A 520 per cent increase in violent incidents involving Falkirk Council staff was due to a better reporting system, councillors have been told.
Now, council chiefs promise the new system is being used to get more exact information about the type of incidents that are happening in Falkirk, particularly in schools which have seen by far the biggest increases.
Director of education, Jon Reid, said more accurate figures were needed to “get a true picture of what is happening”.
Read more: Consultation on plans to close Falkirk Council school with 16 pupils to go ahead
But he insisted that all the evidence points to many of the recorded assaults involving young, primary age children, particularly those with additional support needs “showing distressed or dysregulated behaviour”.
Mr Reid said: “All incidents are not the same and at the moment we are counting all incidents.
He told members that the tally of incidents in 2023/24 showed that 790 happened in primary classrooms, 369 in an ASN setting and 33 in mainstream secondary schools.
“I wouldn’t want any conflation with what’s been reported to a conclusion that there have been prevalent issues with violence right across our schools – that’s not the case,” he told the meeting.
“There will always be one or two incidents and what’s important is how they are dealt with and the robustness with which they are dealt with.
“You see things in the media – there’s pupils running amok and teachers are being attacked and they are unsafe to go to their work.
“I wouldn’t the increases to be associated with what’s in the general media because that is not the picture across Falkirk schools.
“When we break it down into the reporting categories, we’ll get the true picture of what is happening.”
Mr Reid said that a new monitoring group had been established to see if there are any patterns or areas where support is needed.
Members were told that in mid-2020, the council had introduced a new online health and safety system which was much quicker and easier to use than the paper form that staff formerly had to submit to their managers.
At the same time, the council and trade unions began encouraging staff to report incidents.
But the initial reporting used a very broad definition of violent incidents, with three categories: harassment, physical violence, verbal violence and/or threat.
New categories have now been introduced that include: bullying, discrimination, verbal threat of violence and dyresgulated or distressed behaviour.
The new categories were introduced in April but members heard it is currently “too early to say” what the patterns are.
The report was brought to Falkirk Council’s executive in February after the Conservative group won support for a motion highlighting “deep concern about news reports that 51 public-sector workers are verbally and physically assaulted every day in Scotland”.
The figures also showed that Falkirk Council saw the largest increase in the past five years, rising from 298 in 2018-19 to 826 in 2022-23.
It was agreed that officers would “urgently produce a plan to reduce the verbal and physical assault Falkirk Council staff are facing”.
The Labour group leader Cllr Anne Hannah said she was less interested in the numbers but wanted to know what support was being given to staff and also what training was in place to prevent such incidents happening in the first place.
She was told that training is a key issue and “skilling up employees” is a commitment in the action plan for all frontline workers.
Mr Reid said that all schools already have very clear processes, with investigations happening rapidly to take appropriate action.
He added that training is ongoing to help staff deal with behaviour that is caused by trauma affecting children and also to de-escalate situations.
Cllr Hannah said she was also concerned that staff in areas such as Health & Social Care and housing should be made aware of the need to report any incidents.
The SNP leader of the council, Cecil Meiklejohn, welcomed the report and the action plan, particularly its commitment to training needs for de-escalation.
However, Conservative councillor James Bundy said his group was concerned that the report did not go far enough to address the “change of culture” that has been seen since the pandemic.
He said he had been speaking to workers including parking attendents, bin collectors and teachers who had all said they fear verbal and even physical attacks while doing their jobs.
“It’s good to have all this training but if we don’t get to the root cause of the problem, I fear these numbers won’t start going down,” he said.
A report will return to Falkirk Council’s Scrutiny committee in a year’s time to look at the outcome of the action plan.
For more Falkirk stories, sign up to our newsletter here.