PEOPLE who act violently or aggressively towards council staff in Ross-shire are to have their records black "marked" for six months in a bid to protect workers.
Social workers, refuse collectors and planning officials are among the employees in Highland Council’s large workforce who also have a dedicated phone line to report any alarming incidents should they come into contact with threatening members of the public.
It is part of a new scheme to be introduced in April which will see all the local authority’s departments warned about aggressive behaviour, both physical and verbal, from the public in weekly updates.
Violent "markers" will be placed on offenders’ records if management investigate the incident and find it was unacceptable.
The culprit will be warned about the council’s concerns in a letter.
When customers’ records are accessed by customer service staff the marker will flash up in a small icon on the computer screen. Employees will be particularly encouraged to check the list of names and addresses which are marked before making any home visit and discuss the risk with their line manager if they discover one is in place.
The council has introduced the new system partly to ward off the threat of legal action should a member of staff be injured.
Gena Falconer, the council’s health, safety and wellbeing manager, said some departments already kept and updated their own records on threatening individuals but they were not shared with the whole council.
She said it was a concern because an employee could be hurt by a violent individual, despite information about his or her conduct being held by another department.
"The problem we had was that we didn’t have a system of shared information across the services," said Ms Falconer.
"The council does have a duty of care to protect the staff in its employment. Once a week each department will get a report on the incidents, they will take a decision which is not based on rumour or speculation but based on facts to place a violent marker against any member of the public."
A marker will be in place for six months before it is reviewed.
Each department will have a violent incident co-ordinator who will help investigate incidents.
Ms Falconer told the council’s resources committee, which approved the marker system at a meeting in Inverness today (15.2), that it taken almost two years for it to be drawn up with input from trade unions and staff.
It was last revised in 1998.
Committee member Councillor Graham Marsden (Nairn) asked how the marker method would work when integrated health services with NHS Highland are launched in April.
Ms Falconer said the health board did not have a similar system but was keen to work with the council while talks were also planned with the police and fire services about its operation.
Committee chairwoman Councillor Carolyn Wilson (Cromarty Firth) welcomed the new system and asked for a review to be carried out next year.
