hearing date guess what I was at the hearing and guess what I heard Officer's of the Local Authority lie though they back teeth and my neighbour couldn't of done what they said she done because she didn't I saw and again she had a letter from the doctor and be honest could be in two places at once well and I have had expierence of Officer's telling untruth and who payes they wages the Local Authority pay the court and payes the police - come on some of us are not stupid and see Officers put hand on bible's again God help us all
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Sandra Martin | 28/03/2009 11:59 am
There are many remedies available to staff including ASB contracts and orders, the use of offices to interview, the use of veto for dogs, officers going in two's to interviews etc, all of these strategies have and are used to counteract the problems experienced by Housing Officers during the course of their work. H&S legislation can be used and your union consulted if all else fails. It is not as though this is news to anyone.
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Two cats | 30/03/2009 0:48 am
With the implementation of computer based systems that de-humanise the allocation process,attacks shall increase on housing staff. Simplistically,NO consoderation is taken of the types of people who may share a housing scheme and the skills required to ascertain this are lacking in Housing Officers who have NO idea of dysfunctional mixes of people (tenants).
It is wholly unworkable and inappropriate to continue with numerical based systems of allocation, it is infantile at the least.
Attacks shall increase as more and mor misplaced people are allocated tenencies on targets set by auditors and government.
HELLO! Is anyone listening, I think not. Shame the folly of such primitive systems is only now,sympotomatically, emerging.
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horrified | 01/04/2009 10:44 am
I am horrified to read people justifying violence because a person has received a bad service. If you received a bad service in ASDA would it be acceptable to punch the person on the till. THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR ASSAULTING OR ABUSING SOMEONE NO MATTER HOW AGGRIEVED A PERSON FEELS, can I also pouint out that a number of housing officers were killed in the 1990's one man was burnt to death just because someone's housing benefit cheque was late, was that justified because he had received a poor service. I THINK NOT
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kass | 01/04/2009 5:14 pm
horrified | Wed, 1 Apr 2009 10:44 GMT
You would find very very few people would punch anyone on a ASDA till for bad service, unless it iis complemented by some provocation... They would simply go to Tesco.... Unfortunately a tenant cannot switch landlord even if harassed.... So what would you do if your whole life has been ruined by and you have been driven mad and been living on medication for DECADES because of decades of bad services?...
The root of the problem is persistent bad services.... Have you yourself ever made it clear to any housing chief executive that bad services would put his/her own staff at risk? And would they care to avoid that?...
I would be very interested to read more about the cases of killed housing officers you talk about, is there a link or newspapers articles somewhere?
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horrified | 02/04/2009 2:02 pm
I am sure that there are newspaper articles but I can vouch for one of the instances as I was in the same office as the person as he got petrol poured over him and set fire to. Blackburn Council September 1989. also quite soon after that a rent collector was stabbed to death to steal his collected money.
Not only have I worked in housing for over 20 years and I am also a tenant of a social landlord. If a person isn't happy with a service they are receiving there are various methods of complaining about that service, not resorting to violence there are also other choices and landlords i.e the private sector as your comment about using TESCO instead of ASDA suggests about supermarkets however having just moved out of the private sector I can assure you that the service offered in that sector is far inferior to even the worst failing Social Housing Organisation. I still refer back to my earlier point that no matter how aggrieved a person feels they have NO RIGHT TO PHYSICALLY OR VERBALLY ASSAULT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.
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kass | 03/04/2009 0:11 am
horrified | Thu, 2 Apr 2009 14:02 GMT,
"...no matter how aggrieved a person feels they have NO RIGHT TO PHYSICALLY OR VERBALLY ASSAULT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING... " Okay. I'll give you another, WE ARE ALL BROTHER AND SISTERS... You are not talking about real life. In real life, whether right or wrong attacks from a human being to another, take place as a matter of everyday life... As far as housing staff and their tenant customers go, are you the saying that all attacks on staff are carried out by mindless hooligans who happen to be tenants?... Allow me to repeat to you that if you abuse people, let's say 10 people, you got to expect some reaction. And while 9 (and consider yourself lucky if it's that many) can be forced to go through useless hostile complaints procedures the 10th one might just snap... Just go and do an experiment yourself, and start aggrieving 10 people to the extreme and see how many of them call the police or, forgetting all the civility of complaint procedures, just bash you in the herad... My bet is that out of 10, 2 will call the police and 8 will bash you on the head. Then you can sort out what was right or wrong with each one of them... Pushing people to feel so aggrieved that they have to respond with an attack, is also violence... You'll find in this website news about a tenant, Mr Mitchell killed by another tenant because neither the police nor his social landlord gave him the safety every tenant should have. He did complain and report for years on end. Now is not that violence done to his family and friends? How many other such killings of tenants there have been? How many tenants commit suicides because of their bad housing situation? These are all acts of violence on a huge scale tenants keep suffering everyday year after year... We are not talking just about the broken tap here and the light switch not working.
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