Harrow Council is set to implement a new health and safety strategy for 2025-2028, prioritising the reduction of assaults on staff, particularly in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provisions. The council aims to achieve this through improved training and better data analysis, moving beyond the backward-facing reporting of previous strategies.
The decision follows concerns raised by Councillor Graham Henson, who highlighted a significant increase in reported assaults.
The annual health and safety report for 2024-2025 showed that violence and aggression incidents were among the most frequently reported. A total of 163 Violence & Aggression (V&A) incidents were recorded during this period, primarily in SEND services (62), Special Needs Transport (45), and Schools (36). Three of these incidents required police intervention, according to the ECF HS Year End Report 2024-25.
An officer explained that the new strategy will include resilience and de-escalation training for staff. The council is assessing whether the current de-escalation training is adequate to upskill and protect the workforce. The strategy also includes the careful sharing of risk-intelligent information, compliant with GDPR, about individuals with a history of violence. The sharing of sensitive information about individuals who have demonstrated a tendency for violence will be done in a GDPR-compliant manner, even when individuals are visiting different locations where previous incidents have occurred.
The majority of the reported incidents (157) had preventative measures and recommendations logged on the Evotix Assure system. Actions have now been raised for the six incidents without preventative action, which included a transport safety risk involving a volatile service user, a physical assault in the workplace, aggression toward frontline staff, and challenging behaviour such as spitting and verbal abuse.
The new health and safety strategy aims to address these concerns through a multi-faceted approach, prioritising staff safety and well-being. The new strategy has a completely different set of KPIs which are a little bit more probing, so next year's report will have more meaningful data to report on against that strategy.
