British benefits offices plagued by violence - survey

A large number of staff in Jobcentres, Benefit Offices and the combined Jobcentre Plus offices in Britain have all had to deal with violence at work, according to new research out today.

The survey of 5,000 Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) staff, commissioned by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and Safetell Ltd revealed that 49% of the respondents had personally experienced violence at work in the last year.

This rose to three-quarters (76%) for staff working in constant contact with the public and 84% of these workers had witnessed violence in their workplace.

Over a quarter of these people (28%) thought they were likely to be assaulted in the next 12 months.

Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary said: “No worker should be in fear of threats, abuse and violence while doing their job. It is unacceptable that staff delivering the government’s jobs and benefits service feel unsafe in benefits offices and the open-plan Jobcentres and Jobcentre Plus offices.

“It is damaging to these public servants as individuals and the quality of the service itself.”

The survey was designed to compare staff’s worry about threats and violence at work with the British Crime Survey 2000 which looked at workers in contact with the public. It comes a year after the government’s welfare scheme which has seen Benefit Agencies and the Employment service being replaced by the one stop shop, Jobcentre Plus centres.

As part of the radical reorganisation, security screens that separated staff from customers were removed to create a friendlier atmosphere.

The independent staff survey was commissioned by PCS after 65,000 of its members in Jobcentres and benefits offices across Great Britain took strike action between September 2001 and April this year after the removal of the screens, in the largest civil service dispute in 20 years.

Earlier this month, the government reached an agreement with the protesters offering them a number of safeguards including a guarantee that high risk transactions will continue to take place in a screened environment and a commitment to undertake a “without prejudice” review of safety before new offices are built.