Agenda item

To consider the draft policy.

The committee considered the draft policy aimed at addressing violence and aggression in the workplace, as part of the Council’s broader commitment to health, safety, and wellbeing. The policy set out clear expectations for staff conduct, outlined procedures for reporting and responding to incidents, and reinforced the Council’s zero-tolerance stance on abusive behaviour towards its employees.

Officers highlighted a revised recommendation as set out below, following comments made during the informal Committee Briefing. The revised recommendation was supported by the Committee.

1. To note the draft Violence and Aggression Health and Safety Policy and delegate final approval of the Policy to the Chair and Vice Chair of the Corporate Policy Committee in conjunction with the Director of Law and Governance (Monitoring Officer).

The committee raised a number of points in relation to the draft policy, as set out below, which officers committed to reviewing and amending the policy as necessary.

Section 4: Council staff would use car parks whilst carrying out their duties. Some of these car parks were not well lit and this should be incorporated into the policy.

Section 5: It was noted that an EU definition had been used. It was suggested that a UK definition also be included.

Section 7: It was suggested that this be expanded to reference visits that staff undertook offsite (such as visiting resident homes) and understanding exit points in the case of an emergency.

Section 8: The committee received assurance that staff were provided with the necessary first aid training to undertake their roles.

Section 11: The committee queried investigations post incident to ensure lessons learnt were considered to improve the way in which the Council operated.  The committee requested that this section be expanded further to ensure robustness.

Section 13 – The committee agreed that this section should also be expanded and more robust to ensure the Council was protecting staff and enabling them to carry out duties in an effective manner – such as staff removing children from homes.

It was noted by the committee that further small tweaks would be requested to the reporting software to make clearer incidents of a racial and homophobia nature.

It was queried how many incidents had been reported to the Police and what training was given to staff to understand when they should / shouldn’t report incidents. Officers committed to providing a written response.

The committee referred to the modelling arrangements of the Committee Suites at Delamere house and sought assurance that emergency exits had been considered and requested that this issue be incorporated into the remodelling of any Council buildings going forward. Officers committed to providing a written response.

The committee thanked officers for bringing forward this important policy and agreed that the Council’s staff were its greatest resource. It was agreed that the revised policy would be circulated to the committee once the above amendments had been made.

RESOLVED (unanimously):

That the Corporate Policy Committee

1. Note the draft Violence and Aggression Health and Safety Policy and delegate final approval of the Policy to the Chair and Vice Chair of the Corporate Policy Committee in conjunction with the Director of Law and Governance (Monitoring Officer).