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Decrease in reported assaults on housing staff
Assaults on housing professionals decreased by almost 3% last year, an Inside Housing investigation has discovered.
Freedom of Information disclosures by councils and a survey of the biggest housing associations revealed 204 landlords received reports of 3,305 physical and verbal assaults on staff in 2014. A further 891 incidents were recorded by the landlords in the first three months of 2015.
The figures of the 149 social landlords for which Inside Housing has two years of comparable data, revealed nearly a 3% drop in the number of incidents, from 2,633 assaults in 2013 to 2,557 assaults in 2014.
The vast majority – 88% - of the reported assaults were verbal, which includes incidents ranging in seriousness from threats of physical violence to swearing.
However, under-reporting of incidents means the drop in assaults threw doubt on whether the sector could celebrate a safer working environment for housing professionals.
A separate anonymous survey of housing professionals by Inside Housing revealed that one in three have not reported all the times they were assaulted last year.
nly 3% of the 64 respondents to the survey said they felt more safe than they did 12 months ago. John Gray, who represents housing staff on the Unison national executive committee, said: ‘Underreporting is a massive problem.’
Individual organisations told Inside Housing they view an increase in reported incidents as a reflection of greater reporting and not as evidence of more violence.
John Lawrence, head of housing at North Lincolnshire Homes, said: ‘My gut feeling is that there are probably more incidences of verbal assaults but staff are not reporting them.’
Housing associations have also launched numerous programmes in the last year to improve staff safety. For example, L&Q now offers free counselling for staff who have been assaulted.
