4.1 The council maintains a schedule of those individuals that have been identified as displaying unreasonable behaviour, which sets out how employees and other workers should respond in the event that they come into contact with an identified individual. It will also identify if the individual is subject to any service restrictions, permitted means of contact and any “single point of contact” that may have been allocated.
4.2 The schedule is maintained by the Unreasonable Behaviours Panel, who will determine whether individuals meet the criteria for inclusion, keep the database up to date, and consider renewals on a twelve-monthly basis.
4.3 The Panel consists of the following members and will meet monthly (physically or virtually), or more regularly if business dictates:
- Service Manager for Assurance (the Panel chair)
- Senior Assurance Officer – Complaints
- Customer Services Manager
- Health and Safety Manager
- Head of Service for Mental Health
- representative from Ethnic Diversity Network (or their nominated representatives)
4.4 Where available, the appropriate Operations Management (or equivalent) will be invited to the Panel to present their case for an individual to be added to the schedule. For High risk incidents, a Legal Services representative will also be invited.
4.5 The panel will decide if the behaviours meet the criteria for Unreasonable Behaviour. Inclusion on the schedule should be on exceptional circumstances, in many instances the issues can be controlled by the service issuing a letter to the individual setting out expected behaviours, and the panel may suggest this course of action in the first instance.
4.6 In determining inclusion on the schedule, the Panel will consider the following risk assessment criteria (Appendix A provides HSE guidance on threatening behaviour). Inclusion on the schedule is based on a majority vote (four panel members):
Risk assessment criteria
Low risk
Vexatious is defined as:
- causing or tending to cause annoyance, frustration, or worry. Person who uses abusive language and are generally rude
Medium risk
Threatening behaviour can be defined as:
- a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or other hostile action on someone in retribution for something done or not done
High risk
Violence is defined as:
- any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work’
4.7 The panel will in the first instance consider whether the individual has any underlying health issues, conditions or disabilities, and in such cases consideration will be given to any changes to the approach set out below, in conjunction with specialist colleagues from appropriate services.
Where an underlying health issue has been identified for the individual, the appropriate social care Operations Manager should be invited to the panel.
4.8 Consideration should be given as to whether a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) is required at this stage.
A SPOC will generally be an appropriate Service Manager, but at their discretion this may be delegated to another appropriate officer.
The SPOC will generally be based in the impacted service area, but if cross-service impacts have been identified, it may be appropriate for the SPOC to be within Assurance Service. If it is identified that there are underlying health issues, it may be appropriate for the SPOC to be an operations manager in the relevant locality.
The individual subject to the SPOC should be provided with the contact details of the SPOC.
4.9 Where the panel’s risk assessment determines that the individual should be logged on the unreasonable behaviour database the following actions should be taken.
4.9.1 Low / Medium Risk
A letter or email should be sent from the relevant Operations Manager (or equivalent).
This correspondence should:
- describe the incident, location, date and time and why the behaviour has been identified as unreasonable
- include a SPOC (if relevant) and any future contact restrictions
- any restrictions to service provision
- identify the consequences of a breach
- note that they have been logged on the council’s unreasonable behaviour and that the record will be removed after 12 months as long as there is no repeat behaviour
- outline the process for appeal
The correspondence will be accompanied by an Equalities and Diversity questionnaire. Where the returned questionnaire identifies underlying issues that have not previously been identified, the panel will refer to appropriate specialist colleagues (as per 4.6 above).
The incident and follow up actions should be recorded on the unreasonable behaviours database. If an email divert or block has been instigated, a discussion will be held with the relevant ward councillor(s) to determine whether this should also apply to contact with their elected representative.
4.9.2 High Risk
Where the individual is deemed to pose a High risk to safety, the panel will arrange for correspondence to be drafted and sent by a Legal Services representative.
This letter will:
- describe the incident, location, date and time and why the behaviour has been identified as unreasonable
- include a cease and desist requirement
- include a SPOC (if relevant) and any future contact restrictions
- any restrictions to service provision
- identify the consequences of a breach
- note that they have been logged on the council’s unreasonable behaviour schedule and that the record will be removed after 12 months as long as there is no repeat behaviour
- process for appeal
In the event that court action is taken, it is possible that staff may be summoned to give evidence.
In such cases, support should be sought from the line manager in the first instance. As per 4.9.1 above, the ward councillor(s) will also be contacted.
