Agenda item

Report attached.

Members considered a report of Councillor Joyce Plummer, Portfolio Holder for Resources, seeking agreement to an Unacceptable Behaviour Policy.

Councillor Plummer indicated that the Council took the health and safety of its staff, elected members, volunteers and contractors seriously.  Accordingly, the processes around incidents had recently been reviewed.  Reminders had been sent about reporting incidents and about the procedures for sharing intelligence.  The information could be sensitive, but was properly managed in terms of human rights and data protection.

Councillor Britcliffe indicated that at the last Council meeting an assault was alleged to have occurred by a councillor on a member of the public.  He asked if the policy would cover this type of incident and where the allegation was up to within the Council’s procedures.  The Leader responded that he was aware of the allegation, which was being investigated by the Police.  A complaint had also been passed to the Chief Whip and Regional Office of the relevant political party.   The Chief Executive of the Council was aware of the matter and following outcome of the Police investigation, the issue was likely to be reported to the Council’s Standards Committee.  Mr David Welsby, Chief Executive indicated that the alleged incident would not fall within the remit of the Unacceptable Behaviour Policy (which dealt with customers’ behaviour), but was covered by the Members Code of Conduct, which provided the link into the Standards procedures.

Approval of the report was not deemed a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

The report indicated that in 2015, the Council had agreed a policy for the Management of Violence and Aggression.  This had brought in a register of incidents so that specific staff were able to check before undertaking visits or face to face meetings, in case that person or address had some history of aggression.  This would then inform further risk mitigation measures, e.g. going with a colleague, only holding meetings in a Council building etc.

Unacceptable behaviour was behaviour or language in whatever form whether in person, during a phone call, on social media, by text message or in writing that might cause employees or Elected Members to feel distressed, threatened, intimidated or abused and might include:

• Actual violence;
• Threats of violence;
• Harassment or inappropriate physical contact;
• Inappropriate cultural, gender identity, disabled, racial or religious references;
• Discriminatory language e.g. sexist, racist or homophobic comments;
• Inflammatory statements;
• Personal remarks or derogatory comments; and
• Offensive and intimidating behaviour

The system in place had operated well but it was important to review this regularly.

Responsibility for the Panel that considered inclusion on the Register lay with the Executive Director (Environment) as corporate Health and Safety lead, and currently included the Head of Policy and Organisational Development and a Solicitor (latterly the Legal Services Manager).  The Safety and Emergency Planning Officer received incident reports with recommendations from Service Managers for submission to the Panel.

The proposed Unacceptable Behaviour Policy, which had been drafted by the previous Legal Services Manager, would replace the policy for the Management of Violence and Aggression.

The Register was maintained by the Safety and Emergency Planning Officer and stored on the Health and Safety drive area of the Council’s network.  It was restricted to those staff whom the Council considered needed the information to do their job safely.

Alternative Options considered and Reasons for Rejection

The Council could retain its existing Policy but Panel members agreed with Management Team that a review was timely and useful.

Decision                                  (1)   That Cabinet approves the proposed Unacceptable Behaviour Policy.

(2)   That the Executive Director (Environment) ensures that any changes to processes are implemented and communicated.